Q&A with Dr Aman Chungh & Members
Hello, hello everyone. Oh, Christmas tree is looking Why is that so weird? I don't know. I don't know. How's everyone doing?
Speaker 1:Cath, you're on camera. Anyone else on camera these days? Aman is here by the way. There he is, Gareth. Few people joining, so I think it was about 20 people saying they were joining, so I'll give it a few minutes.
Speaker 1:Kath, how are doing then? As you are in the the video? Can you hear me?
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Hi. You good? Have you been doing the challenge or?
Speaker 3:Are you talking to me?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing the challenge.
Speaker 1:How's it going? What's your Lean2 score?
Speaker 2:Probably not as good as it should be.
Speaker 1:You know, I'll let you know.
Speaker 3:I think it's about 90.
Speaker 1:It was yeah. Oh, bloody hell. Happy days. Hey, Scott on the train, but go and listen in. Gareth, don't you worry.
Speaker 1:Enjoyed the train. So we got Doctor Aman in town. He's now on cam.
Speaker 4:Hello. Hi. Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1:How are doing? How are doing?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Good. How are you?
Speaker 1:Not bad. Not bad. I thought I'd give you a Christmas tree view this time. That's good. Do know what mean?
Speaker 1:Can't be not doing this before Christmas. Is your audio a bit low, Aman? No.
Speaker 4:Mine. That's good. Good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's good. I think we give a few minutes before we start the official Q and A if anyone's got any questions but it makes sense and people listening to the podcast because they'll go out to the podcast tomorrow. For you Aman to maybe just explain a bit about yourself, we started working together and go with that.
Speaker 4:Yeah so I'm Doctor Chung, GP by trade. I have a quite varied and diverse background prior to becoming a GP, but since becoming a GP doing not a huge amount of general practice now and largely I work between a job in preventative healthcare, working for a big health tech firm, I work in a private clinic where I treat lots of people very much holistically but part of that can involve weight loss consultations, whether that includes GLP-1s or not, varies. So, whether that includes hormonal treatments or not can vary as well. But then that also leads me on to the other side of what I have an interest in, which is men's health. We first worked together I'm trying to remember the name the business that you run alongside Parrotpur, what's name of the business?
Speaker 4:Turtle. Turtle, yes sorry, I had a mind blank. So I first came to your Turtle events, think you had like a sports day and then came and gave a talk at one of your weekends away with Turtle at Forest in Wales. Loved it, you've got a very strong community there and I suspect you're building a similar thing here with Parrot, which is I'm not alone in saying that it's a strong part of anything like this for it to work for people having that community around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They just morphed into parrots now. So we're I think we need another animal, maybe turtle parrot and
Speaker 4:But you haven't got any pets. That's the weird thing about it.
Speaker 1:I love dogs. Dogs might be a dog. I can't call people dogs, that's a bit too much. Arts is kind. But I think we start off though, got I know Inhal, I'm sure I'm sorry if I'm not saying your name right, Inhal messaging the group this morning and I suggested to join the chat.
Speaker 1:So basically, say, and I don't know if you want come on, Mike and Alan, you maybe explain where you're at, the message you sent, and then maybe we can have a little childbirth. I think the community is very powerful. If you don't know how to unmute, I know I'm not trying to sound patronising but some people might not see it, but I can see now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Hello. Good morning from Australia.
Speaker 1:See that's cool,
Speaker 2:that's cool. Yeah, so I've been part of Parrot Pal for just over a year now, and yeah, it's made such a difference in my life, just the structure of it and the simplicity, and just had the worst, worst set of things that have happened to me over the course of the year, and felt really isolated, because I was just beginning to come through it all and being you know really resilient and then fell down a load of stairs and fractured my patella, so I'm legs in a brace, I'm housebound, and just, I was like, what do I do? I'm so isolated, I have nobody, and so I've just reached out and said, you know, is there a support group I can join because I just feel, yeah, I just feel so lost to be fair, so I reached out and here I am sitting in bed having a coffee and listening to you guys.
Speaker 1:Welcome, man, what have you got to say about that type of injury, and what is the path there?
Speaker 4:So I mean with a patellar fracture, like you said, how long has it been?
Speaker 2:It's my third week now and I go back in on the twenty ninth to get another x-ray, and then in that, when that happens, if it's starting to heal, I'll get, they'll give me 30% more rotation that I can, you know, bend my knee, yeah.
Speaker 4:So you're in like a hinged race?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so, yeah, so that's it, I mean, you fell down a whole flight of stairs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, eight, eight concrete steps and just literally flew down. Yeah. You know how normally you hit, you put your hands there or whatever to, put nothing, I just flew and landed on my knee.
Speaker 4:I can imagine your frustration because it would feel like a really slow process, particularly if you're on a really good trajectory in terms of your health and things. But on the other hand, I would say falling down eight concrete steps and only breaking your patella is quite lucky. Know, like if you could have smacked your head, could have hit your back, had a spinal fracture, had a head injury. Actually patellar fractures are very much recoverable and once you're out of this year down the line it'll be a thing of the past. Whereas if you had a spinal fracture, if you'd hit your head, which is very common concrete steps and falling down eight of them, then that's something that perhaps is life changing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I completely get where you're at but I would say try and keep positive because it could have been lost. Yeah,
Speaker 2:I get all that. It's just when you're stuck at home, you can't drive, you can't go anywhere, it's just yeah, you spiral a bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would definitely say whilst you're at home doing that, in terms of being active you obviously can use your upper body, So do all the upper body exercises you can, if you've got any weights use some weights. So you're keeping active and then keep your mind healthy and do all the mental health things you can for your well-being. So mindfulness meditation you have to do things that resonate with you but out of the options I would say things like mindfulness, things like breath work, finding things like sound baths online, that sort of stuff will just help you stay sane whilst you're stuck at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I've been doing all those things, I've got all the apps, I've, you know, I've been journaling, I've doing that. I think it's, I mainly reached out because, yeah, just not having anyone to speak to, just felt really quite lonely, because work is where all my friends are at work. But it's been interesting, there's only one person at work that's reached out to me and that's been a little bit tricky.
Speaker 4:Anyway Do you
Speaker 1:think the Christmas time is making it a bit worse? Because I know Christmas time for people does make things better or worse depending on scenarios.
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I feel
Speaker 1:you on that one. I think you're getting through Christmas with the injuries, going into the new year, perhaps you'll have good news end of the month, so you might feel a surge of feeling better with a fresh mindset when Christmas is over, everyone's not going on about it, and we're back to normal, and we're back to the new year. For me, I feel a lot better actually Yeah. After Christmas and before it usually, just so I can crack on. But I feel like, everyone's going to slow down now, not just you being slowed down over Christmas, we're all sprinting ahead on results and stuff, but I feel like a small community, like people in your circle are not reached out, you've got a small circle.
Speaker 1:What else in your circle is there? Is there anyone you've like, family members or?
Speaker 2:Not really, cause I'm from The UK, and my family are in The UK, and you know, they've been Whatsapp ing me, and then another good friend of mine is, yeah, she voice notes me twice a week, we voice note each other, that's been amazing. But it's that, you know that when you're used to people coming round and dropping in for a cup of tea and just chatting, not necessarily about, you know, my knee or anything like that, but that sense of community, I haven't got that. I think that's where the struggle's been for me.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, and that sort of goes back to my introduction as well because I noticed that with Turtle Method how strong the community was. It sounds obvious now to say it but we're all very busy, we're all leading very hectic busy lives and you forget the importance of people in life when you're so occupied. But yeah, having that community, having people around you and I'm sure you've got people around you but sometimes you need different people to talk to and you don't want to keep saying the same things to the same people over and over again. Yeah, it's good that you've reached out.
Speaker 4:Scott's just disappeared but I was just looking I can see that yeah I think he's gone but I mean was there anything else that you wanted to say about it in how
Speaker 2:No, no, I'm happy to just sit and listen in.
Speaker 4:Good. Well, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thanks. I'm just having a look at the chat. So, Kirsten popped a question there. Do you have any advice on weight loss in menopause? I'm flooded with ads for supplements on Instagram.
Speaker 4:Read so much about cortisol. Constantly reading the traditional ways don't work anymore due to hormone changes, it's also confusing. Thank you Kirsten for your questions, good question. Think it is really difficult, losing weight is obviously all about hormones. Whether you're going through menopause or not, hormones are such a huge influence on whether someone can lose weight or not and the body almost conspires against you whilst you're trying to lose weight.
Speaker 4:To stop you from losing weight is very difficult, but particularly when your hormones are out of kilter it becomes a lot more difficult to lose weight. So with menopausal weight loss, obviously you've got basic everyday dietary lifestyle considerations, but then you've got a big part of it which is the hormonal considerations. My first question would be are you on any hormonal treatment or any treatment at all? So are you taking HRT Kirsten or are you taking any weight loss drugs?
Speaker 3:Hi, I couldn't find the chat box. I'm on HRT.
Speaker 4:You're on HRT, okay great. By all means just disclose as much as you feel comfortable disclosing. But is that a combined HRT, taking oestrogen and progesterone?
Speaker 3:No, just oestrogen patches. I had hysterectomy, full hysterectomy about eighteen months ago. So I was sort of slammed straight into menopause and have really kind of, well, yeah, I lost a lot of weight initially after the operation just because of going through that kind of operation. And then put weight on quite quickly and just have not been able to lose it at all since then. And I use the turtle app, I have had parrot pal as well, but I use the turtle app more.
Speaker 3:And I will admit my calories aren't consistent because I'm a bit of a sugar addict. But I kind of, yeah, I just feel like I just read so much about cortisol and a constant hearing all the normal weight calorie calories in and out doesn't work anymore when you're in menopause and just that constant stream of confusing information then you I don't know just it doesn't help you be consistent with what you're doing because you're just constantly thinking what's the point this isn't going to work. Yeah is the whole cortisol thing true? Is there anything else that I should be doing? Is it literally about calories in and weight training and you know the same systems?
Speaker 4:I would say it's about all of that they all have their place. With regards to HRT, so when your oestrogen levels plummet in the menopause you are more likely to gain central fat, your insulin sensitivity reduces, obviously things like sleep is all over the place, energy levels plummet, you become anxious with poor sleep, your body goes into a fight or flight mode and starts to tell you you need to survive, therefore you need sugar. And so there are all sorts of things on the menopause side that will make it difficult to lose weight. Definitely if that stuff is not there then it is to an extent a case of simply looking at colours in and colours out. But then the other thing you touched on was to do with cortisol and cortisol is, as I'm sure you know, a stress hormone which also promotes that central abdominal fat as well.
Speaker 4:So, going back to your question, of the things that you raised are valid and they're all correct. Part of the and the core of the problem is to correct the hormonal imbalances to try and reduce your body from making it so difficult for you to lose that central weight, which you've already started to do. Would say that what's really important for you is to make sure that your symptoms that you had before you started HRT, so if you write them down, just go through them one by one and just see if they've all got better. And if they've all resolved then the dose of HRT1 is correct. HRT is a difficult science and not done particularly well as a consequence and not taught particularly well.
Speaker 4:So often people will get started on HRT and then just left on it and usually there's not a very good system to check-in, see how you're doing on the symptoms, we need to increase the dose? Also the guidelines to some degree a bit dated, so you might get put on a dose and then it can't go any higher whereas actually you'll see lots of people in the private sector who are being put on much higher doses and are seeing much better results. Firstly see how your symptoms are and if you feel they've got better then I would say your hormones are probably now in the right place. From a cortisol stress viewpoint, from that side of things it's a case of trying to do everything you can to combat stress. So if you are extremely stressed just generally with work and life, then again going back to the things I mentioned to inhale, trying to ensure you're doing things like mindfulness meditation, breath work, but also exercise is the big one.
Speaker 4:I appreciate when your hormones aren't in the right place and you're going through the menopause, one of the common symptoms is you don't sleep well and if you're not sleeping well the chances of you having the energy or enthusiasm to go to the gym is going be very low. But if your hormones are in the right place and the HRT is working for you then getting yourself in the gym doing some mindfulness, doing some breath work, doing some yoga, all of that will help manage the cortisol levels. And then the other thing is that if your hormones are in the right place actually your body should respond to how much you're eating. But if that calories in calories out thing isn't working for you then maybe just focus a bit more on something that will work specifically for you. So, some of us it works very well to perhaps have smaller portions.
Speaker 4:Some of us it works very well to cut out certain snacks. It's just trying to work out where your diet can be tweaked and optimised in a way that is something that you can sustain. Lots of people will talk about things that work for them, which is fine, but it won't necessarily work for you. So, I'd say it's all about tailoring your approach to what's going to be sustainable for you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, that is really helpful.
Speaker 1:I'm back. I'm back. Lost signal. But I'm back in town. Thanks for asking the questions Kirsten.
Speaker 1:Good information for people. I know menopause comes up a lot. Let's have a look at the names here. If anyone else here by the way has any advice for anyone that's asked questions do pop it in the chat box as well, so anyone that is going through Christmas, feeling no support, gone through injuries, common boy has helped you as well. But a good one man is stressed probably like, you know, wouldn't so suggest people read this over Christmas is a bit of a big book, Why Zebras Don't Get Elseas by Robert Sapolsky, but I think because everyone says stress is bad, I think everyone thinks that just any stress is bad, but I think like acute stress is normal, like you meant to have stress acutely, but not prolonged by chronic overthinking and stuff.
Speaker 1:So I think when I look at the research and we look at what people are doing, Powerpow Turtle, a lot of managing calorie intake comes down to emotional regulation and stress management as much as it is the other way around. So a lot of people, there's a study showing that if you have five hours of sleep a night versus plus seven hours of sleep a night, the group that had five hours of sleep a night ate three eighty calories more roughly the next day than the other group. And it all came in the evening after dinner, so like pre bed TV type feed in. And that was a result of the undersleeping the night before. So you're right, if the sleep isn't coming in and you're not getting at least Let's be realistic, some people got kids and all, let's try and get seven.
Speaker 1:Not to get nine or eight, let's try and get seven at least. The problem is you go on WHOOP, and WHOOP will say, you've been in bed for seven hours, you slept six hours. So what's the definition of sleep here? Is it total time in bed? Is it actual light sleep plus REM plus deep?
Speaker 1:Or is it just resting? Like, I don't know what, Aman, if you've come across any like, you know, I don't know, suggestion there, but it seems to be a strong link, like emotional eating is something people say they do a lot of. Like, think that's why GLP-one is helping it, like they take away the noise, and then all a sudden people losing weight. Well, now because you've got no emotional response to food anymore, you just don't care about it. So you just eat like rather picky here and then maybe you will decide to eat more nutrient dense food because the Mars bar does nothing for you anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What do you think?
Speaker 4:There was something you said there that I was gonna comment on. What your question again? What was your Oh yeah, sleep. You mentioned about the sleep I don't know if I was going say
Speaker 1:that again.
Speaker 4:What constitutes sleep? So I think that the main thing that constitutes sleep is the cycles that you have. So starting the night with a cycle that is longer and has more of your deep sleep to REM and then slowly reorganising that over the course of the night. I think we've lost him there. Let's have a look.
Speaker 4:Are back?
Speaker 1:Back now, back now, sorry.
Speaker 4:So I was just saying that I think that what constitutes sleep is definitely having cycles of sleep with deep REM light sleep that change in their frequency, change in their duration over the course of the night and change in their structure over the course of the night is what's key. So whether that's key for short term or long term I'd say both. If you're having that cycling and you're having the right amount of deep REM then you're not only going to wake up feeling refreshed like you slept, but you're also going to reduce your risk long term of dementia, heart attacks, strokes. So I think that's the important thing. I always like to ask people just a couple of questions, a couple of quite simple questions.
Speaker 4:One is how long do they sleep? Do they wake up feeling refreshed? And do they wake up needing an alarm? Obviously you've got to balance pragmatism against perfection, but perfection would be based on all the evidence eight hours of sleep where you wake up feeling refreshed and you don't need an alarm on a regular basis. And most people will say they don't get that, it's pretty rare that you meet someone who gets that.
Speaker 1:But But eight hours of sleep might mean nine hours in bed, isn't it? Yeah. I think that's a important point that maybe I've noticed anyways tracking sleep like I need nine, ten hours in actual bed to get the sleep I need. Because about at least one hour of my sleep is like awake to the night being awake, it's not like five minutes, know, so you have to factor in. Pat says how much deep sleep should you get each night?
Speaker 1:I seem to have not very much mostly light sleep and some REM REM.
Speaker 4:So to be honest I'm not sure exactly how many hours, not very much, mostly like sleeping some REM. I'm not sure how many hours. In fact I've got it just here, bear with me. This is a good book and I don't know if you can see that. You see that?
Speaker 4:No, it's all blurred. Basically it's a called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and I'm pretty sure it will say it in how many hours, but I'll put it in the it's quite an interesting book.
Speaker 1:Yes, think with sleep, sleep is one of those things like when you start thinking about it too much before you sleep, you actually get worse sleep. And then you're trying to bloody improve your sleep and you could put the WHOOP on. For me, the first few weeks when my sleep was worse. I was like, oh shit, I better be sleeping because my woop will be thinking I'm not sleeping and then waking up going, what the woop say? So the track in the sleep's hard.
Speaker 1:Don, we did see you there on the camera. We had another face in the chat, but there he is. How are you doing?
Speaker 5:Doing well, sir. How are you? Sorry I missed last week, but just catching back up here.
Speaker 1:Not bad. I mean, not bad. A strong American accent going on over there.
Speaker 5:That's right. Probably one of the few. What percentage of your people in this challenge are across the pond?
Speaker 1:I think we're overall on on parapal. We're actually about 4040% UK, 40% US, 10%, 15% Australia, Canada, you know, the the British Empire, basically.
Speaker 5:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, how's it going with you? What are you so you when did you join though? A while ago.
Speaker 5:Parapal, I probably got a social ad for it back in May. So So I've been using it, and I guess the mindfulness has been the biggest piece. I chatted that a couple weeks ago. And the connection here, I'm still catching up with some of the integrations you have for LeanShield connected with Parapal, but it's the mindfulness is key. I think gamification is great, But just trying to build those strategies and that 1% better kind of idea of building routines is helpful.
Speaker 1:100%. What have you found in the last what have you found shifted in your life then? What have you been what's, like, the
Speaker 5:Just I I guess I've always kinda gotten in the weeds with other like, MyFitnessPal and and calorie tracking and whatnot. Never really stuck until I really started with just the overall calorie totals and protein. And, again, pushing for protein, like so many have said, I think really gets you focused on if you focus on protein first, everything kinda falls into place from there, and it does fill you up. And that's been the biggest piece is not getting caught in the weeds and kind of the trends because everyone's got a solution and an idea. But if you look around any crowd, I don't care what people are saying.
Speaker 5:It's the fruit they produce in their life that really tells the tale. So I think keeping things simple has been the biggest piece.
Speaker 1:100%. I think with Aman Zena, when you talk about sleep, it's the same thing. Sleep is such a boring topic.
Speaker 5:Oh my gosh. It's ridiculous. It's superpower. No
Speaker 1:one really wants to take it seriously. I don't know why, but it really is the data. The same with like, I suppose, Man, you probably speak to people like a lot, you could make 20 changes to your life, maybe. I mean, you could come, someone can come ask for advocacy, you do all 20 things. But really, no one's even doing one thing consistently, you're saying, Dan, calories first, protein, sleep, steps.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you do that, you're ahead of 99% people because they're doing scattergun of one thing a month, or they're trying to do 20 things and doing one thing. Rahman, what are you saying about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I think that when I initially started to get into preventative medicine, I looked at these pillars of preventative medicine and thought well you can't tackle one without tackling all of them, I think like many people do. But the reality, like you say, is that you can't tackle all of them, it's impossible. In fact you could probably even not tackle three of them properly. And so my approach now is actually I really value sleep at the top of the ladder and so I work towards getting the sleep sorted. There are some basic things that some people miss out on, like staring at a screen like we are now before bed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there are lots of basic things that people miss out on. I met someone the other day really on top of his training, used to be a Team GB triathlete and he came to me for a consultation to try and optimise what he's doing and there was a simple thing in there. We talked about sleep actually, everything he's doing was optimised but the one thing that I picked out where I could offer some advice was sleep and he was having a nap in the day, much every day, twenty minutes. You know the things that you put your legs in to help your legs recover. They're kind of like inflate, translate.
Speaker 4:He'd put those on for twenty minutes and he'd have a nap for twenty minutes as well as his sleep hygiene being poor. So, I think I think for me sleep is the best one to crack first.
Speaker 1:100%. And there's a comment to you by Gareth as well I think is a good one to tackle, he's saying that since joining Parapai, he's been doing two to three runs a week. Now he started lifting weights twice a week because of lean shield. It's good. Good stuff.
Speaker 1:Running is good for me mentally, so I don't wanna give it up. I'm conscious that combining endurance and resistance and dieting could lead to overexertion of injury. How should someone think about balancing those demands in a sustainable way? He's working towards a half marathon, staying healthy. So on that one, on terms of training volume, probably one of the leading experts in exercise science is a guy called Lyle McDonald, he's an American guy, a bit crazy, but he is the number one guy.
Speaker 1:When he came on to do a He used to do weekly chats with us back in the day, he say, If you want to improve something, you want to do it about three times a week. And if you want to maintain something, you can drop the volume down to like once a week. So in your case, Gareth, maybe because you're trying to do a half marathon, maybe you do three runs a week, but one weights a week. And then when the marathon's finished and you want to focus on improving muscle and strength, maybe you do one long run a week and then a light run, and then two workouts. So you would flip them depending on your goals, and your goal clearly is half marathon.
Speaker 1:But strength training will for sure help you running. The app Runner, you probably heard of it if you're running, maybe not, they introduced strength training as part of their app. One of my friends was one of the founding investors, and he mentioned most running people didn't even bother with strength training. So I'm not sure it's going to cause overexertion if you do one or two workouts a week. I just think your calories can't be too low and your protein needs to be high, your deficit will need to be in a good place and then also your sleep.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, if you want to optimise performance, being in a calorie deficit is not going to optimise your performance. So four weeks out of a half marathon, you should not be focusing on losing fat. You probably shouldn't be focusing on losing fat towards a goal if that's the main goal anyway, because you're kind of two contradictory goals. You're not giving your body the energy it needs to basically maintain what it's doing, plus you're pushing it to its limits in a way, and then you're trying to do two things at once. So have a think about that maybe closer to the goal.
Speaker 1:But man, what were you saying?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I completely agree with what you said. Don't think that let me just have a look I've read the question as perhaps a concern around overtraining and ending up with the body being exhausted and actually going the other way where you're fatigued, you're not sleeping well, your heart rate's going up. I think that with what you've described I wouldn't be concerned around overtraining as long as you've kind of gradually built it up from where you might have been before you committed to the half marathon and you've not sort of gone gung ho overnight, then yeah I wouldn't be too worried about that.
Speaker 1:Also if your lean shield score is high then you're in a good position, because basically for anyone, maybe needs a recap, if your lean shield score is high, it just means your muscle is protected essentially, or you're in a much better place for muscle protection based on the research, you know, the training stimulus, the calories and the protein are in good order. So Gareth, that's probably a focus on the running as well. Big one. Thanks for the question. Let me know if there's any more.
Speaker 1:Let me check-in the comments here. Yeah. There's nothing else now. But, yeah, back on the on the stress front, like, so someone will come into you and say, I'm worried about cortisol going higher. And then you say you're managing sleep.
Speaker 1:There's books from like the 1920s, 30s, Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, and it talks a lot about that stress is the silent killer, ninety percent of The US population it says is like, they're secretly dying from stress. There's some talk that like pancreatic cancer is called like the lifestyle cancer, and it happens a lot over the years and years of maybe stress and alcohol, whatever. Like what's your view of chronic stress? Like do you think that it does that? It enables it?
Speaker 4:I think the stress and inflammation are intrinsically linked and I think we're starting to gain a more general consensus now that inflammation is the basis of most if not all disease processes that we know. Yeah, think it definitely does have an impact. Whether it impacts some diseases more than others, I don't know. Wonder if things like cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, I wonder if it has more of an impact, I'm not sure. But yeah, definitely, I mean, I think it's really hard to measure stress with cortisol levels alone because cortisol levels fluctuate so much from day to day.
Speaker 4:If you go and exercise, your cortisol may go up a bit. If you're stressed your cortisol might go up a bit, but it's impossible to know and it changes throughout the day anyway, there's a natural cycle, natural rhythm of it. I think monitoring cortisol levels is really difficult to do but I think going back to one of your points earlier, I think firstly you have to differentiate whether this is a kind of healthy stress on the body which is actually great for your mitochondria and your risk of those diseases. But if it's chronic stress then you just I think you have you know, you take a view on it, know that you're under stress, you can feel you're under stress, there are lifestyle factors that are creating stress for you. And then it's just a case of trying to do things like there's all the basics, you know, making sure that your diet is balanced, you're having lots of antioxidants in there, maybe you're taking supplements where you can.
Speaker 4:I'm quite a
Speaker 1:big What's your view on psychological stress, which is maybe fixed with mindset work, maybe stoicism is your operating system, maybe it's cognitive behavioural therapy more specifically, maybe it's Buddhism. Don't know, like the psychological alarm, on the response.
Speaker 4:In what way?
Speaker 1:Like say you know someone doesn't really live a stressful life, they are chilled, watching TV, it's not stressed, but they're always worrying about something. They're in the group chats, they're worrying, their heart rate is running, they love drama, they're getting into it, they're talking to you, they're doing it, everything's a problem in their life. They see everything as a problem, they're never happy, and they're always wound up.
Speaker 4:Have you got someone in mind? Yeah. Is he asking for a friend?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Who's this? Who's this one? It's not always on the rate, but like, it was interesting because I bring it up because the Robert Sapolsky in his introduction to the stress book he wrote, he talks about how chess players are going through just as much strain as a Formula One driver going on a bend in terms of the strain on their on themselves, stress, chest, they're not even moving. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's the mental stress.
Speaker 4:That's interesting. I think that like the the thing about on the surface is like the duck's legs going for it under the water. I think that regardless of what it looks like on the surface, if beneath the surface active, your mind's very active and you're very worried, that's the bit that's generating those hormonal and then consequently heart rate and blood pressure changes. That's the bit that is influencing your mitochondria and your risk of free radicals starting to damage cells. So I think regardless of what it might seem like externally, that type of stress is still personally, think that's still very significant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Because that's the thing they don't measure on like, for example, we measure your stress in terms of your heart rate going up or your training, but it can't measure your psychological stress, like many times you've worried a day. I don't know how A lot of people probably aren't stressing their bodies that much in terms of like, they're overtraining or overworking, but they probably stress themselves out with maybe drinking alcohol in the sense that's gonna put a stress on the reaction to it or overthink everything. I think you see it all the time in the park, park group and stuff, a lot of people that join, the first thing people do is panic over the calorie targets they're given, and they go off on a tangent like, I can't believe it, it's too high, oh my God, I'm never gonna like really just run off the rails and just start really panicking immediately about a set of numbers I've on the screen. If you really break it down, it's like, can you explain numbers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, use the explanation. Very rational, really, we would like to be but for some reason with nutrition and our weight loss journeys and stuff, we become very childlike, say, very irrational. And it doesn't help.
Speaker 4:Yeah, think we've had lots of advances in medicine to make us live longer but unfortunately the state of the world and lives and pressures has definitely gone up and lots of people are now very anxious even from young ages. You see children with anxiety more and more so is although we've advanced I think on that side of things we have regressed a bit and it's good that now there's so much focus on it, there's so much focus on longevity and preventive medicine because we will start to address that. But I think we're kind of at the start of that journey. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1:one to think about, I think anyone you're going to eat, anything that's happened psychologically would leave a comment or we talk a lot about stoicism as a model, I think is great in terms of day to day living and stuff like that. When it comes to young teenagers, it's hard because they've got teenage mind, you know, the frontal cortex doesn't fully turn on until you're like mid 20s or whatever, decision making part of the brain. So that's a big thing. But I think as well, most people like Dean was saying last week, so Dean is like have you met Dean? Or no?
Speaker 4:What does Dean do?
Speaker 1:He's like, used to work for the GB Olympic team, he's like a mindset coach and all this stuff, and he was talking about like, you know, people's mental models and, you know, how you operate and how your values and stuff are. And I think most people haven't thought about it. They just think that every thought that pops in the brain is actually real and sound and just like take it all seriously as whatever, and haven't zoomed out a bit at all from any thoughts and just very reactive people. A lot of people online would say NPC behaviour, you know, just like tuning away on reactive awareness online in real life la la la, not even one day you think, do know what, let me think, do an ACT as mentioned to Dean last week, levels, that's the one, cath ACT. I know I get massively stressed about things which aren't important at work, which aren't important.
Speaker 1:Why is that? Kirsten, what's going on there? Maybe something else underlying it.
Speaker 3:Oh, no. Just if I make a small mistake, which I even if I notice it and can correct it, then I still totally beat myself up to the point where I'm just like can feel myself physically shaking and like I know it's a huge overreaction and it's stupid and I would tell anybody else that that that nothing bad has happened and what I'm doing is not a life and death job anyway and you know it's that but I think recently I've I've just that side has been getting a
Speaker 1:lot
Speaker 3:worse And then I do and then I totally stressy. I head straight for the chocolate. So it's a vicious cycle. But
Speaker 1:There it is. What has anything helped with it at all?
Speaker 2:Box of roses?
Speaker 1:Jesus.
Speaker 3:Has anything helped? I guess, I don't know, just talking to people at work, getting talked off the ledge. But then I do it for other people as well. It's a very busy time at work, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So talking about it quickly helps? Yeah, That's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah I mean I know rationally that it's not a problem. Like I know rationally it's not a problem but in my head I completely make a big thing out of it and to the point where I'm physically shaking and it annoys you know even I know it's stupid but I can't help what's the physical reaction that I'm having.
Speaker 1:How long does it last?
Speaker 3:Oh it can go on for days. I've been yeah it can go on for days. Yeah or even last night I thought of something just before I went to sleep and then I was kind of half asleep all night and then I woke up super early. I started work early to go and correct the thing that I remembered and it was like not a big thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting one. We've all experienced once your stress response turns on, it's always higher and the blood pressure goes up and the blood's pumping and your muscles are taken in the blood and you're ready to basically fight or or flight as they say. Laying down is hard to do because your alert is on, your eyes, your pupils are like, you're basically ready to go. So it makes sense that it's hard to sleep after that. Mean, Aman can talk in a minute about his view on it.
Speaker 1:But there's one thing that Donald Robertson told us, who is a psychotherapist, CBT guy, stoicism expert, author, he says a lot of things that helped his clients was set in a specific worry time. And it sounds stupid, but he says, right, tomorrow at 08:30AM, I'm going to sit on my kitchen table, I'm going to worry about this exact thing. And I'm to do it at this exact time. And you can do it in the day, you say, right, 5PM, I'm gonna worry about all of this, and I'm gonna sit down with it. And he even makes a joke of it.
Speaker 1:He said he's gonna get his worry sock and his worry finger, and he's gonna speak to his worry finger about things. He makes a bit of a joke sometimes about it. But the fact that you then say, Okay, I will actually deal with this later on, helps you remove it from now. And by the time it gets to later on, he says most people aren't worried about anyway. That's an official technique he mentions he gives to his clients, but that's pretty much all I got on that.
Speaker 1:Aman, have you come up with anything about this?
Speaker 4:I'm gonna give you a bit of a cop response because I think it's a really difficult one to stop in its tracks. It's powerful. The mind, as we all know, you think of the brain and how advanced a machine it is and yet the mind can overpower the brain like no problem. So the mind is super powerful and once it gets going it's made its mind up, it's difficult and stopping its track. I think it's a great idea what you suggested there but I'm afraid I haven't got any other smart hacks.
Speaker 1:There is another study that comes to my mind about, again Sapolsky's book about rats, and one rat had an outlet for stress such as being able to chew on this like piece of wood and the other rats were stressed, well, were prodded to make them stressed, but they didn't have any outlet at all. So they weren't able to bite anything, were just in a cage. And the rats that were in the cage with no outlet started developing ulcers, you know, a classic showcasing of stress, and the group that was able to bite on something didn't have that, so essentially transferred the stress out into the biting of this thing. And he makes the quite savage link of when football teams lose, so for Dan the soccer teams lose up in Scotland, domestic violence goes up like 25%, or something crazy like that. And basically these stressed out men take out their stress on their partners.
Speaker 1:So they're transferring their stress from themselves to the partners, the partners take the physical stress, but it alleviates the stress in the person. Does that make sense? So you're saying that it's like chains, they're getting rid of their stress through this physical act, which is horrible. But there's a lesson there that there needs to be an outlet for stress. It seems Kirsten, yours is talking to people, but maybe you need to get some kind of Avengers stress group together where you allow yourselves to maybe just unleash, and you've got ten minutes and that's it.
Speaker 1:And you unleash everything in ten minutes, and then you get you don't need to get feedback, you just need to say it. Maybe that helps. Instead of bits and bobs throughout the day, throughout the days, you need to just go all out on it. I'm not sure what else to be honest. What do other people do here?
Speaker 1:What is the scene from TV series Lost? Let the fear in, I let it take over, I let it do its thing, but only for five seconds. Nice. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Think that's perfect. Dan, I think you bang on. What do you do, Dan? You seem like you've tried a few few things, you know a few things?
Speaker 5:I think accountability is the biggest for me is having a tribe, having a group that we're all on the same page. I'm the only one doing Parapal right now, but I got some other men in my life that if, you know, if I need some motivation or if I need to give them a call, I'd give them a call. It might Kirsten, you're saying when it comes to, like, you know, stress eating and whatnot, you know, depending on who's in your orbit, just getting people on the same page. Because without accountability, man, I'd fall off the wagon constantly. I love chocolate.
Speaker 5:So, you know, chocolate's always there for you. That's the problem if you let it.
Speaker 1:It is always there. But you you and your accountability group with the boys, what what's the chat like? What is it usually
Speaker 5:It's a text thread usually. Some of us have more physical goals, others mental, but it's just a group we check-in on a weekly basis to see how things are going. It's physical, mental, spiritual toughness. Just more of a resilience piece. Because, again, some of us I don't do jujitsu.
Speaker 5:A couple of the guys do. That's not my bag. But just having a group you can go to where you can at least align on certain things has been super helpful.
Speaker 1:Dan, you'd love jujitsu, man. Come on.
Speaker 5:I'm getting close to it.
Speaker 4:It's good.
Speaker 1:I think it's intimidating to start with, but the community element of weirdly with jujitsu, right? When you do jujitsu, because it's all like physically demanding. Everyone does jujitsu. They're hugging each other. They're high fiving each other.
Speaker 1:It's very physical. You know what mean? It's very close like. Yeah, yeah. Breaks down a lot of barriers, and I think it's a good part.
Speaker 5:I think my only hesitation is that fifteen years ago I had two lower back surgeries, so I'm just always sensitive with that because I don't want that to go. I had two micro discectomies. Other than that, I'm not, you know, opposed, but I don't wanna be caught in a lot that's gonna snap me in two.
Speaker 1:That's true. Yeah, I suppose the sparring is the element that is the relief of probably high risk. You could learn the techniques, but then you'd probably be worse because you know you couldn't risk doing the sparring. Oh, man. That sucks.
Speaker 5:But Yeah. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Maybe Turn
Speaker 5:off the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's good, man. Yeah. I think it's key, like, group chats. But I think set an expectations in a group chat.
Speaker 1:It seems that your group chat has that expectation set that
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You
Speaker 5:gotta be on the same page.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Know, mentioning the group of a fun group and organized trips with some like deeper stuff, and they're thinking what the hell are you on about? Yeah, know that's a good one. What else, what do other people say? I was just
Speaker 4:gonna say to add something in as well, I was just thinking whilst you guys were talking, a lot of the time the things that really trigger us in life are things that have triggered us for many many years and often the parts of us that respond to those things are very young youthful from our past. There's a type of therapy called Internal Family Systems, or IFS, where it considers the person to be their true self but then with these parts from childhood that can still come out and respond to certain situations and when that happens your true self is taken away from the equation and for a moment there the youthful young part that actually behaved in a particular way when you were young and that was good for you at that time is still stuck in the past and still responds that same way to that same trigger now when you're a lot older in a way that is actually now a little bit more harmful and not so helpful. So, sometimes it can be really useful, there's a good book actually on Internal Family Systems that goes through some exercises where you can do that.
Speaker 4:So, you can look at sometimes something that's triggered you and you can try to pick apart why you've felt so triggered and then you can even go back and there's great exercise in the book on trying to heal that part and then in future trying to respond with yourself rather than that part from your youth. So sometimes it can be useful to look at things in a bit more depth and I'll put the book also on the chat.
Speaker 1:100% I think we've got different versions of like some people might be super rational in work, might be running a multi million pound organisation in work. And then in terms of nutrition, teenager. And then maybe in terms of, like, losing in jujitsu, a nine year old child crying about it, can't handle it. There's a guy in the gym. He's he's a coach.
Speaker 1:Purple belt. He's meant to be a coach. You do one move on him. He don't like it, he loses his mind and he says, sorry at the end and I can't get over it. I'm like, you're a 33 year old man, meant to be a coach and you're losing your mind that one of your students has managed to do a successful technique on you.
Speaker 1:How will you like a rage man.
Speaker 4:That's definitely like a young part that's got some insecurity and it's just triggering up that young part again.
Speaker 1:He's Bulgarian, so that bringing up in that hard alpha male background is probably not helping him, always trying to make sure that they're the best or whatever. But yes, true, maybe being honest with ourselves about how emotionally mature we are in every element of your life is probably, like, a good thing to do going into the new year. Something to think about. Oh, god. Have to say the Christmas jump.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I had a secret Santa today, so in the office and that's what's the train. So yeah, Christmas.
Speaker 1:Thanks for the message in the group. Nice to get you on here. How? Yeah. What are you thinking?
Speaker 6:Yeah, no, your response made sense, thanks. Definitely, you know, losing weight still feels like the priority, but the running's really started from since I had to use Parrot Power. I used to run years ago and then gained weight hence why I'm here and then it was really the steps that helped me with Parrotpal, like just going out and walking and then that just improved mobility and I was like oh you know what I'll do a couple of jogs and then really get into it and now I'm sort of yeah a bit more conscious of the fact that I'm sort of in a deficit in training, I want to weight train as well because I know it's good for running, so it's just finding that balance as all things are and also not overthinking it, not trying to perfect it you know, but it's just yes it's been very good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Bang on. Yeah. Running for mentally. I think nothing the runners high after run.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure where it's matched in strength training. You definitely don't get it.
Speaker 6:No. I think you come away from, like, a strength training session, like, feeling good and strong. I mean, it's funny because you're maybe a bit weaker, right, because you've just gone and worked really hard. But definitely after a run, there's just this feeling, and even mid run sometimes, where it's just and also it switches my mind off in a different way. I also get very stressed at work, I find that running really helps me if I had a really bad day.
Speaker 6:And then I try and go for a run or sometimes go at lunch just to get out of it and reset and then come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. 100%. It's like when do they discover a man? I don't know if you know that the what's it called now when you're after a run?
Speaker 1:What's it called? The hormone releases. Adrenaline? No. Like euphoric type feeling.
Speaker 1:Endorphin. Endorphin, yeah.
Speaker 5:Endorphin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't that long ago, they figured like maybe the 80s or 90s. I can't remember when I read about and like very similar to like morphine or like similar to that type of why is that?
Speaker 4:Endorphin is short for endogenous morphine, so morphine made by the body. Yes. It acts on the same receptors as morphine does. Endorphins, they act on the same receptors as morphine.
Speaker 1:Why do you think we release them after running prolonged periods? Is it because they expect it to be painful or something and we need to cover up? Or is it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know. I mean you can understand why happy moments create the release. Yeah, I'm sure I did know at one point. I knew more about endorphins a few years ago than I do now.
Speaker 1:I also thought about it from crying. Like crying helps you makes you feel way better after you cry. Like, it's quite a weird thing to develop and then, like, some tears down the eyes and then you're feeling all better. Yeah. So and then running and and I suppose, like, if you're not doing anything that, like, releases these emotions, maybe running and doing our releases a lot and crying, release it off for some people, usually holding everything in like men do.
Speaker 1:Maybe maybe plays a part in things as well.
Speaker 6:I also feel like with stress for me, I'm conscious that often it's not a rational response, So talking about work and how you can, you know, your mind coming away with things and all of a sudden you've got cortisol racing through the body, like, you know, someone's chasing you down and just sat at your desk. So you can't like rationalize yourself out of the problem. So it's, you know, what things can you do to both manage those things physically, and also just accept that you're not going to think your way out of this, you're just going have to let it pass and ride it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, And I think an ideal scenario, if you do get stressed is to, like, be able to move your body and do something, but it's not always possible. Like, if you're in middle of work and you gotta do it, definitely going outside for a walk or I I I can't remember what we had a talk with someone on this, they came on and talked, maybe it's here, we'll give them what I remember. But yeah, saying like, if you could work out when you just put your stress response on, it would be ideal as well. But again, it's like, how realistic is that? But definitely sitting down doing nothing isn't the worst thing to do because you are ready to go.
Speaker 1:There's those rage rooms as well, we've seen them, we just smash everything up to bits. They seem to work. Don't know how realistic that is to have one, but man, we've done some crazy stuff for experimenting as humans. I don't know if any of you listened to the podcast I did the other day, that man, man in the 1600s, he measured everything he ate weight wise, and he measured every poo he did. He was sitting on a seat, measured himself.
Speaker 1:And he was like, man, this not mad enough. The food weight I'm eating doesn't match the weight coming out. Like what's going on in my body? And he's one of the reasons we realize energy of the energy is used, just crazy people out there. That Brian Johnson guy, that crazy guy doing crazy experiments, he's just done an experiment on psilocybin magic mushrooms, and how it's improved his health markers and the first thing he did.
Speaker 1:I'm saying everyone goes tripping now, but definitely some interesting things coming out maybe, I don't know. And maybe to finish, Yaman, what are you saying about so everyone's going to Christmas time now, gonna be bombarded with every ad going, every supplement ad, whatever. What would you say to all that really? Where are we going in?
Speaker 4:I think that for both health professionals and the public it's a minefield. I think you So start with safety because there's so much out there in terms of supplements. Start with safety. Obviously the internet is as useful a source as we have really. So if you know a doctor who's really into supplements then that would be great, but most doctors don't know about every single supplement out there.
Speaker 4:So, start with safety, have a search, see what comes up and if there's enough to say that it sounds unsafe then don't bother taking any risks. There are some doctors out there who are interested in supplements so like for example I've got quite a keen interest so I'm always quite open minded if my patients come to me and they have got something that they're taking that I've never heard of then I'll just do some homework to look into it. So if you know someone who is interested generally it will be in the private sector rather than the NHS, but you know someone who's interested in supplements, I'm sure they'd be very happy to have a look into it for you. There's loads out there. The latest thing that I've got really into on the topic of psilocybin is functional mushrooms nootropics.
Speaker 4:There's a reasonable amount of evidence behind them, they're very safe. Obviously anything if you overdose it becomes unsafe but within the recommended amounts they're very safe. So, example, lion's mane is very popular, very good for focus. Reishi is also very popular, very good for its calming influence and help with sleep and they've both got a reasonable amount of evidence behind them. And then you've got common supplements that are completely safe as well things like vitamin D, multivitamins people say aren't so good, magnesium for sleep, lots of people taking ashwagandha for mental health, so there's loads out there.
Speaker 1:Good and electrolytes is something people may need to look into because if you train a lot, you sweat a lot, the chances of your diet covering the electrolyte loss is probably slim, I would say. Electrolytes are needed for you to function. You go too low, you're gonna be cramping up, your performance goes down. So there could be an element of that and just day to day living as well, where you're just really low on them and people drink a lot of water and maybe then not actually having the electrolytes to balance in as well. So it's kind of like, that's not ideal.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you're right, like there's the functional mushrooms I interest in. A lot of people claim they help. And that research is coming out on them. There's a guy, there's a rugby player in The UK set a company up called Five Four, which does a lot of dysfunction, but like giving you The problem with supplements is they under dose the effective dose. Look at the research, it says like, say forty grams, and you look at the dose from these supplements, they've given you two grams, you're like, Man, I have to take bloody whatever tablets that is to get the effective dose, it's like spending hundreds a month.
Speaker 1:Are they necessary on a daily basis? So electrolytes on a daily basis from looking at the GLP-one studies as well, if you are in a deficit, the chances of you having everything covered micronutrient wise, protein wise, is slim in it because you're not eating enough calories for one energy, your protein is trying to get up there, your fibre probably isn't up there, your electrolytes are probably definitely not up there. So if you're on a deficit, it is recommended to do electrolytes. I can share the guide from Lionel McDonald on this, how much of which you should take, and see if it helps. Definitely helped me in my training, that's for sure, and creatine helps a lot.
Speaker 1:I just can't be bothered to take it every day, so I don't take it right now, but creatine does help, makes you pee more, which is annoying for me. And then people can't handle the water retention gain of it, but it's just water like, come on. Going on creatine gained three pounds, can't believe it all my work's been undone. That's water retention, man. It does.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, but that's it really. But Aman, thank you so much for coming on. We will do another Zoom in the new year, guys. We're probably doing weekly now, get everyone involved. We're bringing people like Aman once a month, hopefully, Dean and experts to share their wisdom and we all have a chat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll see you all in the group, but do have a good Christmas. Don't worry about anything, just enjoy it for God's sake. To be grim, you've I've probably got 40 Christmases left in reality. Mean, if you think of it that way, it's not a lot. So don't worry about your gaining two points of fat.
Speaker 1:Thanks everyone for chatting and coming on video, appreciate seeing your faces.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks very much. See you soon. Cheers everybody.
Speaker 1:Bye, Sun.
