Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1037: How Ultra-Processed Foods Are Making You Fat, Sick, & Weak

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss a recent study on ultra-processed foods that have confirmed what they have long-suggested on the show, that calories are not just calories and that food quality matters. How the problem with most studies done on diet is they are done in an observational manner. (2:47) Ultra-processed foods make us eat more, and it’s not about their nutritional makeup: study. (4:50) What is the definition of ultra-processed food? (7:50) The benefits of processed foods. (9:50) Why the biggest single contributor to chronic health problems in modern societies is obesity. (23:07) Becoming aware of the hedonistic properties of these highly palatable foods. (29:23) The evolution of what we perceive as palatable. (37:23) How we are living in ‘if it fits your macro world’. (45:43) How do we manage around this in today’s world? Understanding your relationship with these foods. (49:22) Why you must create barriers between yourself and these ultra-processed foods and eliminate barriers between yourself and healthy foods. (55:10) The one thing to start TODAY to bring your body to its natural bodyweight. (1:02:21) People Mentioned Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned May Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off!! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake The Most Effective Single Step You Can Take to Lose Fat – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we'll talk about how ultra-process foods are making you fat, sick, and weak. We talk about what we think is the most important thing you need to do if you're trying to get your body in a healthy Body weight their studies coming out Supporting kind of what we've been talking about for the last four years about ultra-process foods And we know we've we've had a lot of people

Combat us this whole time telling us that it's about counting macros. It's about you know calories and yes Those are important factors, yes, those definitely count. But we've been saying this whole time, you gotta pay attention to what causes the behaviors. There's more to the story. That makes you overeat, and now we got studies backing it up. And so, in this episode, we talk all about ultra-process foods.

First of all, what they are, because I think a lot of us are confused in terms of, what does that mean when we say processed food? Why they exist, what the good things are about these types of foods. Believe it or not, there are a lot of good things from these foods, and there's a reason why we need them. And then of course, we're talking about the negatives, what's happening to you and your body

when you consume a lot of these types of foods. And then we talk about strategies, how you can work around modern life, where you're around these types of foods, to get your body to be lean and healthy, easier. You know what I'm saying? Like, where you don't want to overrate, where you're not constantly fighting with your appetite and your hunger. So this, we think this episode is going to be extremely, extremely valuable to a lot of you. Also, there's a blog that goes along with this article and it's got more detail and more information.

It's going to be in our show notes, which you can get at MindPumpMedia.com. The blog is titled, the most effective single step you can take to lose fat. Also, before we get into the episode, our Maps Hit program, hit stands for high intensity interval training, is 50% off. Now, these are barbell and dumbbell circuits. This program was designed to burn the most

amount of calories in the shortest period of time. It is a very effective fat loss program in the short term. Again, it's 50% off just to help everybody get ready for the summer. You just got to go to maps, hit, that's MAPSHIT.com, and use the code hit50HIT504TheDiscount. So there you go. All right, here we are talking about ultra-process foods and why they're probably making you fat. Did you guys see the the study making the rounds about processed foods? Another one or is this the one you brought up on the show? No, so this is

This one is making the rounds and I did bring it up on the show because I Did bring it up Quickly on the show, but this one's really finally making the point that we've been trying to make for so long in regards to process foods. Let me tell you what the study was. So the thing about studies in food and nutrition, the reason why a lot of them are difficult to,

or why it's not a good idea to take their, oftentimes take the results to heart, is because most studies on diet are done in an observational manner. They're all survey. So people go off, they eat the way they eat, they come back, and they fill out a survey. How often do you eat bacon?

How often do you eat cookies? How much sugar do you think you eat? And humans aren't always that honest. They're not that good. A terrible at reporting. Yeah, really bad. I mean, we know this as trainers. You know, when a client says, oh, I eat generally around 15

nerve calories, you can probably add four to 500 calories to that. People just don't, you know, oh, I don't eat that much bad stuff. And then when they start writing things down, you notice, like, I eat relatively healthy. Yeah, I hear that a lot. It's so it's just notoriously terrible. Nutrition studies are just hard to really read because of the way they're done. And the reason they're done that way is it's a very difficult thing to control all factors.

When you're doing a study, ideally, what you want to do is you want to control all other factors, you can test the one thing that you're trying to test. Well, with nutritional studies, that would mean that you would need to take X amount of people, have them live in a laboratory and control everything. Look at their sleep, look at how much water they're drinking, what they're eating, their interactions, like you have to control everything to be able to, you know, single out what the issue is or isn't, or isn't with particular, whatever you're studying, whatever food you're studying, whatever diet you're studying.

And so those studies are rarely ever done. Well, they just did one on ultra-process food, which I want to get into. Well, tell me how they, how did they control the study? The people lived in a lab. Oh, really? They took 20 people.

And there were other studies that were similar to this. So this is just echoing what the other studies have shown. But this one was like, this is the one that's making the rounds right now. They took 20 people, they lived in the laboratory for a month. So for 30 days, these people were totally under the supervision of the scientists. And they gave half of them ultra-processed food diet

and the other half of them a whole unprocessed food diet. Now, here's the kicker. The nutrient profiles, the proteins, fats, and carbohydrate profiles of the foods were nearly identical. In other words, it wasn't like they gave them all high sugar processed foods in one side and then the other side had a bunch of low sugar processed foods. They matched the protein fat.

They matched them. So they tried to again, this is why it's so great. They controlled those factors. Now were they were they limited to the amount of calories they were that consumed or was it like here's the foods? Yeah, then you can eat in addition to that. Yeah, here's your food, eat as much as you want and just try to, yeah, and just eat. And we're just going to observe you.

And what they did is they had them do this for two weeks and then for the second two weeks, they switched the groups. Another control, which is brilliant, right? Because you could have 10 people that are just just a plan. Yeah, so let's see what happens to both when they switch them around. Here's what they found. The ultra-process, when the groups would have access to the ultra-process foods regardless of the macronutrient profiles, regardless of the salt, fat, sugar, fiber, protein, all that stuff,

they ate on average 500 more calories a day. Wow. So on average, they were eating, now 500 calories a day is not a little bit, as you guys know. Yes, that can turn into... A pound of fat a week. Something like that, right? Like you're gonna get anywhere between probably three to five pounds or more of body fat gain a month.

If you eat an extra 500 calories, that's like two hours of cardio, right? Something like that, an hour and a half of hard cardio, something like that. They also found hormonal changes. This gets even crazier. So they found that the people who were eating the processed foods had decreases,

or excuse me, the unprocessed diet, so the people ate the whole natural foods, had a decrease in the hunger hormone, Grelan. Now, when Grelan goes up, we want to eat more food. It also led to a suppression of a hormone called PYY, which also stimulates appetite. So people who eat unprocessed food, their body essentially released hormones and chemicals that would tell them to eat less.

How crazy is that? So it blunts that signal. Yeah. So now, what I want to do, what I think we should do is kind of break this down. And I use the term ultra-process food. Yeah, I think you need to first address one, the positive side of, and also that most food is processed. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a real definition. Right, like processed food. Yeah, most food is processed. It's, it did serve a person a purpose for a very long time. Well, just taking, okay, look, when you go by a steak at the store and it's in the little

white tray with the plastic covering or whatever, that's, we would consider that as unprocessed. But reality in the food industry, it's a process. It's still processed in the sense that it was cut and, you know, the animals killed and cut and they gave you a piece of steak. So, I think what we need to start, and so when we say processed food, we should talk about what we're referring to

because all food you buy at the grocery store was processed, even the fruit, it was cleaned, it was picked, it was, you know, a sticker was put on it, it was processed in some way, right? Right. So that's why I'm using the term ultra-process and why the study, the people who put the study together refer to the pro to even like with the meat example and like putting, you know, the plastic over the top of it, we're trying to extend its life a little bit further and not have, you

know, bacteria and it be exposed and degrade fast. Exactly. So the more the food doesn't resemble its natural state, then that would make it more processed. So like a rice crispy treat is not like a steak. Yeah, right. Or, or, or beef jerky is far more processed than a steak. For example, potato is far more processed than a steak,

for example, potato chips far more processed than a potato because so much more effort and energy has gone into increasing the shelf life and increasing the, what's known as the palatability, which in layman's term is how good it feels to eat it, which includes the taste, right? It includes, yeah, it heightens all the senses. Right, right, so. When did we really start to ramp this up?

Like, when did it go from? Dude, humans have been processing food forever. So, the moment we started adding seasoning and salt, salt, that was huge. Right, that was like what were the people fought wars for? Salt. Yeah, so like sailors, you know, long time ago, they figured out that if they salted meat

that they could keep it on a ship and it would stay on the, it would stay okay for long periods of time. So if you're out to see for four months, if you're sailing the Mediterranean or, you know, you're sailing the Pacific and you need food, they would take lots and lots of meat, but they would salt the hell out of it

to prevent it from going back because it prevents the growth of bacteria and pathogens. So that was processed. That's a form of processing. We learned how to can in jar foods a long time ago. That's a form of processing. And I think people need to realize that that is a good thing. Like that really makes a big difference because

we don't, the food that we eat isn't typically where we grow it. Right? Like most places are not like California. We live in California where lucky, it's got great weather, we can grow a lot of food. But if you live in Minnesota, you're lucky. It's got great weather, we can grow a lot of food. But if you live in Minnesota, you're getting food from other places and the ability to keep it from going bad is the reason why you can eat this food

and the reason why you have variety in your grocery store. It also really helped mankind survive for long periods of time. And so we've been processing food for a long time. It also makes food convenient. I mean, modern life can be pretty damn busy. This is explained why the Midwest has got more obesity than... Who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, You actually, in fact, you actually find that to be that are the mountain dew.

I saw a lot of that going around, I was in shock. That's a really good point, Adam. I think they do, there is a bit of a correlation between those type of climates and obesity. And it might be the dependence on processed food. Here's some other benefits of processed food. They're nutrient fortified. And what I mean by nutrient fortified is like vitamins and minerals. People are like, oh, that's not that benefits of processed food. They're nutrient fortified, and what I mean by nutrient fortified

is like vitamins and minerals. People are like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. The nutrients aren't high quality. Listen, if wasn't that long ago, kids were getting, having issues because they were lacking nutrients. There's a reason why there's iodine and salt. It actually solved iodine deficiencies in children,

which were rampant, back in the day. Iarine fortification, B, which were rampant, you know, back in the day. You know, iron fortification, B-vitamin fortification, these types of things were important at one point that we now kind of take for granted, and that's just modern technology allowing us to prevent, you know, these deficiencies that we can get from not getting nutrients at where,

if you don't have these types of food, you have to understand how to eat lots of variety of different types of food. Well, there's also perks like, we now live in this world where there's, I mean, there's a diet for everybody, right? There's a different diet for just about any person, whether it's vegan or keto or carnivore

or you name it, right? And with processed foods, you can now create these foods that fit in the subcategories. Great, great, great point. Which, you know, for somebody that may have, you know, gluten intolerance. Yeah, exactly. They can now, they can now eat foods that are similar

to the ideal whole food that they want, but it's eliminating some things that they might have an intolerance to, or that way they can fit into this, you know, diet protocol that they're trying to follow. Oh, absolutely. That's a absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Now, going back to process versus ultra process, in terms of defining that, what are some really good examples of an ultra processed food versus processed food? Well, things that come in bags, boxes, and have the rice crispy treated. Yeah, that's why I think. Really, really long shelf life. It's the difference between a strawberry

and a strawberry flavored gummy worm, for example. Like that's ultra processed, you know, it's like, it's a food we invented, essentially. I mean, it's made with whole food ingredients, but then we also put it through this process that turned it into something completely over. I think that's a good way to, I think that's a good way to look at it.

If it doesn't resemble any whole food whatsoever, like gummy bears, not a... Yeah, it's almost, you'd say it was artificial, as far as flavoring, and there's a lot of artificial, I mean, is that still on the label in terms of like they label it as this is an artificial flavor? This is this. Yeah, they do that.

Yeah, they do, and they'll list the chemical names and stuff like that. So yeah, I know that. I mean, that's a set, like, okay, whole natural foods, unprocessed foods, just for the sake of this conversation. These are foods that look closer to their natural state. So like meats that are not processed into sausages and salamis and baloney.

Like baloney is anprocessed meat, right? Go find me a bologna animal. Find me a bologna animal. That's gonna be a funky-looking animal, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's, bolognese is an ultra-processed meat. Bacon, bacon is another step of processing. And now you can get bacon that is far less processed,

but there are lots of popular types of bacon that are much more ultra-process because of all the smoking and seasoning and processing of the food to make it taste better. So there's just a lot more engineering steps involved with the ultra-process. And it's funny too when you look at meat, for example, we'll stay on the subject of meat. When you look at the, when they show you studies, they say, oh, eating lots of red meat, it's bad for you, look at the associated cancer, this, that's the other. That's the process variety of shit. It's not the I ate a steak, it's the,

I eat lots of hot dogs. Yeah. That tends to be the problem. It's the difference between again, like a potato and a potato chip, a fruit and a fruit snack, milk and ice cream, for example. So if you wanted to, you know, so the unprocessed stuff is like fruits, vegetables,

legumes, even grains, grains even have to go through some level of processing. For example, you don't eat wheat and it's natural form. You can't. You would actually shred the inside of your body. If you picked wheat and ate it, even the ancients, 10,000 years ago, they had to grind their shit at a wheat and process it,

and they're the way that they process things, because they didn't have modern technology to make it so that we could eat it and digest it. So a lot of grains, even the more natural grains, tend to be processed. Rice is less processed than, for example, wheat products, So a lot of grains, even the more natural grains tend to be processed. Rice is less processed than, for example, wheat products. Because rice, you don't have to process as much.

You can have it. And to your point about other foods that are fortified with nutrients that the positive side, like, you know, we wouldn't have protein powder and protein bars. That's ultra-process. Right. If it wasn't for processed foods. Absolutely. And, you know, being a trainer and just trained many clients under consumption of protein is a very common thing that you deal with people.

So it's not very convenient to have to kill and slaughter a cow and then go cook it and do that every single time you're looking for a source of protein. Yeah, and there's times where you need to supplement with a concentrated amounts. Like, you have a serious deficiency that you need that concentrated amount. Like you can get it from a whole food sources, but you still need more than that. Exactly, so let's say I just want to add,

let's say I'm monitoring my food intake and I'm looking at my macros and I just want to add, I need to add 50 grams of protein to my diet and really don't have a whole lot of room to add anything else. I can either go get a dry boiled chicken breast and have to cook it and all that stuff,

or I can use a protein powder which is far more convenient and gives me exactly what I'm looking for. And that, you know, that's not a bad thing, I don't think that's a bad thing at all, especially how busy we tend to be and how difficult it can be to find the time to do these types of things. I've had many clients who've benefited

from having a protein powder, which is an ultra-processed food. The other thing is the cost. The cost of food that is wasted because it went bad is massive. People don't realize this, like we are feeding the world. And processing foods or processed foods tends to be far more efficient

because I could make boxes of processed foods that contain proteins, fats and carbohydrates. And I could ship it across the world and lose very little of it. But if I grow a bunch of vegetables and fruits and meat, the transferring of that stuff is expensive, the fact that a lot of it's going to go bad on the way there is going to cost, and it creates some of it is more ripe than others. It creates a tremendous amount of waste, and when you're trying to feed a lot of people, it's far easier and more efficient

to do so with processed foods. Far easier to do though. Imagine eliminating rice and wheat for how many people would starve. Yeah, and you mentioned in terms of waste. So the packaging itself, actually that's more of a detriment. That would be a detriment, right?

Well, I can see also benefits to like, you know, how I've used processed foods or drinks. You know, in the performance world, when you need like your runners that need a quick surge of sugar or you are an athlete, competitor, and you need this burst of energy or you wanna drink with the right balance

of electrolytes. Right, right. So I mean, man, how awesome is that? Like we didn't have that, you know, a hundred plus years ago. So the ability for us to understand the science of how these nutrients fuel our body and help us perform better.

And now we have access to these types of things. That's part of the variety thing. Like processed food let you go camping. They let people go on the moon, you know, they're not bringing fresh fruits and vegetables up in's part of the variety thing. Process food let you go camping. They let people go on the moon. They're not bringing fresh fruits and vegetables up in the space of the thing. Yeah, that was huge. You've got lots of that variety.

And here's the thing, process foods from a pathogen standpoint, from a food-borne illness standpoint are safe, far safer than the unprocessed foods, far safer than the, than unprocessed foods, far safer. So like, your odds of contracting salmonella or some other, you know, food-borne illness are way higher when you're eating something and it's cool enough to add out.

Yeah, you typically. Nine out of 10 times, when there's a salmonella outbreak, it's not in a box of cookies. It could happen. It's like some other sort. It's like salad or spinach or something like that. Right, and so in some societies that don't have the same standards,

like the US, we have good standards, foods get checked and a lot of stuff, but in other societies, look, I'll tell you what, if I go to a third world country and I need to get some food and I go inside one of their supermarkets or whatever that they have there. I'm safer for me to grab the packaged food

than it would be for me to grab the street vendor's food. They may be cooking some pork and whatever, but I did that in Thailand. When I was in Thailand, I ate some food and it made me hell of sick, and it wasn't the process food. That's another positive too.

It's allowed us to help like third world countries. You wouldn't drop a crate of raw meat on a group of starving young kids or starving country. What the fuck are they getting? You would waste so much of it. Some people would say exactly. They're what the fuck are they gonna you would waste so much of it right some people were exactly right So there's there's definitely there's lots of use for this for the evolution of food and and the part of the processing So it's not and this is a good I'm glad we're doing this because I think people think sometimes that we demonize it so much that we We should never existed. Yeah, no man. It's it's a we need it in many cases and like anything that is It's a, we need it in many cases, and like anything that is extremely valuable

and has a lot of power, it can be wielded in different ways. And this is the benefit side of it. This is why it exists in the first place and why mankind has been trying to figure these things out for a long time. Oh yeah, we were solving problems, I mean initially, that was the,

I mean it was always good intent, you know, trying to create these foods that would last longer and would feed more people and, you know, they could get a handle on that. Oh, yeah. I mean, we now, I don't remember what the numbers, the exact numbers I read this a long time ago, but the amount of farm land required to feed 1,000 people has shrunk considerably because of modern farming practices and our ability to process certain things.

So in the past, you would need far more land to feed the same amount of people. But we've gotten so good that now we need far less land. And that's a good thing because we have a lot of people on this planet. And now it doesn't come without its risks and caveats which we're going to get into and go off on, but it's important.

Again, I think it's good that we're making this point that there are some good sides to process foods and it's not evil. It's just, it's not respected. I think it's not respected for the other side. There needs to be some parameters you put in place, but yeah, we'll get into that. Absolutely. So, here's the thing. And here's where, and I want to go into the negatives of ultra-process food, but before

I do, I think it's important to make this case right here. If the biggest single contributor to chronic health problems in modern societies, because there's a lot of problems, a lot of chronic health problems in modern societies. Because there's a lot of problems, a lot of chronic health problems in modern societies. I mean, I can go down the list of diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, dementia, inflammatory disorders, autoimmune disorders that are just seem to be growing and exploding, but the single thing that contributes

to all those, the most, is obesity, right? Obesity, if you're overweight, if you have a lot of too much fat on your body, you consistently consume too many calories. You're at risk on 100 others. Everything, your cancer risk goes through the roof, your heart disease goes through the roof, your diabetes risk goes through the roof, dementia, Alzheimer's risks go through the roof, autoimmune disorders, risks go through the roof, like everything goes through the roof. And so it's, although the problem is far more complex than that, if we were to say, what is the single biggest health problem of modern societies? I think it would be safe to say obesity, like I'd be a safe thing to say. Now what's the biggest contributor to obesity?

What's the problem? Like everybody knows it. You know, talk to anybody who's 50 pounds overweight and ask them, hey, do you think that you, you know, do you want to lose a little bit? They'll say yes, right? Everybody knows it. It's eating in excess. Too much. I mean, we, and, you know, we've touched on this before that we just a hundred years ago, it was hard to come by food. You know, it wasn't, it was something that you probably had to be very wealthy to have an excess of food

that you could just binge. In fact, it used to be that. It used to be where signs of wealth. That's right. If you were a little overweight, it was like a cool, he must be rich. And it's, by the way, that's in almost cultures. Right.

Most cultures believe that. Right. I know in some Asian cultures being a little overweight, I 100% think that's part of the problem is that we have aspired to it for so long and now we've actually got it and now we've got it so much that it's an abundance for everybody, not just the wealthy, but even the poor. We've done such a good access to these foods.

We've done such a good job of making food accessible and cheap and then other things that we're gonna get into that it's now become a problem. I mean, I remember as a trainer, you guys remember this, I remember having to actually combat this with clients. When I'd have a client that they had to scrape as little money they could to afford to even have me as a coach and trainer,

and part of their excuse of not eating well would be like, Adam, I could eat it on the 99 cent menu. I make donals three, four times a day and get my calories and it's like, to their point, they're right, like it's almost cheaper to eat shitier now and get more calories and that's our fuel through these types of sources. And we have, you know, just again, 50 to 100 years ago,

we didn't have fast food restaurants on every single corner. That's crazy. And so here's the thing too, like, if we understand that overeating is, and it's more complex than that, but if we really had to boil it down, right? And we just overeat.

We more than we need to. If we could solve that, we would solve a large part of the problem, just that right there. Like forget the like, well, and this is in defense of our boy lane. Like this is Lane's argument always is the calories. Right. It does always come down to calories. The fact is though that there's other factors that play into that. Right, the problem is, is he's looking at the science, and a lot of people do this in our space. They look at the numbers and say,

well, just, it's just that people are reading. It's as simple as that. Yeah, well, okay, yes, that's true. But now let's figure out why, why that's become a problem. And here's the, here's the myth. Where are the behaviors that are supposed to be? And here's the myth I would love to,

I wanna just dispel right now. The myth is that because humans evolved for large parts in scarcity, that our, we have no natural safeguards against overeating. The myth is if you just give humans access to food all the time, they're gonna eat themselves to death. And the reason that is is because for most of human history, we didn't have access to a lot of food, so it was evolutionarily advantageous for us to just eat food when we had it in

front of us. That's a myth. That's not, that's part of that is a myth. We do have natural safeguards against overreading because, just overrided them. Because look, let me tell you something, When I'm, when I'm a hunter, kill the, an animal, you would still be disadvantages to fucking eat until you threw up and got sick.

Obviously, look, go try to eat as much as you can at one sitting and you'll, you'll hit those natural systems right away. You'll gag, you won't want to eat more. The human body is not, it wasn't, it didn't evolve to have this endless fucking appetite. It doesn't work that way. In fact, the study that I just quoted earlier proves that.

You had people eating whole natural foods and they 500 calories less. And they weren't even told to monitor their food. Their body kicked in and they measured it through those hormones. They're natural safeguards. So the point that I want to make is this. We all naturally, and it's more complex than this, of course, because there's emotions and fear and anxieties and how you treat food and if you abuse it

in a particular way, there's all that too. But largely, humans naturally have these safeguards that won't let you eat too little and won't let you eat too much. Now, these safeguards aren't going to make you shredded. So I want to be clear, it's not like we're all gonna be shredded, but these safeguards should prevent you, if you're healthy, from getting obese,

and they should prevent you from not eating in becoming malnourished. Those safeguards exist, here's the problem. The safeguards are, you know, let's say the parameters are here, and I'm putting my hands about maybe 20 inches apart. What happens when you eat in a particular way, when you eat foods that a lot of money goes into making them

super, super tasty and super palatable, those parameters move over. So now those safeguards don't kick in till much later, which is what we're finding with the studies. And not only that, but we also live in a very distracted time in our lives where many people are not even trying to become aware of those signs. Like it's, I mean, I think that's one of the things

that you have to be so careful about is like when you are mindlessly eating and not paying attention to how my stomach feels, what my stool was like, how I felt the next day, how my energy level feels two hours later. Like there's so many of these, these signs that the body may be trying to give you that in my experience, at least most of my clients were just absolutely clues. Oblivious. Yeah. Absolutely cluel of it, because one, they weren't trained or taught to even look for those things, and then two, their diet was so filled

with these super ultra-processed foods that were designed to hijack that. Oh yeah, no, what ends up happening is, so first and foremost, the money that goes into ultra-processed foods, if you were to look at all the money that goes into it, some of the money goes into its shelf life. Now, we've got that down pat.

We've kind of figured out how to make food last a long time pretty well. So, there's not like crazy money and science going into making food last past a certain point. Like, you want your processed food to last you about six months to a year. Anything past that, and there's no market for it. Unless you're buying emergency food or you plan on trek months to a year. Anything past that and there's no market for it, unless you're buying emergency food or you plan on trekking to the top of some mountain and you plan on living there for a couple of years.

Nobody, like you don't go to, let me put it this way. None of us are going to the store and comparing foods and saying, okay, this is gonna last me two years. Yeah, nobody cares. After a certain point, nobody gives it shit anymore. So where does all the money go into processed foods? Making it taste better.

Making them palatable. Now here's why I use the word palatable. Palatable is different than taste. Taste is a part of palatability. Taste is how you perceive it's taste, but there's also how it feels in your mouth. How it smells. How it smells.

Crunchy. The color of the bag, the way the bag, when you open it, the way it feels in your hands, the dust, it leaves on your fingertips. Okay, I'm, by the way, I am not making any of this up. This one. Daredos is famous for this. Oh, very visceral experience.

So, Daredo intentionally leaves all that and Cheetos do that on purpose. It's not like by chance that they don't do that. Dude, if you look at that, lick off that fairy dust. You can read books on this on food scientists, and they go into like painful, painful detail on how to make this food.

Think about it this way. If you could make a cigarette more addicting, you would kill your competition. In fact, it made the laws against that. They actually did that. They actually made laws against that because they were doing that. If you could make food more palatable,

you're gonna crush your competition. That's a great point to make right there. It's a, when it comes to those things, it's a less regular. It's funny that we regulate that with cigarettes. We do that with cigarettes that we make it to where you can't make it more addictive than it already is and it gets a bad route for that. But it's glorified in food. I mean, once you pop, it can't stop.

I mean, that was like a campaign for Pringles. Right. It's crazy. You can't just eat one. No. I mean, it is something that is celebrated in the food space is who can make it more addictive to the point where we can make commercials around it,

bragging about how addictive the properties are. Look at the whole bag. Because food is a necessary evil, we don't demonize it the properties are. Look at the whole bag. Because food is a necessary evil, we don't demonize it the same way. We don't look at it like cigarettes. Sigarettes aren't necessary. Nobody needs to smoke a cigarette to live. And so we can look at it differently

and we separate it differently than food. But when you look at that obesity is surpassed what cigarettes was at one point. In terms of killing people. Yes. Oh, it's killing, giving more people cancer than cigarettes. Right. At one point. In terms of killing people? Yes. Oh, it's killing, giving more people cancer than cigarettes. Right.

At what point do we start to have? And I know it sounds very alarmist to say this, but at what point do we start looking at food as holy shit? This can be as dangerous as cigarettes. Oh, I'd say more dangerous because we don't, we don't perceive the danger. Like you said, it's, we don't look at a bag of hyper-palatable chips and think to ourselves, oh shit,

that's like a bag of cigarettes. Nobody thinks that, not at all. And so that's a lot of the problem. A lot of the problem is most of the money goes into engineering these foods, look, let me put it to this way. The top selling cat food in any category, health food or not is the tastiest one. Okay, I challenge anybody to prove me wrong.

The top selling protein bar is not because it's got the best macros, it's because it tastes the best. The top selling pre-workout is not because it works the best, because it tastes the best. The top selling chips, cookies, beef jerky, any category is because it is the most palatable. And this is the thing now, because we're in a market-based economy, the market creates what people want.

And then here's what ends up happening. It creates this unhealthy obsession with the hedonistic properties of food, which then leaves no room for you to value the other things in food, just like you were saying Adam. How many people think to themselves, I need to eat, you know, God, I want to go eat something right now to help my digestion, or I need to go eat something for my skin, or I need more energy.

I'm going to go eat something to give me more energy. Nobody does because we've placed so much value on the hedonistic pleasure of the food to the point where that's the value that's all about it. Which by the way, we're not demonizing that either. There's something to be said. I'm just making you aware of it. Right, there's something to be said about that.

It's nice to be able to go have a nice dinner and enjoy a steak and have something like that and enjoy it for those reasons, but that doesn't mean that you can't also look at the negative sides that come with that. That's the problem. Just respect it. Is that we only celebrate it and we don't talk about, oh, what comes with that is all the

addictive properties that is obviously what's the main cause of what's causing obesity. Right now, people listening to our podcast, and our podcast is a fitness and health podcast. So there's even a self-selection bias. We have healthier minded people listening right now. I guarantee you most of the meals that you eat, maybe even today, the reason why you chose that meals because it tasted better than the other option. So, and that's not a bad thing, just be aware of it

because you can change it because the way that you value things can be changed to what you become, once you become aware of them. So I'll give you an example, it's a funny example, but my grandfather used to have always a jar of prunes in his house all the time. He didn't really like to taste so much,

but he valued the prunes, because it helped him. Because it works. Go to the bathroom. So he would eat them for that value. If you start to become more aware of the other things about food and aware that you may be overvaluing just the palatability of food, you'll start to find yourself making better choices.

I've done this with clients time and time again. I had to share this story before. I shared again. I had a client once who never ate vegetables, ever hated them, thought they were absolutely disgusting, didn't eat them since she was a child, I think. And so I talked her into eating one stock of broccoli a day, there's one piece of broccoli a day.

And what I did was I told her to stop, pay attention, become aware of how it makes you feel, become aware of, go ahead and become aware of flavor of the taste that you don't like, but also become aware of the other things that you may be getting from the food, your energy, your stool, your skin. And so little by little, I bumped her up and bumped her up,

and then she started noticing things. She started noticing, will I eat my vegetables? I sleep better. When I ate my vegetables, my skin looks better and my digestion's better. Energy lasts long. She started craving broccoli. It took a while, but she started craving it

because she started to become aware of the other values of food that were not just the pleasure of eating it. There's a flip side of that too. You have to talk about how the body adapts and starts to perceive food differently when you go down the other plane. And this is one of the greatest challenge when you're dealing with clients. And I'll never forget when this like really hit home for me because even as a trainer,

because I ate so much processed foods in my diet, especially sweet things. I was always a candy chaser, the ice cream. I liked sweet foods and I got a lot of that through processed foods. My palate and the way my body perceived sweet was completely altered and I had no idea. So if someone talked to me about certain fruits, like, oh, these berries or oh, try this pair, I'd be like, it's bland to me. And there was nothing that you could say to me to change my mind that that banana, that apple, that pear taste amazing because to me it tasted like shit. It tasted completely bland.

It wasn't until I went really, really strict and went on a whole food diet for a really long period of time, six months beyond that. And then I started to introduce fruit then. Did my body start to perceive it completely different than it ever had in my entire life. And so a lot of things, part of this challenge for people is they've been eating so much processed food for so long that if they try to take advice from what we're talking about

right now and they go, okay, I'm going to try and eat all these whole foods. All of a sudden foods totally work. Food is terrible for like the first couple months of that. Well, yeah, even going through that process, like I've had clients too that I've had like broccoli in these like extra fibrous type vegetables that they started to include. And they had to go through the fun process

of the gas and everything that comes with that in the digestive process that they weren't used to this excess of fiber to help things move along and they're hitting the bathroom up. But when you get through the process and the work of it, then you start understanding and realizing the importance of a regular process with that in terms of poop and everything. And by the way, there's reasons why we find certain things palatable

and they're not bad reasons, they're actually good reasons. In nature, if you eat something that is palatable, and the reason why we perceive it as palatable is because through evolution, we've identified that certain things come with a lot of value in nature. So like fat. Why is fat one of the, like what do they call it fat, sugar and salt? Like those are the, those are the things that tend to make things palatable and using

them and using them in the right combinations, right? So why do we find fat so amazing? Well because in nature, for most of human history, fat, there's nothing more calorie dense than fat. And calories are hard to come by naturally when you're a hunter-gather. So when you kill an animal, you wait the fat. First, in fact, modern hunter-gatherers leave the lean cuts for last because they crave the fat. Now, why do we evolve that way? It's where the calories are. One gram of fat is

stored energy. It's got more than twice as much stored energy as protein or carbohydrates, okay? So that's number one. Number two, salt. Why is salt so palatable? Because in nature, it's actually rare. It's not easy to come by salt, and you need salt. Salt is essential.

That's why humans with lychrocks literally would find rocks and lychem, and animals would do the same thing to get that sodium. Wars were fought over salt. What about sugar? Sugar is a very fast, quick source of energy, but besides that, sugar used to come with nutrients that were harder to find.

So if you're like walking through the jungle or whatever and you're a hunter gatherer and you see a naturally growing fruit tree which isn't super common. You don't come across orchards of apples. It wasn't like they grew everywhere. You would see one. You'd look at this, what is this thing? You taste it. Oh my God. Vitamin C or other nutrients that you don't necessarily find so easily aside from so your body would make you crave and eat that. And it's also a fast source of now Here's the problem we have modern science we know this now and we

Frankenstein food we engineer the fuck out of it to mess with all these signals and it go it's gone beyond fat salt and sugar to color Taste and then the use of chemicals to trick you into to literally trick your brain into wanting to eat more. And so Adam, you talk about how your taste buds or how you sense the food changes. Well, we now have evidence that it not only does that, it changes your hormones.

Your body literally, because you're perceiving this food to be hyper-palatable, your body literally changes to make you wanna eat more. Yeah. On a hormonal level. This is why it's so hard to go back the other way. This is why it's really hard to convince people that they want to eat these whole natural foods.

But the cool part is that if you do, and you get to that point, it's an amazing place to be if you were somebody who hated eating vegetables, didn't like fruit. Like, when anytime somebody tells that to me, they don't even have to tell me about the rest of their diet and I already know what's happened. Like, you're eating a ton of processed foods and it's totally hijacked that. That's the reason why.

And because you've been eating that way for so long, it's really tough to convince that person that over time, I promise you, you'll actually start to like those foods. And it's crazy, but it will. And then once you have done that, then it's amazing. Once you've pulled those foods out, the ultra-process foods long enough, you've ate whole natural foods long enough, then it becomes a lot easier to pick up on those signals that we're talking about that most people are unaware of, right? When you start talking about hair, skin, energy, gut, stool, all these things that are all the body's signals trying to tell you that this food is not ideal for you. They're no longer hijacked anymore.

Your body hasn't adapted to it because you haven't been consistently eating them. Now your body's gotten used to eating these whole foods. Now when you reintroduce this shit, now wake up. Now become woke. Now pay attention to, oh shit, when I have that pint of ice cream, like less than two hours later, I'm going, oh, and I'm growling, and then I'm on the toilet an hour after that. And then the next day I feel lethargic, I see the water I'm holding.

Like you'll start to pick up on all these things. Yeah, even C2, and you reintroduce those highly palatable foods like how sweet it is. It's like alarming how sweet it is once you've gone through the process of eating whole natural foods and fruits and where the natural balance is there with how they're providing that with conjunction with fiber

and having to work through that. America is the processed food capital of the world. We're the ones that really created that market and exported it, and it's funny. Compare old desserts from old cultures to modern processed foods. You guys ever eat like an old Japanese dessert? You would think that they forgot to add the sugar to it.

Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's the, we have changed what we think is, we have changed the way we perceive food to the point now where we got to keep pushing the limit. And what you're saying, Adam, is completely true. It's like, imagine you're driving your car and your windshield is covered in mud, except for a little small spot where you can kind of see the road and you can't read any of the gauges. All the gauges are blocked out. That's what it's like navigating through

the world eating highly processed food. You're not, you can't see the signals. I don't know if my gas is low, I don't know if my tires are flat. I don't know if I need to turn real quick coming up here. I'm just driving and I'm barely able to drive on the whole skate. Yeah, you have no idea. Now when you go off of them,

all of a sudden the windshield's clean and you could see all the gauges in front of you. Now I can, now when I reintroduce them, like Adam said, oh shit, my gas is low. This is not good. Oh crap, I have a flat tire. And what this may mean for you is my energy's low. It's funny, I'll have clients do this and then they'll go on a vacation and then indulge

in hyperpellable foods or whatever. And they'll be like, oh my God, I broke out. You know, I didn't realize that a lot of my acne was due to my nutrition. I was like, well, I mean, now you are. Now you're able to see these signals because you went off. Well, here's the other danger of all this stuff too. And I like sharing, and I think the reason why I'm so passionate about this is because this was an issue for me. So my whole life, I was a sugar addict for sure. I candy every single day. Every single day that I had some sort of a candy,

there was always candy in my car, candy at my house. Like, it was, and here's the deal. I wasn't fat. And so when I'm looking at my, my visual representation of myself, I think I'm healthy. I'm a personal trainer. I work out. I've got muscles on me. I'm able to have my mic and Iks every single night or my bin and Jerry's ice cream occasionally

whenever I feel like it. And so I don't got a problem. That's what I think in my head. Now, at this time in my life, I don't like eating vegetables. I don't like fruit whatsoever because I'm consuming so much of this processed sugar all the time. So I don't think I have a fucking problem. I don't realize I do until I get in this point where I decide to go on this whole food

diet and recognize holy shit. Now I love apples. Oh my god. Now I love vegetables and didn't notice that and then when I reintroduce the The Mike and I took the sugar and then I pay attention to how my body feels now I start to piece this all together So that's we also live in this if it fits your macros world that makes this really challenging for the fitness world. So I know there's people right now because we do attract a lot of fitness people already that are in the same boat. 100%. I mean, most of my peers that I either competed with or I worked with in the training world

all were like this. You know, you're eating two or three protein bars a day. I'm eating all this process sugar all day long. But I'm ripped and I'm lean. Right. I look good. So I think I'm eating all this processed sugar all day long. But I'm ripped and I'm lean. Right. I look good, so I think I'm fine. Well, and that's okay. So what that does is it promotes the overvalued food

for its taste and palatability and the overvalued of my health just based on my aesthetics. And so without realizing it, and look, we see this all the time, the fitness space is full, full of people with poor relationships with their body and food, body image issues and food issues left and right. That mentality, Adam, promotes that

because I continue to reinforce the fact that it's all about my looks and okay, if I'm lean, I guess I'm healthy and everything's good. And I like this food and I'm gonna eat it and it fits my macros, but it tastes really good. So let me ask you this Adam, now that you're not doing that anymore and you're still lean and all that stuff,

just like you were in your 20s, how was your food relationship and your body image now versus back then? Oh yeah, a hundred times better. Exactly. So this is all kind of a part of the process. You know, one other thing I wanted to touch on because certain crops are made into processed foods

easier, it does, and this is for the environmentalist who listened to our podcast. Lots and lots of ultra processed foods does promote less crop diversity. You start to see more corn, more soy, more wheat being grown, and less of other types of crops, because corn, soy, wheat, and even rice can be turned into processed foods and flavored, however the hell you want. They just, and so those are the crops that we tend to grow. So if you want more crop diversity,

whole natural foods also helps you with that. And then of course, you had mentioned this earlier, just in the inorganic waste. So yes, whole natural the inorganic waste. So, yes, whole natural foods promotes more food waste because it goes bad and doesn't have a long shelf life and it's hard to transport. Processed foods comes in boxes and packages and wrappers and that creates more inorganic waste, which takes hundreds or thousands of years to break down. So, I guess the question is that we understand the values that the process foods and what it's

brought to us, right, the ways that we can use the good stuff, the good stuff. We understand the negative side effects potentially of this and what path that can lead down to. I guess the question is then, how do we in today, in today's time, how do we manage around this, to where one, we don't demonize this food, and we're realistic with it's probably going to make its way into our diet in one form or another. How do we manage that, and how do we get to a place where we have a good relationship and understanding of these foods. Yeah, and what a great point because I think we've made the case now that if you eat lots

of ultra-process foods regardless of how aware you are about your health, it will push you to want to overeat. And so one of the easiest things you could do to maintain a healthy body weight, again, this won't make you shredded. If you want to get shredded, you've got to get more detailed. But if you want to maintain a healthy body weight, if you this won't make you shredded. If you wanna get shredded, you gotta get more detailed. But if you wanna maintain a healthy body weight,

if you don't eat a lot of processed food, your body will naturally, mostly, because there are other issues why people overeat as well. So I'm not saying this is a solution for everybody. But if you're otherwise healthy, avoiding ultra-processed foods will probably bring your body into a relatively healthy body

weight on its own, without having to to count macros and calories and all that stuff. Again, like that study proved, 500 calorie difference. Same macro broke. So it's really just limiting the access to it. So like you're going through inventory in your house and you're just you're trying to you know, stock your house with more whole natural foods, not not saying it's not going to make its way in, but you have limited access to these types of foods. Yes, because again, in the study, they let people eat as much as they wanted.

Once group had access to whole natural foods, so go ahead and eat as much as you want, and the other group had access to these ultra-process foods. And what you need to understand is you are playing, it's a battle and you're probably gonna lose. So respect that. So what I mean by that is some people are like, oh, why can't I just have them on my house

and then just be aware and not eat them? Okay, you can do that. If you're a super self-aware, those Oreos are gonna call you late night. Super self-aware discipline person and you're like a nutrition monk. Yeah, go for it. But for most of us, I would say probably a good idea

not to have in your house. Just don't have it there. Add a barrier between you and the ultra-process food. So like this is what I do. So I don't avoid it completely. I enjoy these types of foods every once in a while when I want to indulge. I just don't have them on my house.

And so I have to, if I'm sitting at home and I'm like, man, I really want a bag of chips. I really want a bag of chips. Damn it, I gotta get my shoes on. You gotta go get it. And I gotta get in the car and drive. It's just a barrier. Right, how bad do I want it?

It's just a barrier. And you know what that barrier does? Is it put space between me and the impulse? Because what ultra-process foods do, just like anything that taps into that system of your body, it becomes impulsive, impulsivity, where you're not aware. It's crazy how powerful that tip is that you just gave because when I think about, you know, when we used to grocery shop as kids with my mom and so that,

because we had a terrible diet growing up. And, you know, it was just part of grocery shopping. We went down the chip aisle, and, you know, we picked three or four bags of our favorite chips. Like, it was just like, we weren't even craving it at that moment. It's just like, we know we will.

So here you go. Yeah. And like that attitude right away, when you're grocery shopping of, let's include this, because I know I'm gonna want it. Like, come on, like you're already setting yourself up

for failure by doing that. The first thing that you can do is to just limit those foods in your house. You're already winning half the battle right there, because believe it or not, most people, like you said, so like, man, I gotta put my shoes on, I gotta go drive the grocery store.

Like, do I really want just, I mean, I might be feeling like I'm craving a bag of chips right now. The other thing too is to be aware of when we get these feelings of cravings, a lot of times it's your body too that's naturally hungry. And if you just made the healthy choice, watch how fast it goes away. I don't know how many times I'll inshate you if you make the right choice. This was one of the reasons why I'm a big advocate of meal prepping and why I like to have a good healthy meal, balanced meal in the refrigerator at all times because then it just becomes a mental discipline thing because it really is tough.

I get it when it's like a convenience or it's time thing. It's like, oh, I have 10 minutes. But it's already convenient, you're prepped it. Right. So I eliminate that, right? I eliminate that obstacle of convenience right away by having it prepared. Then it just comes down to a mental discipline thing.

Yeah, I really wanna go get a bag of, you know, fire cheetos right now, but I know that I've already made my rice avocado and shredded chicken dish that's sitting in my fridge right now. And then that sounds boring and bland, but I'm so hungry right now. Okay, what happens when I just go eat it?

What happens every time? Once I start eating it, I'm not eating it. I'm not eating, yeah, two points with that. You got convenient healthy food, but you went through the process of actually cooking it, which I know a lot, that's a lost art these days. We want everything so convenient

where I just open it up. From the box, I shove it in the microwave, it's ready to go. I didn't even have to think about it. When you get more of the process, you get back into actually thinking about what ingredients are in there, what it's going to do for my body, really focusing in on what kind of nourishment I'm providing my body as I'm cooking the whole process, it becomes a different experience. Yeah, a really, really good point. I want to get into that, the valuing of the process

of preparing your food. But before I jump into that, I wanna touch on what you said, Adam, which I think, I'm gonna put it in a way that I think will resonate with people. Create barriers between you and these ultra-process foods and eliminate barriers between you and healthy foods. So what are the barriers that tend to prevent us from wanting to eat healthy foods? Convenience and time.

So get rid of that by prepping it. It's already ready in the fridge. So now there's no barrier there. Now let's put a barrier between yourself and the processed food, which would be, it's not in my house. So now I have to take an extra step to eat the processed food, whereas the non-process food I have now made it much easier to consume. And this is an important thing to understand. The impulsive behaviors that we tend to have, one of the best ways to prevent or to stop impulsive behaviors is to create space between

you and that behavior. Like, I impulsively wanna grab a cigarette and it's in front of me, there's no space, I'm gonna have it. If I have to drive somewhere to get that cigarette, I've created enough space for me to become aware enough to stop and be like, okay, probably not a good choice for myself. And that's okay, you wanna have that space,

create that space between you and those impulsive decisions. So that's a brilliant tip there. Now, as far as what you're saying, Justin, about prepping and cooking, that is a lost art. It's one of the most meditative things you can do. It's also, if you're sitting around thinking, what do I do with my girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife?

You know, I want to spend some quality time, but we don't want to, and every time we go out, we spend, you know, 150 bucks on dinner and movies. Cook. Yeah. Cooking is such a, or your kids, I'll tell you what, some of the best time that I spend with my kids is when we're sitting around prepping food together.

We have great conversate. We like, we've lost the, because it was like, I think we perceived it as like this, you know, slaving over cooking and I got a, you know what, every once in a while, or ever so fucking spoiled. It's really, everything has to be too creative too, you know, like we're all looking for the most awesome tasting, you know, like recipe, whatever, like for me, like that was always a deterrent

because I always thought like I'm not a good cook. I'm not really interested in making it super fancy or anything, but honestly, once I started just cooking meats and grilling meats outside and adding seasoning to them and adding grilled vegetables and just, you know, like rice is very easy to cook. That's something that I could switch up and rotate and get different nutrients from different vegetables. Very simple.

Well, it's a very simple process. It's a bit off topic, but it's a good point to be made here. Because we do, we share a lot about our personal relationships on the show. And you know, one of the, one of the best things I talked about the walks and the things that Katrina and I and the reading a book together, like there's been a lot of little things in our little relationship hacks that we have figured out along the way that has kept our relationship really strong.

And one of the best things we ever started to implement, we really started to implement this when I was competing because it was like necessary then. But, you know, Sunday prep day. And I tend to cook all the meat and she does all the side stuff, you know. And you guys are hanging out. Yeah, we're in the kitchen together.

They're doing the same thing. Yeah, it's like a two hour process or so. Sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little less. And when we do, and we normally pick, her and I normally pick two to three different meals. And this isn't like, we're not prepping every single thing we're gonna eat for the entire week. We normally pick two or three solid balance meals

that before we went grocery shopping, that which we go do together, we agree on like, you know, she normally asked me, what do you feel like? Do you feel like you're, you're chilly and you're turkey dish and this and we'll decide like, okay, yeah, those are the three main dishes that we're going to rotate through the week. And then we prep those three main dishes so that there's always some of those in the refrigerator.

And, you know, I'm eating four times a day normally. So one or two of those always are coming from that. Or I always have access to that. If I'm not making a fresh meal right then and there, or going to get something that I think is good and healthy and balanced for me. And what that's done for our relationship is incredible. It's just, it's a nice schedule time that makes us present, makes us make good choices. We're doing something to better both ourselves. It ends up sparking dialogue.

Totally, because if somebody, we perceive, we perceive oftentimes cooking is not a good time. It's a fucking great time when you're doing it with other people. It can be a totally awesome, fun time. You know, here's the other thing. I talked about creating some space between you

and the impulsivity that comes sometimes from eating certain foods. Treat your meal like a meal. Most processed foods, nobody, okay, maybe some people do, but most people don't set the table, put a plate in a fork, and then I, for a hot pocket. Yeah, and then put it on a plate,

or like pork, you know, Oreos on there, and sit there and eat, it's usually impulsive, right? Put on some jazz and get some wine and cut through my pocket. Yeah, treat all meals like meals. And that's like you do that. I've done.

Maybe I have. I feel like you got a cheese. Yeah, block of cheese. Candle. Yeah. He's got another block of cheese. Don't judge me. He's got one on the plate and one sitting on the chair.

Hey, let's eat this cheese together. Cheese. It may or may not have happened. And I'll eat you later. No, I mean, treat meals like meals. Sit down, eat your food, chew your food, don't be on your phone. And that plays into that whole creative space.

That's a big thing. That's a big thing. And again, I like sharing things that I know I fucked up on. I mean, that's the place that I always like to come from. It's not me standing on my high tower and fucking pointing the finger. It's like, man, what a difference that made by not eating in front of the television. Like, I love my shows. I love Netflix and a chillin. I love all that shit. And what foods are usually eaten in front of a TV?

Right. It's it's to it. And even if it's good, I still think it's a very good, healthy practice that I like to teach clients. When you're trying to create these good behaviors, now, does that mean I never eat in front of watching a warrior game? All the fucking time I do. But when I'm trying to teach good behaviors to clients like around food,

this is one of the things that I highly encourage or make some of them do, which is no food in front of the TV. When you eat, you eat. You sit down in front of your food, you pay attention to your food, which is no food in front of the TV. When you eat, you eat. You sit down in front of your food, you pay attention to your food, you eat your food, when you're full, you're done. And then go do whatever past time you want to.

Combining them only puts another barrier, another distraction from those already tough signals to read and pay attention to. So that's a big tip that I think most people don't pay attention to because we're in and so and for sure get rid of your phone. I mean, now we live in this, this everything's on our iPhone. I mean, look at the ever go into a restaurant today. And I guarantee you won't find five tables where people don't have their phones out while

they're eating like you do that's a terrible habit because you're over here getting all kinds of other signals through your Instagram while you're also shoveling food in your mouth So that's a big big tip that somebody can do just by by eliminating being distracted while you I'll say this and I'll stand by this if you were to give If you were to tell people one thing to do just do this one thing And it had to affect them in a positive way, both with body fat percentage and health, lowering their body weight, and also you have to factor in that they would be able to follow it and stick to it. The one thing that I think would be easiest and most likely to contribute positively to everything would be just to largely avoid

ultra-process food. It would not be to count your calories, it would not be to make sure you're not, you know, you're burning more than you're taking in or count your proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It would not be watch your carbs or watch your fats or watch your, it would be literally a simple step. Just try to avoid largely avoid ultra-process foods and what'll happen naturally for most people. Again, you're not going to get shredded doing this, but you're definitely going to go away from obese. You're definitely going to find your body weight, go more towards a healthy,

natural body weight by doing that one simple step. And so this is why counting macros, this is why and studies are now proving that I love that studies are coming out showing this because I learned this as a trainer training for two decades and I'd went through all of it. I went through macro counting. I went through low carb and low fat and you know, when to eat and all that. All those things made little changes, but the one single thing that made the biggest thing and it's not this simple. I'm not saying this is the only thing, but if you had to pick one thing, it would be

largely avoid ultra-process foods and let your body does what it naturally does, which is it'll bring you down to a more normal, healthy body weight. And that's it. Go to mindpumpfree.com and download our guides. They're all absolutely free. Also check us out on Instagram.

You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump, Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

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