Midlife Metabolic Health - Roderick Lambert

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Man Up Man Down podcast presented by Volker Ballueder and David Pawsey. We discuss

[00:00:13] the pressures and challenges faced by men approaching middle age that we're often too

[00:00:17] embarrassed to speak about with our friends. You can find us online at www.manupdown.com.

[00:00:25] Enjoy the show and don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review.

[00:00:35] So welcome to another episode of Man Up Man Down. On today's episode we welcome Roderick Lambert

[00:00:40] who helps busy midlifers lose weight forever and regain their metabolic health. It's a program

[00:00:47] for if you are 40 to 60 old and you might find that you're struggling with overweight or

[00:00:52] obesity or your doctor has started to warn you about cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes

[00:00:59] or insulin resistance. The joist of getting older, hey? Roderick struggled with obesity for

[00:01:05] 15 years himself until his doctor told him that he could have a heart attack within the

[00:01:10] next five years. After getting the usual advice of eat a little bit less, move more

[00:01:16] and get a less stressful job, he decided to deep dive into nutrition and fitness.

[00:01:22] Roderick, before I tell the whole story how you got to it because we had a pre-talk as well.

[00:01:26] I signed up to your newsletter and I was just saying I'm really excited about the stuff you

[00:01:30] shared this week on social. First of all, welcome to the podcast and we look really forward to

[00:01:36] understanding and hearing how you lost 20 kilos in six months and kept it off. I think that's

[00:01:41] a big bit and B, I'm curious how I can shed nine centimeters below my waist as well.

[00:01:48] Well, I'm not saying anything.

[00:01:51] Thank you, Falka. Thank you, David. Great to be here and great to be talking exclusively almost

[00:01:56] to the people I work with. That demographic that is exactly right up my street and where

[00:02:03] I am myself today. So yeah, how did I get here? Born in Britain, educated in Britain,

[00:02:10] left school, went to university, free life, started the usual kind of path that took me into

[00:02:18] corporate HR for a big international banking group. And as many of us experience, you leave

[00:02:25] school and you go to university, start that free life when you're responsible for yourself.

[00:02:30] You enjoy life and whether it be going to the pub late night curries or whatever,

[00:02:36] are we gaming till late at night? That wasn't quite our thing so much in those days.

[00:02:41] You join a company, you start your career, office life, then you meet your partner

[00:02:48] or partners depending on how many you get through before you find the right one.

[00:02:53] Then you might invest in your first property, you might have children and you find

[00:03:00] yourself in your 30s already piling on the weight, which is simply an external sign of

[00:03:07] things that have been going on for a while. And you reach your 40s, 45, 50 and you get your

[00:03:14] first diagnosis as the doctor's ticking off your cholesterol. Then there's your blood pressure,

[00:03:21] then it's things like uric acid and all these things. You start getting the pills

[00:03:25] and unfortunately once you start getting that first one, it's a slippery road from that point

[00:03:30] on. And the only advice they'll give you about your lifestyle is simply eat less, move more

[00:03:34] and get a less stressful job. The good news is while all these symptoms are simply the

[00:03:41] incarnations of what's going on inside you at a cellular level and a subcellular level,

[00:03:48] you can actually do something about it and reverse all these conditions and actually

[00:03:53] regain energy, lose weight within two months. You've been doing it for two decades,

[00:03:59] it's not going to take two months but within six to 24 months you can really get yourself

[00:04:07] back up to speed and looking and feeling really great. What happened to me simply was

[00:04:13] that I'd been through the typical yo-yo dieting, trying this thing, trying that thing,

[00:04:18] trying to take up jogging. At one point I was even quite successful at it in my late 30s but

[00:04:24] then got a new job, next big promotion and all that ended and I just rebounded to I think my

[00:04:32] maximum was about 95 kilograms for my 179 centimeters and I had a huge belly.

[00:04:40] I had two kind of realizations a while back. I implemented them five years ago. One was

[00:04:46] that I didn't want to work in corporate anymore or for a company. Creating shareholder value

[00:04:53] wasn't something that fulfilled me anymore and the second thing was that I had to do something

[00:04:58] different about my health because everything I read in the papers, the newspapers, the magazines

[00:05:03] online in those days, I got information from the doctors was that was simply eat less move more.

[00:05:11] So I quit my job and trained as a coach and I also having a couple of years earlier discovered

[00:05:20] low carb, decided to implement what I'd learned and studied and done my own research on as well.

[00:05:27] And yeah and within six months I dropped a little over 20 kilograms to my current weight.

[00:05:34] Since then I've continued studying, researching, working out actually how it is the body works and

[00:05:41] what impacts the body, why it starts malfunctioning and you put on weight and things go wrong

[00:05:48] and applying them to myself and the last three and a half years to my clients who are

[00:05:54] particularly men in that midlife bracket who are in the same spot as I was. And that's where

[00:06:02] I'm today. Brilliant. I mean 20 kilos, so first of all thank you for that, I mean 20 kilos in

[00:06:08] six months that's a lot. I mean I managed 10 kilos in about yeah six months and I thought

[00:06:17] I was doing well. Well you were pushing the needle back so you were doing well.

[00:06:23] What happened though afterwards? It lasted for probably about a year, year and a half and

[00:06:30] it slowly came back and to be honest and you know maybe that's a longer fall of a question for me

[00:06:37] to share my experience. Obviously the listeners can't necessarily see us but so I'm quite tall

[00:06:44] so I can hide a belly, not like David. So David is really short and you know he

[00:06:49] can't hide anything anyway. He can talk for himself and it's Fet Friday football or whatever

[00:06:55] it is. Anyway so as I'm quite tall so I can hide it. So I can go up to about 100, 105 maybe 110

[00:07:04] kilos without people noticing but then when I dropped down, so that's a few years ago now,

[00:07:09] and when I dropped down to about 90-92 kilos people almost go like oh you're looking ill

[00:07:14] right because you start shedding weight and you know your cheeks kind of drop in and

[00:07:19] you get really slim. What I find, I can keep it around 95 to 100 easily so if I go a little

[00:07:28] bit over you know I just reduce a little bit of food I eat and you know but to really push

[00:07:33] it down to 90 or maybe even below 90s because it's not impossible because I can staff myself.

[00:07:39] So I'm very disciplined person, I staff myself but then you go back into the routine right so

[00:07:46] the kebab on a Friday night, you know a couple of beers more. I like my red wine you know and

[00:07:51] we all know red wine you know it doesn't have any calories whatsoever, no sugar whatsoever right

[00:07:56] so it's a health drink isn't it? It's grapes. It's good for your heart right? As the doctor

[00:08:01] says right look after your heart. I mean how do you keep it up without really restricting

[00:08:05] yourself? I mean do I have to live you know I deliberately say that like a monk right

[00:08:10] some bread some water and although monks used to drink lots of ale right so.

[00:08:15] They did and they are the mead and all that stuff. A monk typically in you know when you look

[00:08:20] at the character of a monk is a retund bald guy so probably not your best

[00:08:28] example for health advice but well how would you keep it up? Well you feed your, well

[00:08:34] first thing I'd like to say is it's not just about food and movement that's two parts of

[00:08:38] the equation but what food and movement do is they are impacting your cells at a sub cellular

[00:08:46] level and very specifically in your mitochondria which are these little organelles. You've got

[00:08:52] hundreds even thousands of them each single cell of your body except for red blood cells

[00:08:57] and they are responsible for signaling your environment and for energy metabolism and for

[00:09:03] antioxidant production and all sorts of stuff. So basically this focus on just calories and movement

[00:09:11] and food and biochemistry is misguided because when you go to look at and this is your question

[00:09:18] about the electrons perhaps it's about the easy passage of ample electrons in your mitochondria

[00:09:26] that creates something called ATP at the end of it and that's what your cell uses for energy.

[00:09:32] When it's not getting enough ATP because there's not enough electrons coming through

[00:09:36] or the little tiny nanomotors that are in this mitochondrion get clogged up then your

[00:09:43] cell starts to die and there's a backup of substrate energy or food if you like

[00:09:50] in your system that has to be stored somewhere stored as fat. So if you're getting bigger

[00:09:56] it's a sign that your mitochondria are starting to fail. If you're starting to get blind blood

[00:10:02] pressure if you're starting to have you know the early signs of heart disease,

[00:10:06] insulin resistance or leading to diabetes, prediabetes even your mood and is impaired then

[00:10:16] this is all a sign that at the level of your cells your mitochondria are starting to fail.

[00:10:22] Now that was a bit too much but the currency of energy that we should be talking about but we don't

[00:10:28] is electrons and when you see it through that frame you realize that you get electrons from

[00:10:33] the things you eat, you stimulate and revive your mitochondria through exercise but there

[00:10:39] is a whole series of other things where you can either get electrons or improve the function

[00:10:45] of your mitochondria or rather prevent the damage of mitochondria. In three words light,

[00:10:53] water and magnetism. So you don't have to starve yourself I do fast but I do it for let's say

[00:10:59] therapeutic reasons for the things that happen after about 24-36 hour fast about that's about

[00:11:06] cleaning up the side product byproducts of metabolism and about creating new cells in

[00:11:15] your body but that's I do that's a sort of a not very regular cadence. I don't go around

[00:11:21] hungry because when you actually know what food does to your body then actually you eat

[00:11:28] so that you don't get hungry and you're satiated for longer. I eat once to twice a day

[00:11:35] and it's perfectly ample. I don't get hungry. I mean my biggest feat so far in terms of let's

[00:11:41] say challenging myself was last summer I did a 48 hour fast and I went marching in the hills

[00:11:48] each day 30 kilometers without a single calorie in that 48 hour period and it was

[00:11:56] pretty much apart from the certain hangers behind my knee ligament

[00:12:03] soreness I could have carried on fasting for longer. So the problem with the life we live in

[00:12:12] we've evolved for about what 500,000 years 50,000 yeah when did we tell the sapiens come

[00:12:20] along about 70,000 years but of course we've been evolving for at least 64 million years when

[00:12:27] we stopped being furry animals furry underground mammals. We've evolved in an environment that is

[00:12:35] completely different to the one that we find ourselves now in the 21st century

[00:12:39] and in particular the last 150 years has completely changed the environment and the

[00:12:44] way that we live our lives. So we spend time indoors, we don't move, we look for convenience

[00:12:52] and comfort food. We're eating all the wrong food all the recommendations are completely back

[00:12:58] to front. We don't expose ourselves to cold and winter. I'm talking to us northern Europeans

[00:13:04] who are adapted for cold and winter. We don't get out in the sun or if when we do we put

[00:13:09] on cream and hats and sunglasses preventing the actual light from getting into our eyes onto our

[00:13:17] skin which our mitochondria absolutely need. So when you realize all this and you start taking

[00:13:23] action then in fact maintaining weight putting on weight is a sign of things going wrong when

[00:13:29] things are going right you don't put on weight so that's how I keep it going.

[00:13:32] So how do you lose weight? That's the other question then right because if you say

[00:13:37] you know when things go wrong you put on weight does that mean when things go right you still need

[00:13:43] a calorie deficit or how do you ensure you can lose weight? I mean I suppose you lose weight

[00:13:48] if you go out hiking and don't eat for 48 hours right?

[00:13:55] Yes you do and then for sure you know with one client he did 2 48 hour fast in November

[00:14:00] and he dropped you know he's towards the end of his journey but he's already lost

[00:14:05] by now he's lost about 29 kilograms but in November he was he was frightened of

[00:14:10] patoing which happens and that's by the way what happens often when you just do eat less

[00:14:16] move more is that it works for a bit and then you kind of get stuck because you're not

[00:14:21] actually treating the root cause which is the function of your mitochondria.

[00:14:27] So how do you lose weight? You focus on the composition of food so you're eating stuff that

[00:14:33] actually enables your body to gives your body the nutrients micronutrients that it needs

[00:14:40] and start working again you look at the but also it means you can eat less because

[00:14:44] you're satiated for more you look at the timing of food so you know in what sort of

[00:14:50] period of time are you consuming calories and how much of the time are you not consuming

[00:14:56] calories? If you think about our evolutionary pattern it would have been feasting and

[00:15:01] fasting and so we would have there be successful hunting the mammoth we would

[00:15:05] have had food for you know a number of days and then we might have gone a long time without

[00:15:11] nourishment. Hello it's Volker here I hope you enjoy this episode. You might not realize that

[00:15:18] I have been coaching for almost a decade through both third parties and private clients.

[00:15:24] During that time I've worked with brands such as General Electric, Imperial Brands, DHL and

[00:15:30] Pepsi. However this year I'm putting a big emphasis on growing my private coaching practice

[00:15:37] improving lives of middle-aged men in leadership positions. So if you hit midlife transition point

[00:15:43] and you might be a bit stuck or looking to improve your work-life balance, your career

[00:15:48] or productivity you want to build a new habit where you just want to become a better version

[00:15:54] of yourself please hit me up. You can reach me on volker.natus that's volker at obnat.us

[00:16:04] or linkedin whatever is easiest. Thanks and now back to the episode.

[00:16:12] We now eat 24 7 of course. Yeah snacking. I'm sorry David I know you want to say something but

[00:16:19] for me a big problem is snacking in between meals and I'm not snacking because I'm hungry.

[00:16:25] I was snacking because I fancy something salty, something sweet you know I just fancy something

[00:16:30] different and then of course you know I mean once you open the mini eggs out again right

[00:16:37] in time for you. These two already bloody hell. You know we'll back up mini eggs right.

[00:16:43] I'll just take one. If you could have got to eat the back we'd be rooting up to.

[00:16:49] Well that's what we're encouraging you know why I've won and the Pringles are so good you

[00:16:53] can't put them down or whatever the slogan is. Yeah well you know you can look at look at

[00:16:59] the I'm going to give you you know a key key tip that I always start all my clients on.

[00:17:06] Eat much more animal protein than you do currently. It's very I don't I'm

[00:17:12] obviously without looking at what you're doing currently it's difficult to say but

[00:17:17] very likely you're under eating animal protein. First of all there's a number of reasons why

[00:17:22] animal protein is really important. First of all it's highly bioavailable. It's and we

[00:17:29] digest a very high absorptibility by the body. Secondly protein is the building block of pretty

[00:17:36] much everything that happens in the body. Thirdly there's a thing called the the protein

[00:17:41] leverage hypothesis. It's a hypothesis that demonstrating now in more and more research that

[00:17:48] we crave food until we've had enough protein. Once we've had enough protein our craving our

[00:17:55] brain doesn't get the signal to go and eat. Yeah so that those are that's probably the sort

[00:17:59] of the key kind of reasons why. And you need to get rid of something called leptin resistance.

[00:18:03] Leptin resistance is to do with a hormone that's generated by basically it's a hormone

[00:18:08] that tells your brain how much energy you've got on board. But when you've got too much fat then

[00:18:12] you've got too much leptin and your receptors get resistant to the signal so that when we're

[00:18:20] asleep and our brain does it's got a daily accountancy it doesn't realize that it's got

[00:18:25] plenty of energy on board and so the next day we're still hungry. But if you want to

[00:18:30] miraculously get rid of this emotional eating then go and have your first meal of the day

[00:18:39] make sure it's like mainly protein, a lot of it and eat that first the first thing on your plate.

[00:18:47] Okay so kebab for breakfast with all the bread of course. Kebab for breakfast yeah why not you

[00:18:53] know. Kebabs are quite a handy thing when you're in town because whenever you go

[00:18:58] somewhere it's just rubbish on sale everywhere. So sometimes a kebab is handy because it is

[00:19:05] meat and with a bit of salad on the side. The only thing is what is the origin of that meat

[00:19:10] and what's the quality? That's the only problem right. I always think it's chicken cheese with

[00:19:16] salad with lots of pita bread is actually quite healthy right but yeah you just don't know

[00:19:20] whether. I don't know healthy but it's the best of a bad choice. Yeah sorry David you

[00:19:26] want to get a word in as well sorry. That's all right I've got lots of questions so I'll try and

[00:19:32] not jump around too much. I mean what you said about you know kind of our well how things have

[00:19:39] changed in society over the last 150 years but you know we're almost wired the same way that

[00:19:46] we've been for millennia. I wasn't even thinking about like today's podcast but this

[00:19:52] week I sort of had a lot a couple of random thoughts. One was you know when did we start

[00:19:59] eating three meals a day? You know and when did that become the standard? And also you know

[00:20:06] what are there many cultural differences in terms of you know I mean like because in

[00:20:11] western society which you know is a bit of a generalisation but it's you know either

[00:20:18] cereal for breakfast or you know eggs and bacon and then you've got lunch and then you've got

[00:20:24] dinner and it is well you eat because it's time to eat as opposed to what you've described as

[00:20:31] because your body needs it. Yeah do you sort of well are there many cultural differences

[00:20:37] and you know is there any kind of logic to the reason for us to eating three meals a day?

[00:20:45] There totally is absolutely. I wouldn't call it necessarily western style,

[00:20:49] I call it industrialised society because the same thing happens wherever the societies become.

[00:20:56] Take on this our industrialised society pattern the same things happen. You look at the massive

[00:21:02] epidemic increase in diabetes in China or India. They've gone from rural to highly industrialised

[00:21:09] to today technological societies and the whole population is suffering as a result.

[00:21:17] You can trace it back to about you know 10,000 years ago roughly when there was the

[00:21:21] so-called agricultural revolution when we learnt how to breed animals and

[00:21:29] grow crops and we could settle down more. We didn't have to be so mobile,

[00:21:32] we had a more stable food supply. So that's the first kind of milestone. Then you can look

[00:21:38] fast forward to the industrial revolution where people moved from the countryside where

[00:21:44] you know you're outdoors most of the time, you were getting up with the

[00:21:48] sunrise, you were physically active, you were eating you know lots of animal products and

[00:21:53] whatever grew in your backyard and you maybe ate only twice a day to the cities where

[00:21:58] you know the factories needed labourers and the labourers had to work you know in shifts

[00:22:04] and you need to feed those labourers. So what do you do? You produce bread

[00:22:10] and you know based on grains which are fairly easy to grow and quite easy to process and

[00:22:16] produce a large amount of calories but not nutrients to keep your workforce not healthy

[00:22:23] but to keep them going. Productive. Yeah productive and then 140, 50 years ago

[00:22:30] electrification happened so we ended up you know with houses full of AC currents. 50 years ago

[00:22:37] you know we discovered things like fluorescent lighting, 20 years ago LEDs came in then all

[00:22:42] these digital devices so we're filling our air with non-native electromagnetic frequency.

[00:22:48] We're living indoors 95% of the time not out in the daylight. We're because of artificial

[00:22:55] light we're able to stay awake for longer and be productive so I think it's all about the

[00:23:01] trend of productivity is what makes us ill. Unfortunately also decreases our productivity

[00:23:09] because we spend more days, worse mood, less energy, more health issues so it's kind of

[00:23:17] ironic. The other question I had was sort of just around fasting. I mean you sort of

[00:23:23] mentioned there that so you personally haven't gone longer than 48 hours.

[00:23:29] No I plan this year is my next challenge is to go on five days for instance.

[00:23:34] Right I don't know if you've seen the there was a TV series on National Geographic

[00:23:40] it's one of the Hemsworth brothers I think it was Chris Hemsworth the guy the guy that

[00:23:45] plays Thor basically he kind of put himself through all these sort of

[00:23:52] I don't want to say physical challenges but it was always all about increasing

[00:23:56] you know his longevity. One of the episodes was dedicated to fasting and I can't remember

[00:24:02] I think he went four or five days but I mean is there sort of a an optimum amount of time

[00:24:12] and sort of what are the risks and you know what are the benefits

[00:24:18] sort of not by an hour hour by hour basis but you know what is the benefit of a 24 hour fast

[00:24:26] versus a 48 hour fast. There's a kind of small fast really I mean in the end I mean once

[00:24:32] generally you've talked about the second thing I had to go with the clients is the

[00:24:36] timing of food so we eat for too many hours of the day we also eat out of sync with the circadian

[00:24:43] daily circadian rhythm of ourselves. The second thing we do is we shorten the window in which

[00:24:50] you consume calories yeah you might have heard of intermittent fasting or time restricted eating

[00:24:56] the point about that is that as soon as you put any food into your mouth doesn't matter

[00:24:59] it's a snack or a big meal you ramp up certain processes in your body that are demanding plus

[00:25:06] the actual digestion metabolism of food creates a whole bunch of side products by products that

[00:25:13] that need to be dealt with so if you're continually eating you never have that rest

[00:25:18] and digest time. You're always in this active mode of metabolizing food so when you reduce

[00:25:25] that to well let's say maximum 12 hours ideally let's say 10 apparently the sweet spot is about

[00:25:32] eight hours then you're giving your body 16 hours to deal with all that. Then when you go

[00:25:40] to like longer fast side 24 or longer when you extend it then things start to happen.

[00:25:46] I'll go through in a second what but one thing to your listeners I'd point out is

[00:25:51] that if you're on a high carbohydrate standard western kind of pattern diet then your ability to

[00:26:00] access your own body fat as a source of fuel is going to be let's say rusty. Before you start

[00:26:08] fasting you need to you need to reactivate your ability to switch between glucose metabolism

[00:26:14] and fat metabolism. I mean there's a reason we have glucose and free fatty acids in our

[00:26:19] blood. There's a reason we store fat it's for energy in lean times and we are physiologically

[00:26:25] in fact babies are born burning fat in fact they're in ketosis for up to like eight

[00:26:29] years of their life that's why babies are fat when they're born because their stomachs are

[00:26:34] too small to consume enough foods yeah so they use the body fat for everything from of

[00:26:41] course energy supply but also you know heat production etc they don't have a thermodynamic

[00:26:45] system that we have as adults they create brown fat from their white fat to to create heat so

[00:26:53] it's absolutely normal to burn fat it should be I call it the diesel I call it our standard

[00:26:59] long distance fuel your glucose essentially is for your fight or flight running away from the

[00:27:05] big animal that's going to kill me that's when you need your glucose but we have plenty of

[00:27:09] glucose in us for that stored in our liver stored in our muscles. Unfortunately we've

[00:27:13] turned into these kind of combustion engines that just run on high octane glucose and that

[00:27:22] causes a lot of problems so when you extend but once you get to the point where you can you know

[00:27:28] that 16 eights or whatever the the time restricted fasting pattern that you you start doing

[00:27:35] once you get used to that then you can start you know extending that gradually to let's say

[00:27:40] 24 hours to 36 hours 48 hours and what happens is that after a period of time without eating

[00:27:47] your body switches into different modes so the first thing that happens is something called

[00:27:51] autophagy which is literally from the greek eat yourself it happens actually should happen

[00:27:57] if you're metabolically healthy every night for a few hours you burn fat for fuel

[00:28:02] and sorry autophagy is eating yourself it's burning up or eating up

[00:28:07] and then you start disposing of all the exhaust and litter that your body has created during the

[00:28:13] day because day and awake and sleep are two different very two very different modes

[00:28:19] and sleep is there for a reason very different to the reasons we we are awake and lots of

[00:28:24] different things happen during the day and then other different things happen during the night

[00:28:28] to clear up that mess you don't want the mess around because that's when you start getting

[00:28:34] inflammation and you know cell reproduction gets out of control turns into cancer etc

[00:28:41] so you need to clean up the mess and autophagy is something that should happen every night but

[00:28:46] for a lot of people work because they're not sleeping enough or they're simply

[00:28:49] not incident sensitive and unable to to burn fat so that's just one thing that happens then

[00:28:57] a bit later on down the line you get things like apoptosis which is the programmed cell

[00:29:03] death our cells are you know cells are being replenished on a daily basis depending on what

[00:29:08] type of cell it is it may not be daily maybe monthly might be weekly whatever

[00:29:13] the periods are different so but if they but if they don't get the signal to say bye bye

[00:29:20] come and clear me out i'm dead then they stay there they linger and that creates inflammation

[00:29:26] and all these cancers and that sort of stuff so apoptosis again is something that should be

[00:29:30] normal but because of the way we lead our lives doesn't happen as thoroughly as it should

[00:29:35] so if you put in a 24 36 40 hour fast depending on your health status that when you do all this

[00:29:42] you will set off this process of cleaning out all the kind of defunct or dying cells

[00:29:48] and replacing them with new ones as soon as like 36 hours roughly you start getting new

[00:29:54] stem cells produce stem cells are you know the ones that haven't yet been programmed to do a

[00:29:59] function they're produced and then your body says okay you're going to be a liver cell you're

[00:30:04] going to be a heart cell you're going to be a hair cell or whatever and you get new cells

[00:30:09] so in fact it's like regenerating you're actually becoming younger if you can do that

[00:30:14] so uh that's that's a number of things the benefits of of uh doing longer fast sorry i'm

[00:30:20] just going to ask one more question then i'll let volker get back in and you go

[00:30:25] that's so much to learn you sort of mentioned well you know sort of the phrase how we live

[00:30:30] our lives is impacting you know the body's ability to carry out the process you've just

[00:30:35] described is that the things that we eat or is that the times that we eat i mean i

[00:30:43] i'm a terrible sort of snacker in the evening so i will eat often an hour before i go to bed

[00:30:51] whereas like today you know and i'd say this is relatively typical i haven't eaten yet um you

[00:30:56] know my first food would be well you know around one o'clock i mean like in in relation

[00:31:04] you're asleep and when you fast or well yeah is that the impact or would it be

[00:31:12] what i've eaten before i've gone to bed

[00:31:17] all those things plus the light you shine in yourself during the day the light you have on

[00:31:23] at home the devices we're talking on the temperature that we have pretty much temperate

[00:31:30] all year round etc so it's all these things so to go to directly to your point though um yeah

[00:31:36] it's what you're eating it's when you're eating if you eat the right stuff then you

[00:31:41] won't feel the need to snack certainly you want to be eating uh much earlier than than one

[00:31:47] hour before you go to bed for the simple reason that as i said it takes like four to

[00:31:52] eight hours for your body to deal with what you've put into so if you're going to bed

[00:31:57] with that those processes going on which is an active process let's call it or a

[00:32:03] waking process then you're not going to sleep well and it's going to impact all the things

[00:32:10] that are supposed to happen while you're asleep you said you know you it's one o'clock or

[00:32:16] in the uk almost um so you know that that's my kind of was my regular model not eat till

[00:32:23] roughly lunchtime in the winter that i discovered it's actually more beneficial

[00:32:28] and probably overall it's better beneficial to have your first meal in the morning

[00:32:32] once the sun's come up and then have a second meal at some point later in the day when you're

[00:32:37] hungry you talked about earlier now it's breakfast morning we have breakfast it's lunchtime we

[00:32:41] have lunches dinner time we eat by the clock but actually one of the i've got these 14 rules

[00:32:47] of golden rules of fat loss a folk i think you're getting so one of those golden rules is only eat

[00:32:55] when hungry which of course is difficult to fit in because you're at the office today david so

[00:33:01] you know everybody gets up at i know 12 o'clock goes off to have some some lunch so you go

[00:33:05] with them so so you have to find a way how to combine that with what a wife said man up

[00:33:11] man down is sponsored by well doing there's someone who has seen a counselor for a

[00:33:15] number of years i think their approach is great they want you to find the mental health professional

[00:33:20] who is right for you you can filter your search to highlight therapists with expertise where you

[00:33:24] need it or you can pay to use their personalized matching service the people who run well doing are

[00:33:30] experts in mental well-being and they also have loads of posts and interviews to keep your

[00:33:34] mental health in good shape take a look at welldoing.org one thing i wanted to say because

[00:33:41] i missed this opportunity earlier you know like like a fat monk i have bad habits

[00:33:48] all right anyway back to you volker you look like a fat monk or did i miss

[00:33:53] yeah well i do look like a fat monk it's a dad joke volker it's a dad joke

[00:33:59] so so many questions you say right i'm yeah i'm getting your newsletter and stuff as well but

[00:34:04] so the whole fasting thing is i'm trying to get my head around now what i need to do

[00:34:08] because i i stop eating at nine o'clock at night i don't eat until usually one ish

[00:34:15] the next day i take my supplements in the morning but you know i always skip breakfast

[00:34:19] because it's easy to skip then i have a huge breakfast right i mean breakfast lunch right

[00:34:26] so but i'm not losing any weight right so i know friends of mine they go like oh yeah

[00:34:29] do this intermittent fasting thing you know 16 eight and they just drop two or three kilos

[00:34:34] four kilos six kilos you know and i'm like i don't should i stop should i go back to my

[00:34:40] breakfast and my fry ups and without knowing more it'd be quite difficult to say exactly

[00:34:46] i'll spend the year it depends on what you're reacting as well and uh as i've said you know

[00:34:51] one thing one thing in winter you might like to try is going back to your especially

[00:34:56] if you know you don't have an office clock to to live by then is have a substantial breakfast

[00:35:04] don't know what time the sun comes up in the uk right now as far as about 10 o'clock

[00:35:11] no i didn't say when you can see the sun otherwise you know you'll never eat them but

[00:35:15] um but but when the light you know light comes and the sun is out there's about 7 30

[00:35:19] in this part of the world anyway yeah this time of year then have a substantial breakfast

[00:35:24] of protein and fat go out and see get yourself into the daylight first thing

[00:35:30] absolutely important it resets uh your your body's master clock and therefore all the clocks

[00:35:35] in your in your in yourselves then uh do you have your day if you can get out as well go

[00:35:42] for a 20-minute walk or something um at this time of year there's very weak or even no uv

[00:35:48] light so it's not that important but uh in the summer it's really important to get out also

[00:35:53] for that uv light and then in the evening at sunset at 3 34 o'clock what a time is ideally

[00:35:59] you would also get out so you can get that signal that the day is coming to a close

[00:36:04] and have your second meal ideally you know around four or five p.m and then after sunset

[00:36:12] either switch off your lights totally impractical light up your house with candles

[00:36:16] and lanterns a bit dangerous perhaps um or get yourself uh these bulbs that actually uh

[00:36:24] have no blue in them no blue and green or all glasses a bit like these these yellow ones are

[00:36:29] 70 p.m blocking for during the day when i'm looking at screens or under artificial uh modern

[00:36:35] lighting but after about 7 p.m not quite after sunset a bit later but after about 7 p.m i put

[00:36:42] on these red ones that are um 100 blocking blue and green because light is a signal i

[00:36:49] mean light isn't just a signal it's as much more than that but uh light is a signal um and

[00:36:54] depending on the spectrum of the lights which means the visible and non-visible which you get

[00:37:01] from the sun to the stuff you get indoors which is mainly peaked at blue and blue

[00:37:07] blue light blue light is strongest at midday in the evening you're telling your brain that

[00:37:11] it's midday um so not surprising that hormonal cascade that goes around on a 24 hour

[00:37:19] 25 hour cycle is completely out of sync and that's one of the all these things i mentioned will

[00:37:25] help you actually get that clock ticking properly and then your cells will start

[00:37:30] working properly and then you'll start to uh perhaps you know lose weight interesting so i

[00:37:36] need to read that because what i find difficult from what you just said is

[00:37:39] so if i didn't mishear you you skip literally lunch and you don't eat until four o'clock in

[00:37:45] the afternoon then you don't have a dinner until or you don't have dinner right so you you

[00:37:50] you eat early in the morning and then you eat that's kind of an optimal i'm talking about

[00:37:54] an optimal yeah it's like at about 7 38 o'clock have a substantial breakfast and then

[00:38:00] a second meal later on uh in the day at some point but of course we have families

[00:38:07] we have jobs yeah and so you have to find a way that's going to work but you definitely

[00:38:12] don't want to be eating later or later than three hours before you go to bed yeah and uh

[00:38:18] you definitely want to be ideally eliminating amounts of blue rich light uh hitting your

[00:38:24] skin and going to your eyes after sunset so yeah we we interviewed a sleep expert

[00:38:30] and and it's just something that i'd learned about before but how well i guess you know

[00:38:36] i sort of thought right i need to make sure that i can get as much sunlight as i can

[00:38:41] during the day and then i'll sleep better at night um i mean i didn't actually realize

[00:38:46] that you know there's a digestive or you know like a metabolic sort of aspect to that

[00:38:52] as well i mean again this is i thought that i had when i went out well as you say because

[00:38:58] this time of year you know there isn't as much sun and you know i find that it affects

[00:39:03] my mood i try and get out for a walk every day and i went out went out the other day

[00:39:10] and i sort of had my coat on i had a hat on and i was like actually how much sun am i

[00:39:16] actually daylight am i actually getting you know i'm like well if it was summer i'll be out

[00:39:20] of my shorts and my t-shirt whereas you know i'm like how much benefit am i getting

[00:39:26] so can you sort of just talk about that whether you know is it literally the amount of skin i've

[00:39:33] got on show is you know is is is that how much sun i attract so do you know

[00:39:39] totally yes so the the less skin you have i'm sure david the better it is i can tell you

[00:39:44] that already well perhaps for your environment but uh for you the more you've got out the

[00:39:52] better for sure but nevertheless in winter it's a bit different to the summer but in winter

[00:39:59] cold is a much more strong is a much stronger circadian input but nevertheless it's not just

[00:40:05] your skin it's your eyes the light that comes into your eyes you have visible light receptors

[00:40:10] we have also non-visible light receptors we need one the ones you have for vision

[00:40:15] and then you have these non-ganglion receptors that pick up light but you're

[00:40:20] not seeing an image in your brain they react to the type of light you're getting and they

[00:40:25] they monitor the changing uh spectrum strength wavelength of light and of course as uv comes

[00:40:34] and goes during the day they monitor what's going on so is your skin and uh your the

[00:40:39] ones in your eyes are directly connected to what's called the scn the supracasomatic nucleus

[00:40:46] that's in your hypothalamus and that's your master clock so basically they're sending

[00:40:49] signals directly to your master about what time of day it is what season it is and based on that

[00:40:54] sending signals to your pituitary gland they're they're sending you know internally signals to

[00:41:01] to all your cells which have their own clocks and they're setting them so if the best thing

[00:41:07] you can do in terms of getting out even in winter is get out in the morning in that early

[00:41:12] morning sun because that's going to reset your clock every day and the more consistently

[00:41:18] you can do that the better the effect will be so yes ideally you'd be going out there in your

[00:41:23] shorts shirtless on that freezing field wherever it might be but let's face it well actually if

[00:41:31] you did that would be great because it's also you're getting some of that cold effect

[00:41:34] as well but as i messaged volker the other day when i went out for a walk well because

[00:41:40] we've had a lot of snow oh i actually got my phone out to write a message to volker and

[00:41:45] immediately slipped over and got covered in mud but anyway that's a completely irrelevant anecdote

[00:41:51] um i mean you sort of talked about fasting and hiking i mean sort of i said to someone over

[00:41:58] christmas i'm like oh my new year is going to involve a lot of fasted like cycling i mean

[00:42:05] obviously you've said it's not necessarily about calories in and calories expended but

[00:42:12] i mean what is sort of a you know exercising low a low aerobic long exercise in a fasted state

[00:42:24] is that i say better but i is that more likely to generate weight loss than high intensity

[00:42:31] stuff or is it you got to mix it up let's let's put aside the the the fastest day first of

[00:42:37] okay that's separate um yeah one thing that a lot of people do is they get on that treadmill and

[00:42:42] they pound away for half an hour at a higher heart rate if your goal is losing fat then

[00:42:50] that's going to be detrimental low uh low intensity steady state is the way to go

[00:42:57] and that means that you're keeping your heart rate below a certain level

[00:43:00] uh called the lactate threshold so it's when your body is able to deal with the lactate

[00:43:06] being produced and it's not overcome by lactate and you don't start going into

[00:43:10] the the anaerobic process of glucose burning or even fat when you stop burning fat you start

[00:43:18] burning more glucose we're burning both fuels at the same time just in different proportions

[00:43:23] depending on how fast our cells need to do for the respiration during exercise so

[00:43:29] there's a guy called philip maffatoni oh he's looking him up he's great um he's he's big

[00:43:34] on this he's an ex-ceo he's still a trainer a sport an athlete trainer of athletes sportsmen women

[00:43:41] and you will notice that even elite sportsmen do a lot of low intensity steady state exercise

[00:43:49] off season because it actually in the end it helps build up their VOT their their lactate

[00:43:54] thresholds actually pushes it higher and the higher you can push your lactate threshold

[00:43:58] the more endurance you're going to have when you when you actually go into your race for us

[00:44:02] that's irrelevant what you need to know is that if you stick below a certain level

[00:44:08] of heart rate then you won't be getting beyond that lactate threshold and in fact

[00:44:13] i tried it first time i came across this i did an experiment i just went jogging

[00:44:17] monitoring my heart rate below for me it was about 127 beats per minute and the experiment

[00:44:23] was just to see how far i could how long i could go and after about two hours and 15

[00:44:28] minutes i i stopped because i was bored mindlessly bored going around the in the part of the

[00:44:34] circuit and my phone battery was running out so i'd run out of music so um you know but i

[00:44:39] didn't feel tired at all i felt i could have carried on forever knowing and what's you and

[00:44:45] you know and know that when you do that you're actually with taking out your bloodstream fatty

[00:44:50] acids and of course you're using glucose and both of those things require body to replenish

[00:44:55] the levels and where is it going to take it it's going to take it from your fat stores

[00:44:59] to the fasting point i don't know exactly um i don't think this antiviral has has identified

[00:45:07] whether or not it's more beneficial in a faster state or in a fed state so you know i

[00:45:12] do i find i do exercise with more pleasure and that's really important um when i'm

[00:45:22] in the fastest state but that's my personal experience but the key thing is

[00:45:28] if fat burn is your goal keep below your lactate threshold all right we could we could carry on

[00:45:37] and on i have so many more questions well i take three months with my clients getting

[00:45:42] through all this so you know it's yeah so i think what i suggest to all the listeners first

[00:45:47] of all is to to say to add to my questions i still have right and to maybe collect a few

[00:45:54] questions and get you get you back for round two there's this there's so much to find out

[00:45:59] because it's not as easy as you know i thought not as easy as calories in calories out right

[00:46:05] exactly so you know there's i mean i you know i don't eat i go to the gym in the

[00:46:10] morning and everything else right but i think it's it's a cheese and a wine that's that's

[00:46:15] one of this really but a highly fascinating topic as well and i think so relevant right i mean if

[00:46:21] we look at obesity rates and you know see not only in this country in the uk you know if i

[00:46:26] always say you know i lived in scotland for a while i think the child obesity rate in Scotland

[00:46:30] is higher now than the child obesity rate in the states so if that's the case or not um

[00:46:36] fact check it somewhere else but you're gonna get sued by Scotland for making such outrageous

[00:46:42] accusations it's a fright miles pass right although they're high in fetch right and we

[00:46:48] think we need to have a high fetch low-calc diet but anyway i love that country by the way

[00:46:53] that's a disclaimer but no we we see so many people unfortunately that are overweight and

[00:46:58] can't keep it off and that's to say i can hide it you know i don't have to join the

[00:47:02] fetch football club which we haven't talked about in this episode at all and well yeah

[00:47:07] just to explain to Roderick i play football on a Friday but it's man versus fat football so you

[00:47:15] have to be a certain level of you have to have a certain BMI to be able to play but um yeah

[00:47:22] it's my first one of the year tonight so i'll be getting on the scales and seeing all the

[00:47:27] damage from Christmas so uh but i'll certainly be putting all uh well and actually i've got

[00:47:32] myself booked in for a health check next Wednesday so i'll be getting all my

[00:47:38] cholesterol and everything uh so maybe uh with all that data we can come back to

[00:47:45] and see how long i've got to live very i think you know answer any specific questions

[00:47:52] we can have a look at your data uh this is something i do with clients is you know

[00:47:57] look at that and uh and yeah absolutely yeah on the notes of clients um you know shameless

[00:48:04] fuck obviously for you as well but you know where you know if someone wants to join your

[00:48:09] fortune program where can they find out more i mean i get the newsletter and uh

[00:48:13] you know i'm always that close to signing up but i'm like you know we talk about that

[00:48:18] offline uh but what's the best way to get in touch roderick yep absolutely so my my my

[00:48:24] links page is called midlifemetabolichealth.com it's all one word midlifemetabolichealth.com

[00:48:31] there's a whole bunch of like free stuff there and and and client testimonies and that sort

[00:48:35] of thing so so go and have a look there uh and i'm most active on linkedin where i post

[00:48:40] almost daily uh stuff around all this is i see it's kind of a way of getting out the message

[00:48:47] getting tips as well of course it's also the business drumming up business but um

[00:48:52] so so those two places uh and if you want to email me directly it's very simple it's roderick

[00:48:58] at midlifemetabolichealth.com really and we put all that in the show notes as well

[00:49:04] and uh yeah thank you so much for your time that was so insightful to say we

[00:49:08] you know we always often see that we need to get someone back for for round two but i think

[00:49:12] yeah there's lots more questions we need to ask you thank you so much

[00:49:16] i'll be happy to ask and thank you for the invitation

[00:49:22] thanks for listening to this week's episode feel free to reach out to folker or david

[00:49:27] via our website www.manupdown.com or podcast at manupdown.com with any feedback

[00:49:34] or to let us know what topics you'd like us to cover in the future hear you again soon