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Language: en
some of the common foods that people are
consuming that they think are healthy
but actually are
not you know this is where I think we
all get confused by the surround sound
of marketing of things that are
supposedly healthy and I think that you
can think about like uh uh diet sodas
being better than regular sugar sweeten
regular sugar sweetened sodas not true
diet sodas with artificial sweeteners
damage our gut health which then damages
our metabolism which can actually have
tremendous impact in our body's
metabolism another one is fruit juice uh
look I enjoy drinking the taste of fruit
juice but when you guzzle fruit juice
which many people do it's a problem I
give you an example a I love oranges uh
especially when they're in season during
the winter I love eating a regular juicy
Sweet Orange I I love all the fiber in
it I love the taste of the whole Orange
um and and it's very sweet uh but a
single orange is very nutrient dense I
could guzzle it would take me a few
minutes to eat an orange but I could
guzzle down a tall glass of orange juice
which it would take eight oranges to
make in 30 seconds right and so that's
an example of where you can easily
overload um the sugars the the fruit
sugars by having a tall glass of its
juice instead of eating the whole fruit
so that's an example like lots of fruit
juices and some of the fruit juices you
get in a store are also sweetened and so
people don't check the ingredients to
look at all those other additives uh
that are in there uh as well you know we
know that coffee and tea are also um
healthy beverages but if you take a look
at some of the flavored coffees you know
the drive-throughs you get your handed
that special seasonal version with the
pumpkin or whatever um you know a lot of
those flavors as tasty as they may be I
I even like them you know they're
artificial they're AR they're
artificially flavored artificially
sweetened uh and and that also takes a
something that's healthy and makes it um
frankly not just less healthy but
actually unhealthy uh another example
would be plant-based um Foods you know
the plant-based burgers that they talked
about that everyone says is a healthier
version than uh a you know a regular
burger well look we we know that Ultra
processed foods that you'd buy any
anywhere are not good for our overall
health in fact it compromises our
metabolism when we eat too many Ultra
processed foods and although something
that might be
plant-based uh sounds healthy in fact
when it's ultr processed it winds up
being something less than healthy and
Falls squarely in the box of ultra
processed foods and so it's sort of a
bit of buyer beware be careful of what
be careful about not being snowed by the
marketing messages that are out there
understand what we're looking for uh in
terms of healthy foods and kind of
exclude everything that's that's not
yeah I appreciate you outlining some of
those common foods there you know as you
were talking there Dr Lee the word that
came up for me was Nuance there's a bit
of nuance here tea and coffee are
healthy drinks for most people lots of
these Blu Z around the world are
consuming tea coffee and water as their
main drinks as you write about in your
new book but they're not probably
putting in the syrups and all the
flavors and all the things so coffee can
be healthy for some people in the right
dose at the right time potentially can
turn into something quite unhealthy
depending on what you're putting in it
and this whole idea of ingredient labels
I think is something that will come up
time and time again you write about this
beautifully in your book what about
something like bread I think bread fits
into this bread is one of those foods
that is consumed all over the world but
there are probably some breads that for
some people are Health promoting whereas
others are not so good are
they you know it it's so true I'm glad
you brought up the idea of bread I
actually think of bread and wine as two
categories of foods that date back to
the origins of our Humanity right so
basically when humans started to put
together their societies thousands of
years ago we fermented grapes We Made
bread they're some of the elemental
foods that that characterize um sort of
human society from a cultural sense and
one of the things that I think is quite
um challenging is first the quality of
the ingredient that goes into uh the
product so for bread as an example uh
the the least expensive softest longest
lasting breads that you can buy in the
grocery store in the supermarkets are
the ones that are made with the lowest
quality of flour and that have lots of
other preservatives added to it to allow
it to kind of survive the the the the
centuries like some of these breads
probably could stay uh intact in a
pyramid you know for thousands of years
uh I kid you not and so and yet those
are some of the cheapest ones that
people are are are accustomed to maybe
from childhood your our mom might have
fed us this and made our sandwiches out
of this and we become accustomed to
having cheap bread that's one thing is
the quality of the grain used for
something as Elemental as bread second
is really that you know whether we're
having whole grain or whether actually
Ultra processed uh flour can also make a
difference there's lots of different
types of of of grains uh that can be
used to make bread and then of course
there are some uh historically important
breads like sourdough which in fact has
uh uh microbio biome probiotic starters
that are good for our gut health for
example like lactobacillus rout it
happens to be one of the starters it's
found in our gut bacteria it's actually
developed over the centuries of humans
making sourdough bread generation after
generation to develop its own probiotic
bacteria uh that grows right in the
bread itself in the little dough that
gets pinched and saved from Baker to
Baker and passed down through the
generations um so I think that there's
also Nuance as you say and then of
course there's something that's maybe
less Nuance which is
volume a little bread probably is just
fine but eating bread the way that we
are often served bread or accustomed to
eating bread which is wolfing down large
quantities of bread that clearly like
anything else uh uh that is is consumed
in excess definitely can compromise our
health yeah I appreciate you sharing
that it's interesting what you said
there about
quantity this is something I've learned
about in my own life not necessarily
dealing with the patients of course
that's taught me a lot over the years
but I have experimented with wearing a
CGM for a couple of weeks a few times a
year not all the time but now and again
and I have learned whether it's white
rice or bread the quantity makes a huge
difference on the impact it has on my
body and so so that device for me has
been a really great learning tool to go
hey you know if you want to enjoy this
you can but if you want it to not cause
long-term Health consequences maybe just
go easy on the volume and the amounts
and you know what I probably changed the
amount I was consuming let's say white
rice for example let's say I'm going to
have white rice in the evening with my
meal which I grew up in an Indian family
it's a it's a food that I grew up eating
but can actually have a really small
amount now and enjoy it and actually not
see it impact my blood sugar so that's
been really quite amazing for me have
you experienced things like this
yourself as well and I guess is that
what you're getting at with
quantity yes I mean you know I I'm so
glad you brought the the continuous
glucose monitoring as a
non-invasive way for us to measure
ourselves I mean you know the the this
and I think this is where the future's
going give us the ability relatively
easily to see how we're doing from from
moment to moment day to day is super
helpful uh for me uh a simple device
that I've actually experimented with
similar to is a I don't know if you've
seen these uh uh it's like a
breathalizer for whether you're burning
carbs or fat it's called a Lumin device
yeah um and uh it's it's quite
interesting uh the the the fact that it
breaks down a respiratory equivalent uh
for for your metabolism just through a
breathalizer you know if a policeman can
pull you over to the side of the road
for drinking too much alcohol why can't
we actually be at home and measure in
the morning as as I sometimes do
occasionally just to check in to see how
I've been done and to your point
exactly I found that when I'm actually
moderate and and mindful in what I
consume not only in terms of what but
also the quantity of of of how much I
ate I do better and that's actually a
positive reinforcement so you know I
think these little signals that actually
help us get smarter about our own
behavior and what's good for us it's not
a big ask it's actually a very easy
thing to do yeah it's it's interesting
what we've just been talking about how
we might be able to use Tech or you know
all kinds of things blood tests whatever
it might be to actually learn what's
working for us and what's not working
for us I think really speaks to the
message in your new book which is very
much one of
personalization you've done a beautiful
job at outlining I think 150 plus Foods
in that book right these foods are going
to help you burn fats they're going to
help you lose weight give you more
energy whatever it might be you're
looking for these foods are going to
help you but you really beautifully put
across this idea which I'm a huge fan of
that you have to personalize this for
you if some of those Foods on that list
you don't like or don't fit you and your
culture and your upbringing that's okay
you know there's other foods you can
focus on and you know you're not
prescribing an actual diet per se in
this book more I think a way of eating
and you're trying to help people with I
guess some some base principles I think
you say in the book actually Dr Lee that
you prefer people to be mindful eaters
rather than prescriptive eaters
100% I think one of the thing that makes
diets fail and by the way my title my of
my new book Eat to beat your diet is a
trick title purposefully it's not a diet
book It's actually an anti-diet book
which is why it's called Eat to beat
your diet the science tells us that if
we eat mindfully and if we make good
choices and we actually think about the
volume sort of what we eat and how we
eat we can use the equipment the
hardwire the operating system that's in
our bodies to be able to work on our
behalf without going to these extreme
fed uh interventions fat diets I mean
you as you now know it it goes crazy
when people are we're in a we Society
obsessed with weight loss whether it's
uh you know prescription drugs for
weight loss uh or whether it's sucking
out fat from your cheeks there's lots
and lots of intense things that people
do the problem is you know they don't
last and for for me a healthy diet is
something that you can actually is
sustainable uh you can enjoy it it can
become second nature and I think one of
the things that I also want to add to
your um idea of the the just the
opposite of prescriptive diet and a more
natural personalized diet is aligning
your life patterns your eating patterns
with what gives you Joy because food you
know is different from supplements or
medicines you know we talk about food as
medicine yes food is medicine but food
is in in so many ways but yet food is
not medicine because nobody gets Joy
from actually taking a medicine if I
wrote a prescription or you wrote a
prescription or and you gave me a
prescription and I went to the pharmacy
to fill it out and I started taking the
pills or I went to a hospital to get an
infusion I guarantee you it's not going
to give me joy but if we were to have a
conversation about foods that can
actually activate and Elevate our body's
natural processes to help us become
healthier
and we can pick among those food
ingredients and combine them in ways uh
that that do are delicious and do bring
us joy that's something that would be
wonderful uh to be able to adopt and
that to me is what's important
yeah yeah it's it's very clear from
reading this book and your previous one
to be fair that you are a foodie that
you enjoy cooking you enjoy observing
different cultures you like putting it
all together so there's a real Joy I
think in reading the book because your
love of food absolutely comes through
really beautifully there's quite a lot
of new science in there a lot of the
time I
feel people think well we know
everything there is to know now we just
need to do the things that people are
telling us and while some of the
principles I guess we know about there's
quite a few areas of science around
metabolism and brown fat which I thought
were really really interesting that I'd
love to explore with you before we get
to that wonder if we can talk about guts
health and weight loss and in particular
fat loss you've touched on it a couple
of times already in terms of the
probiotics within certain breads one of
the foods you mentioned at the start
which can be problematic was diet soft
drinks and again a lot of people will
say well why Dr Lee you know surely
that's better than my sugar sweet and
soft drink and this all kind of speaks
to Gutta so I wonder if you could talk
to these themes a little bit and help
people understand what that relationship
is right well gut health is something
that you know we we live with gut health
until our guts unhealthy right all of us
have experienced this we feel perfectly
fine we don't think about our gut health
until we have that crampy bloated gassy
uncomfortable feeling that's our body
our gut telling us there's something
wrong in the neighborhood of those 40 39
trillion bacteria living in our secum
which is really the final part of our
colon and the thing that is really
remarkable is what do these gut bacteria
do for us when it comes to our
metabolism well we're just beginning to
peel back the layers of the onion to
discover how important gut health is for
our metabolism for example we know that
a properly functioning neighborhood
ecosystem of gut bacteria our microbiome
As We Know actually helps makes our uh
our body's ability to use insulin and to
absorb glucose more efficient now let me
just expl put that in the context for
your listeners in terms of something
that they probably have heard about but
maybe didn't connect with gut health so
every time we eat food we put it in our
mouth our pancreas releases a hormone
called insulin and that insulin combined
with the food that we've absorbed
through our stomach into our bloodstream
draws the energy into our cells so that
we're actually able to use that energy
from the food we eat in order to power
our body now our gut bacteria actually
helps to contribute to how smooth that
process is when our gut bacteria is
unhealthy the ecosystem is Disturbed
think about how easy it is to disturb a
beautiful pond in your backyard if you
were to take a gallon of dish soap and
just start pouring it into the pond
you're going to start poisoning some of
the tadpoles in the frogs and the
natural Wildlife there and and the pond
is not going to be healthy that's
basically what happens when we consume
things like diet sodas it's been shown
now that many of those artificial
sweeteners non-nutritive sweeteners when
we consume them alter our gut microbiome
they change the neighborhood and how do
we know that this actually has an impact
in our metabolism we know this from
clinical studies because ironically even
though people drink diet sodas so they
don't gain weight uh with with sugar
ironically many people do gain weight if
they consume enough diet soda so if you
poison your gut microbiome sufficiently
and you and you disrupt your metabolism
sufficiently even though you're having
quote diet soda that's just the name on
the can the reality is is that we're
actually changing the biology in our
body in such a way that our body is
actually going to start to grow uh body
fat and use our food our fuel source
much less efficiently so many other
things can actually disturb our gut
health as well antibiotics which are so
commonly prescribed overprescribed
perhaps might be the right word to say
in in many societies um I think that uh
overc consumption of alcohol can clearly
interfere with your gut microbiome ultr
processed foods all those things back to
the reading the ingredient label that we
don't do enough I mean honestly it's
it's not a big deal to pick up something
that you might put in your shopping cart
but just take a moment before it goes in
to turn the box to the side and look at
what's actually inside it if you don't
recognize those ingredients if you can't
pronounce them think are these
ingredients potentially impacting my gut
health my gut microbiome and if so could
that have an adverse effect on my
metabolism that is something that we
should all be thinking about as we just
cruise through the shopping as through
the supermarket putting things into our
car
yeah hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
see you there