2 studies we can't ignore
Good morning everybody. Hope you had a good weekend. And if it went terribly wrong then forget about it. We don't mourn you. We just crack on with whatever we got ahead of us.
Speaker 1:So just today, so we just gotta keep going. There's no room here to waste time thinking about the weekend. Even how good your weekend is, don't try and extend it, don't try and fall, oh I wish the weekend was longer, but it's not. Right? So enjoy it for what it was and let's get on with today and enjoy today instead as opposed to dwelling on the past.
Speaker 1:So the first thing I want to share a few studies with you today. A few studies I've come across on the weekend, know, real fun weekend this year, working on the app, making sure it's right, getting all the, making sure the Turtle SmartMind algorithm is up to date and all this stuff. Real exciting weekend down here. Did have a few pairs though, so that was that was good. Not conference pairs.
Speaker 1:I did see a few of them about I was gonna bin them. But I've had a very good weekend in fact. Know what like, I think we are restricted when we think the only thing that's good on weekends if you go drinking, I think it's flawed. But anyway, let's get on to these studies, I'll show up all that stuff. The first study is on before and after photos and it's a troubling revelation.
Speaker 1:So losing weight makes you healthier is a claim that is often made right and there is science behind this that if people with higher BMI's lose about five to 10% of their body weight it's been shown that this will reduce depression, cardiovascular disease risk, it'll improve mobility, sexual function and improve markers of polycystic ovary syndrome in some studies. So you know of course that is health benefits and five-ten percent of the body weight isn't extreme right so that just proves to you there's meaningful health benefits from moderate weight loss even for people with high BMI's. Okay that's great news because we don't have to lose a huge amount straight away to see the health benefits. The bad news is a study looked at was that and it was a study done, a research paper by the UN, SW Sydney and Australia that most people don't believe it. So most people don't believe there's benefits of losing a bit of weight.
Speaker 1:They're saying, nah, you gotta lose loads. You gotta lose it all. There's no point, Scott. You know what I'm saying? Know what I mean, Scott?
Speaker 1:I need to lose it all yesterday. And if I haven't, then I suck and my health isn't going to improve. That's what we think right and it's very flawed. So the study asked 600 people to look at before and after weight loss photos and each participant was shown the before photo of a woman categorized as obese by the scientists. However, they didn't see all see the same after photos.
Speaker 1:Some were given the original before photo showing no weight loss. Are you sneaky researchers? A photo showing moderate weight loss and a photo showing a major transformation in quotes. Then the researchers asked the participants to estimate the woman's overall health. Here's what the study found.
Speaker 1:Participants rated the woman who had major transformation as significantly healthier than a woman who had the same who was the same in both photos. But the woman who achieved moderate weight loss, she wasn't rated any healthier than the woman who didn't change. So based on this, the researchers spec speculate people may expect and desire major weight loss because they believe it's necessary to improve their health. Yet, they say statistically speaking major weight loss isn't likely to happen. The annual probability of a woman categorized as obese losing enough weight loss to achieve a normal BMI is one in a hundred and twenty four.
Speaker 1:However, the annual probability of that same woman losing a modest amount of weight is one in ten and when you follow something like the turtle method it's even higher I would suspect. So the problem is right, the researchers looked into this, is that we've got diet culture is to blame for this again back to it has created these huge expectations and they set you all up for disappointment. They show you dramatic before and after photos and you think and you link that to a healthier person. The amount of stories from before and after has been all the way back on even in the worst it mentally is there's so many of them out there that we don't see them because we are only focused on all that change that physical change. We think a physical change equals overall health change and it's not.
Speaker 1:We know yo yo dieting is extremely dangerous. It needs to be put up as dangerous as smoking, know that type of labeling like stop doing this. This is as bad as smoking. I don't know if this damnation will work with the government but it's as dangerous. And we keep linking huge physical changes, photos with health and it's not the case.
Speaker 1:Only need to lose a bit of weight over time and a bit more over time to achieve the health benefits of weight loss and we need to do it in a slow and steady manner. The reason I bring this up is because remember it is before and after season, it is coming in your inbox. Your inbox is gonna start flooding in with transformation, lost 100 pounds in four days and all these companies are gonna show you huge transformations and you're gonna start going oh my god yeah. Just remember the aftermath of those photos is always bleak. In most cases, always bleak.
Speaker 1:Our mental health, we need to focus on is our mental resilience, mental freedom, mental clarity improving at the same rate if not quicker than the weight we're losing. And that's what we should be focusing on. If we're feeling better, understanding our mind more, understanding our thoughts, not judging ourselves, losing weight slowly, feeling better in ourselves and more energy to do the more important things in life. Right? You can't measure on the photo.
Speaker 1:Can you? It's impossible. I'm not sure how we can measure in a photo. This is the trouble with regards to it. Look, how do we measure this type of success?
Speaker 1:I mean people can say it. But it's something intrinsic that only you know about. So remember that, remember that. Don't fall for these before and after photos. They're just them.
Speaker 1:I know we've used them in the past. Hypocrite come in here. We've used them as a company in the past and mentioned before. We thought in a sense we have to do it because people need to see results and you need to trust us. I just don't think it's a step move forward and you know make sure every single one's removed from the website.
Speaker 1:Well I think they're all off the website if there's any floating about we'll remove them. Okay. Another study I want to share with you guys. You're have a study Monday. They looked at diet war.
Speaker 1:That's the study name, diet war. Fasting versus Mediterranean versus paleo. Okay. Let's have a look in. New paper done by the University of Otago in New Zealand.
Speaker 1:In the study, two hundred and fifty people who were classified as overweight or obese selected one of these diet approaches, intermittent fasting, the Mediterranean diet, or a modified paleo diet. They were given extensive written resources, thirty minutes of face to face instruction from a trained researcher and an exercise program. Then off they went for an entire year with little to no ongoing support. Idea is to mimic what happens when people adopt these diets in the real world. You might see your favorite influencer, favorite celebrity, favorite whatever, say they're on this new diet, you might try it and then there's no support and they just try it.
Speaker 1:So it kind of is true that's how people do adopt new ways of eating. Would one outperform the other is a question. How many would stick to the diet? Okay. So study snapshot.
Speaker 1:155 women, 95 men, average age 43, average body weight ninety five kgs or that's two eleven pounds, average BMI thirty three. Okay, so intermittent fasting. So let's define these things. So intermittent fasting studies, study participants could fast any two days a week of their choosing. On the fasting days, calorie intake was limited to 500 calories for women, 600 calories for men.
Speaker 1:Their fasting day meals could be anything they wanted, but they were advised to select foods rich in protein and low carbohydrate vegetables. On non fasting days participants could eat whatever they wanted but were given a general recommendation to follow a sensible healthy diet. The Mediterranean diet guidelines were based on the Harvard's healthy eating pyramid and emphasized high amounts of fruit, veg, whole grains, breads, cereals, legumes. Is that how you say how legumes? Legumes, nuts, seeds, olive oil with moderate amounts of fish, chicken, eggs, dairy, and red meat once a week.
Speaker 1:Right, everything in. Modified paleo diets. Participants were instructed to emphasize fruit and veggies, animal protein, coconut products, butter and extra virgin olive oil and to avoid grains, sugar and processed seed oils which is canola and margarine. To improve adherence however some full fat dairy could be included as well as one serving of legumes and grain based foods. That's why it's not modified, restrictive you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's what the study found right. So fifty four percent of the people opted for intermittent fasting and fifty three percent of them adhered to it you know and the adherence is we stuck to it for twelve months even if they didn't follow the guidelines. I don't really know if that's a adherence, but they basically said they tried it if it was on and off forever. So fifty four percent picked it to mid fasting, fifty three percent of those people that picked it adhered to it, they lost eight pounds. Okay, eight pounds in a year.
Speaker 1:So you know how much is that? I don't know. Mediterranean twenty seven percent of people picked this and they had a fifty seven percent adherence and they lost six pounds for the year. Modified paleo eighteen percent of people picked this, adherence was thirty five percent and lost four pounds Okay, so intermittent fasting was obviously the most, popular choice but the Mediterranean diet had the most adherence, right? Intermittent fast has lost the most weight, paleo diet has lost the least.
Speaker 1:So remember the phrase I used there, the study said intermittent fasting people could eat whatever they wanted, but two days they would be restricted calorie wise but they could eat whatever they wanted. No food is off. Modified paleo they could only eat literally fruit veg, animal protein, coconut, butter, extra virgin olive oil. Sounds horrible like this was terrible. And here's an interesting stuff, right?
Speaker 1:Paleo diets had, paleo dieters had the lowest intake of ultra processed foods. Intermittent festers ate the least fiber and the most ultra processed foods. Even with that they ate the least fiber, most ultra processed food, they still lost more weight than the paleo dieters who would be considered to eat more of the unprocessed foods. Blood markers didn't really improve health markers nothing of significance happened, right? So the thing is when they look into this study you have to look at the split of the men and women who picked the diet and what you found was the 55 of intermittent fasting people were women and seventy four percent of the paleo people were women.
Speaker 1:So the more women in the group the least successful it was. Does that make sense? So there possibly is a difference here. Women and men are different we know this and when it comes to like food choices, deals, training and all this type of stuff. So the study would have been better if it was just women or just men, right?
Speaker 1:Because intermittent fasting was fiftyfifty man, man to woman and the paleo was you know three women to one man, right? So maybe men, if there's more men in the group who were BMI of thirty three plus in on average, men have got tend to be heavier right because they're bigger, know, bigger taller. So there is potential for more weight to be lost with men. So the more weight lost can skew those numbers of most weight lost over the year. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Like there was a bigger potential of weight loss because of the men. So I'm not sure in a sense that intermittent fasting is better without than the other two, but it's quite clear that you know from this study that it is and this mainly due to the fact that they had open field in terms of the foods they could eat. They had slight restrictions. But here is the interesting part guys. I haven't got to the interesting part right.
Speaker 1:Here is the very interesting part. So weight loss. This was a twelve month study right? This is, this is the kicker. Oh, this is the kicker.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to deliver it. In the last six months of the study those in the intermittent fasting and paleo groups gained weight. Paleo, no sorry people on the Mediterranean diet lost just 1.5 pounds over the final six months. These results are similar to other diet studies that don't provide ongoing support. Early on progress is encouraging but over time adherence stops.
Speaker 1:So much so that after a year weight loss tends to backslide and be underwhelming. So here's what happens. Whatever diet you do, whatever diet you do, it can come off at the start and then six months on nothing moves, right? So they lost the eight pounds, six pounds, four pounds in the first six months and then no progress for six months even though they kept trying, right? The interesting part about this is because they don't know what's actually happening for the fat loss.
Speaker 1:They don't know what's going on. They think it's the magic diet right they think oh it's the intermittent fasting that's making me lose weight. No it's not. It's the intermittent fasting putting you in a calorie deficit that's making you lose weight and guess when you've lost a bit of weight your maintenance will drop right and if you're not adjusting your calories and macros right and tracking your steps you are going to be clueless because you don't know what to do next. This is the problem with MyFitnessPal, this is the problem with Weight Watchers.
Speaker 1:Weight Watchers you should go on email us they say all about the right stuff, no progress over perfection, eat all the food you want, don't restrict yourself. Say all the right stuff and they say, you know, don't restrict yourself, track. They claim that tracking is heavily linked to weight loss, which is true, right? And they want you to be, they say something like they want you to be honest in their email. I'm like, how about you be honest, weight watchers?
Speaker 1:Stop hiding behind your stupid point system. Teach people the truth, which is that protein counts fat calories. Why don't you change the company to stop the bullshit of the points, stop making out this your point system that makes people lose weight, matter fact you're just putting people into a calorie deficit. That's all that's happening and you magically add in all this confusion so people think this magic system works and he's stuck in this bullshit system forever and ever and then you can't get out of it. That's what happens.
Speaker 1:Now these other diets, it's the same thing that happens. You go on paleo, you think it is the paleo that's made you lose weight. No it's not, it's the calorie deficit. Whatever diet works puts you into a deficit that will cause fat loss. So instead of being sort of bullshitting people about do this, do this, do this, got special effects, there's so many studies now that there's no difference if you're low carb, high carb, low fat, whatever.
Speaker 1:The things that need to remain and is clear is moderate deficit so about 500 calories a day from your thing which is what we put you on. High protein to maintain muscle mass and make sure that you're not feeling starving all the time and that over time he steps in. And after six months without ongoing support these diets collapse. These diets collapse because they don't actually know what's going on. And because you don't know what's going on you can't make the adjustments.
Speaker 1:Well guess what we've done. We've created an app that will make these adjustments for you. These are the app we've built with our turtle smart mind algorithm. We'll make these changes for you over time. You don't need to worry about what change you're gonna make whatever.
Speaker 1:We tell you look, here's your macros, here's your step state, all this stuff and then after you do a check-in and maybe for a few weeks or whatever we notice that okay maybe maintenance has dropped and you know results are slow and we say look we've dropped your macros a bit to make sure we keep that deficit going explain it to you and you go okay that's why. And you can go off and do it yourself if you want, know, but it's much better that we have a system that looks at all of our data points, not just weight, we look at steps, we look at menstrual cycle, we look at stress, we look at how you feel emotionally, we look at your symptoms, we look at, how your clothes are fitting, all this stuff. And we have a really smart algorithm that's learning. So there's an algorithm that learns from this with the end with a goal we fix on to it. Look, look, we want people to achieve this type of these types of results, low stress, decent fat loss over time but not too much and you know this and that we feed and we say this is the end but like in between are the changes unique, completely unique because depends on the person.
Speaker 1:So just remember that you will meet people in the next few months, your friends, your family who are going to start these diets and they are going to lose weight fast because that's what happens. And they're going to tell you and brag to you about weight to lose in. And they might say, How much are you losing on your plan? And you go, Well, I'm taking a slow and steady. Well, I'm losing all this.
Speaker 1:And your mind will go, Wow, I want to lose weight fast as well. Just remember, give them a few months. They'll stop, they're clueless, they have no more education on themselves, they've got no self knowledge, they know nothing about protein, carbs and fats, calories, they know nothing about energy expenditure, know, they literally know nothing. They are so blind and they're kept blind on purpose. So that's the interesting stuff guys.
Speaker 1:No matter what, even with intermittent fasting, all this type of stuff, even with intermittent fasting being you can eat whatever you want, it still has that limitation where it's not actually teaching you anything. Is saying eat this for this and that for that, good luck, happy days go away. And you go away and you go, yeah, it's not working anymore, what's going wrong? Is something wrong with me? Nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 1:You're the foundations I've been taught. So that's my little Monday rant for you guys. Just remember, the least restrictive way of eating is going be the best flexible approach. That's where you build the tools. You can eat whatever you want, hit your macros, you don't even have to hit the carbs and fat goals we've given you.
Speaker 1:You can change them to whatever you want, you can lower your fat, increase your whatever, right? Just try and make your protein and the calorie goal we've set. Checking, let the date app analyze your date, happy days, whatever you do between. Free, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. And remember like this, the point of this entire thing is not for it to take over our lifestyle and plague our brain by thinking about all the time.
Speaker 1:Have to think about stuff a lot to learn to start with, like you drive a car, have to think a lot to start with and learn. Then once you know to drive a car, you have to think about it so much again. In fact, we probably don't even think about driving at all anymore unless, know, when you drive in. Kind of like that. Once we get into that mode and we've learned about ourselves, it's it's it's far easier.
Speaker 1:Right? But we want to be doing it in the way that's least restrictive freedom and you're on that path, you're on the freedom path. That's the best path to be on. I'm not sure there is another path when it goes to diet and as soon as you start bringing in some form of this versus that food, that food's bad, elimination, all this stuff, then it starts going down the same path as every other diet and eventually will join their ranks and fight each other. So we've to watch out for that.
Speaker 1:But guys, that's it. I'm done for today. Enjoy yourself. Get your one big thing done. Use the app.
Speaker 1:Use the morning entry in the app please. When the new update comes it's so much nicer to use but please use it because it grounds you in the today grounds you in the morning. You get your one big thing done. You get that done. Trust me you do your one big thing once a day for three sixty five days a year.
Speaker 1:Imagine doing three sixty five one big things. It's mad. That'll change your life. So focus on your one big thing, get it done, put a smile on your face and I'll see you on the radio.
