00:03
Welcome, hi, I'm Mikki and this is Mikkipedia, where I sit down and chat to doctors, professors, athletes, practitioners, and experts in their fields related to health, nutrition, fitness, and wellbeing, and I'm delighted that you're here.

00:25
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia, and this week on the podcast, I speak to Dr. Jade Teta. He's a renowned expert in hormones, metabolism, stress, and fat loss, and we do a deep dive into these topics and the impact that our own script or the stories we tell ourselves has on all of these areas. Now, Jade has been a mentor

00:54
from afar for me for a number of years in my clinical practice and he is such an expert in all of these areas. We talk on the topics I've just mentioned, we talk on trauma, we do some sort of quickfire questions as well because of course his naturopathic medicine influences Jade's practice and and what he recommends and if you have any interest in any of these areas

01:24
then this is going to be a super informative episode for you. For those of you unfamiliar with Jade, he is an integrative physician, author and sought-after expert in the realm of metabolism and self-development. He has spent the last 25 years immersed in the study of strength and conditioning, hormonal metabolism and the psychology of change and success. He's the founder and creator of the international health and fitness company, Medabolic Effect,

01:52
and the author of several books including the bestsellers Metabolic Effect Diet and the Metabolic Aftershock. He also has a podcast The Next Level Human which we have linked in the show notes and has contributed to textbooks in the field of naturopathic medicine. He is now focused on his own company Jade Tita that combines his medical and fitness knowledge

02:20
with his expertise in self-development and mindset change. Just a reminder, the best way to support the podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favourite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of the podcast out there and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts, so more people get the opportunity to learn from guests that I have on the show like Dr Jade Tita. Alright team, enjoy this conversation.

02:53
Jade, Teta, I'm super stoked to have you on my show this morning. As I just very briefly mentioned, as we got on the call, I feel like I've been following you since I was a teenager, which can't actually be right because there's not that many years between us, but you're along in this field. Yeah, I've been around a bit. Mickey, it's, it's great to be here and to talk to you. And yeah, I mean, I started really in

03:20
Well, really at 15 years old, so that would have been like 1988. I'm going to be 50 this year. I started in natural medicine in 2004 is when I graduated from Bastyr University. And my first book was in 2010. So yeah, it's been over 20 years in natural medicine, but over, what, 35 years in the health fitness field.

03:45
Actually, at 15, I started and people always raise their eyebrows at that. But that's the first time I collected money for actually training people and writing programs and designing workout programs. That's how I started. And so it does feel like I've been around a lot. And of course, you know, I've evolved, you know, sort of in what I've done since then. But

04:06
Yeah, I mean, it's been an amazing journey. And of course, you and I both teach this stuff. And of course, I still love it and I'm highly engaged and always trying to learn. And there's so much to learn in this space. I 100% agree. And Jade, what I find super interesting is that your book, which was probably one of the first books I had on diet and sort of training, which I was super interested in, that was different from the sort of norm, you know, eat your fruit and veg and...

04:36
cut out all the fat or whatever. It's still innovative today. And I think that the concepts and how you think about metabolism aren't things that people are taught. Like I would doubt that a lot of this you were actually taught in your naturopathic medical degree. When did you start thinking about metabolism the way that you do? And how did you? Yeah, yeah.

04:57
Yeah, interesting. I mean, from my perspective, it really came as a lot of things do just through clinical practice. I mean, basically you start seeing that the way that we think about things doesn't work. I'll tell you what, Mickey, I saw two trends very early on. So that book you're talking about was written way back in 2010. And it was probably one of the first books, or at least one of the first ones that I'm aware of that made this distinction between calories and

05:23
hormones and how we can't just worry about how little we're eating. We also have to worry about how hungry we are and how stress impacts hunger and how lack of sleep impacts hunger. Stress and sleep don't have calories, but they certainly will influence how many calories we eat and or are motivated to burn. From my perspective, what I started to see is that the model that we were using was wrong. That was the first thing I noticed.

05:51
And by the way, when I say wrong, let's clarify that a little bit because not completely wrong. Certainly calories matter. It's just that there was something missing. So that was the first thing I noticed. The second thing that I noticed in the field is that we were running into trends all the time. In fact, you know, I've been around long enough to see multiple trends. The first trend was the low fat trend, at least that I was a part of. And then

06:17
There was sort of the keto diet the first time around, Atkins and kind of stuff like that. And then the zone diet and then the paleo diet and then, you know, fasting and then fasting came back around and keto came back around. And the trend I saw is that, you know, we are individuals. We each are as different metabolically as we are physically. We really are. We're different in our physiology, our psychology, our preferences and our practical circumstances. We vary from person to person. The entire industry.

06:46
still does not really deal with that well or create any kind of solutions for individuals. We don't talk about that. And one big thing, by the way, Mickey, is the fact that men and women are different. No duh. I spent my whole life dealing with the biological differences between the male and the female physiology. But not only that, each person is different.

07:17
ignored. It's not really given an understanding. And we can't change our habits without changing sort of our identity and the stories attached to that identity. So I came about this to answer your question from seeing where people were failing and they were usually failing in those three areas. There was more to it than just calories. Their programs were not being individualized for them.

07:43
And their psychology was not being accounted for. And so most of my work was around these areas. And I would even say still today, these areas are not well, uh, addressed. Completely. And I think, you know, I've heard you say that you, that you look at not just sort of physical development and physical transformation, but that sort of personal transformation as well, which, which to me sort of brings in the sort of psychological element and.

08:12
And also Jade, I've seen you mentioned that how your practice has evolved and your interest has evolved. And I understand you're beginning a PhD or you're in the throes of, of that in this, in this area. Um, I've heard you talk about trauma as well, most recently and how that impacts, uh, our physical health and, and at the very, you know, and sort of to bring it back to your initial sort of interest in helping people improve body composition. Um.

08:41
How, like, can we chat a little bit about this and that relationship? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it seems sort of out there and esoteric, but it's actually very simple physiology. The bottom line is we humans have a very fine tune mechanism for adapting to threat. And so if we're in threat, everyone's heard of sort of the fight, flight, you know, sort of freeze response. That's the response that we have when we're under threat. And when we are under threat,

09:10
What ends up happening is we are utilizing resources and we are hypervigilant and we are using nutrients and fuel and we are not, it's kind of like a light switch. It's either on or off, right? If threat is turned on, then rest regeneration repair is turned off. And these two things are like switches. And so one of the things that happens with trauma in particular,

09:35
And trauma is a tough word because usually when we think of trauma, we think of the big T traumas like rape and physical abuse and psychological manipulation and all of these things. But trauma could be very simple things, a betrayal from a lover, having a mom who was busy, loved you but was just super busy, or having a dad who was, loved you but was absent and working, or monetary concerns.

10:05
any kind of trauma that registers as a threat when we are young basically turns on the threat response and makes it less likely we can get into the rest and recovery response. So we see people who have adverse childhood experiences, so-called ACEs, we see that their stress reactivity is either turned on in a hypervigilant state or they can't react at all. And this has consequences in hunger and cravings and

10:33
behaviors around self-soothing with food and even the ability to lose weight. So it's actually fairly straightforward metabolic mechanisms. We just don't talk about them a lot, again, because we're sort of focused on the look good, live longer, function better type of situation instead of living better wholly in psychology and in physicality.

11:02
the things that you're mentioning Jade aren't, they're not immediately obvious to people. Like if I think about myself in like my childhood, like in fact, I think I can think of a couple of instances actually that really did impact on how I felt about myself and if I say quote unquote, relationship with food, or you know, like something that someone said, an adult said when I was younger and like that isn't, people wouldn't necessarily think that's traumatic.

11:31
but it has actually influenced me in a number of ways in my adult years. And the fact that I even remember it sort of suggests that it was probably like a moment, like one of those little teas, if you like. Do you think that we just dismiss some of these things as being unimportant because they're not like the big trauma? One hundred percent, that's what it is. In fact, I keep fooling around and, you know, with trying to come up with a different

11:59
a sort of name for this because it really is not trauma. One of the things we talk about, we talk about it as trauma in science, but we have to remember, clinically speaking, most of our clients won't speak about what we're talking about as trauma. For example, I had a very loving mother. I have what I would call a mother wound, but I had a very loving mother, a very present mother. What the issue though was is that she was very volatile, emotionally speaking.

12:24
And so what that did for me, despite the fact she was present, she never left me, she was very loving, is that she was unpredictable. That then had consequences in me being a people pleaser, not trusting female emotions. You can see how that can begin to impact on your future experience. And what happens is when we're young, we don't form memories in full sort of ways. We form them in fragments. We're also not completely conscious. And so things happen.

12:52
whether we're a child, a teenager or early adult, and we write a story about the world. We write a story about safety and security. We write a story about acceptance and belonging. We write a story about self-determination and autonomy and authenticity. And these things then impact on how we show up. So how might that look in your particular case, right? Well, let's not necessarily call it trauma or in my particular case, maybe we don't call it trauma, but maybe we call it a wound, a psychological insult.

13:22
that then caused us to create a narrative in our head about the world being safe or not, whether we are accepted or not, whether we are valuable or not. And then of course we will do any number of things to self-soothe, to some people that turns into sitting on the couch, for other people that turns into chronic exercise, for some people that turns into food avoidance, for other people that turns into eating all the foods. And usually these self-soothing behaviors show up

13:51
in the ways that most of us know. Drugs, sex, food, these kinds of things are very self-soothing to our nervous system. And so this stuff absolutely shows up. So if you're someone listening to this and you're like, I've always had this, you know, quote, dysfunctional relationship with food, what I might say to you is, sure, it could just be the fact that you have cravings because you're over exercising. It also might be the fact that you're using food as a form of self-love,

14:21
because you wrote a story about acceptance and belonging a long time ago when you were not consciously and logically aware that you were doing so. And this stuff needs to be unpacked for not just some people, but I would say for the vast majority. Now, is this the case for everyone across the board? Of course not, but this is something that is being completely ignored and it is obviously playing a role in our

14:46
metabolism in our physiology and in our phenotype, the way we look, function and feel. Jade, how does self-sabotage, how does that play into self-sabotage? You know, I talked to a number of people and they get to a particular point in their weight loss journey, for want of a better word. And then they, and then they start almost unconsciously doing things to sort of reverse that progress so they can't get past a certain point. Like is.

15:16
Are these two related, what we're talking about? They certainly can be. Sometimes that can simply be, and this is what's hard about having discussions like this, right? Because it's very nuanced. Sometimes that's just a matter of general physiology. You start losing fat, leptin levels go up, cravings go up, and it's just a natural compensatory ancient response to starvation. Sometimes it's that. Other times it could be in a cliche form where someone who had...

15:44
emotional traumas around sex and attention in the romantic realm, all of a sudden starts losing weight, starts getting that attention again, triggers some of those subconscious wounds and they begin to eat again. I chose one very simple physiological thing and one very cliche psychological thing, but there's everything sort of in between. One of the other things though that I think is very important as we have this discussion

16:14
We don't really, and this is just, you know, sort of a, uh, a very ABC type of thing we need to keep in mind. Very simple. What happens when people begin on these journeys is they don't actually spend the time to think about their authentic selves. Now, when we think about, we hear the term authentic self a lot, right? And we that tends to mean be who you are for most people. But the fact of the matter is, is that who are you being authentic to, right? You can be authentic to a past self.

16:42
You can be authentic to your current self. That's not who we really want to be authentic to, right? We want to be authentic to our better future self, the leaner, fitter, healthier, more psychologically healthier and well-adjusted human. And what happens is what we do is we make plans around what we've done in the past. We try to look at our behaviors in the past and we try to change them for the current moment instead of living into and saying, if I was going to be my best self, my authentic self,

17:10
how does that person sort of show up? And so when you're thinking about this, what happens is the reason a lot of people revert back is because they don't actually have a purpose driven vision of a future self. You know, why are they actually trying to look good, feel good, function better, et cetera? If you're not very clear on that, vanity concerns will only get you so far, right? You know, cause what ends up happening is you start realizing the six pack, the leaner body,

17:40
The fact that I'm thinner doesn't give you the safety and security, the acceptance and belonging and the autonomy and sort of a purpose and meaning that you were really after. And so what happens is like anything else that we are seeking, whether power or pleasure or popularity, we know those are very poor substitutions for purpose. And so one of the things I would also say happens frequently, very frequently, is you have to attach these health and fitness pursuits.

18:09
to something bigger than just, I wanna look better in a swimsuit or I wanna just be healthier and have better cholesterol. It has to be attached to something like, I wanna touch, move and inspire people. And by me being fit and vital and having the energy to do that, I can show up and be the example or be the experience. And that's when you start going, okay, now this persona of this leaner, healthier, more vital, energetic person is directly,

18:39
alignment with how I want to matter and make a difference in the world. Those are usually the people who make it last because they're doing it for something other than vanity concerns. All of us who've got some age on us, once you get past your 20s, you're probably nodding your head and being like, yeah, I agree, Jade, I understand. But a lot of us in our 30s and 40s are still struggling with that because vanity is not enough of a motivating factor anymore. We've got kids, we've got other things that we care about other than just

19:07
looking good in a bathing suit and were frustrated because in our younger years, motivation from vanity concerns was a real thing and it really mattered. But as we age, that becomes less and less of a thing. And so we need to find a different reason, a different motivation for our pursuits in health and fitness. And this has a lot to do.

19:30
with purpose. And so that would be another reason I would say psychologically people fall down. So yes, it can be attached to trauma. Yes, it can just be overwhelming compensatory reactions from metabolism. More times than not, though, it's the inability to see our authentic selves in the future and modeling that behavior and developing a relationship with that identity instead of being stuck in our current or past identity, if that makes sense.

19:59
There are very few people who are able to put both of them together. You know, they've got clinical psychologists understand the trauma element. You've got people who are experts in metabolism, understand the physiological sort of piece. And I love how you can like see all areas of that day. That's I think that's really unique. And I also think that that sounds like a lot of work, actually, you know, like people, it's so easy to pick up a diet and to pick up an exercise plan, to turn your brain off and to just.

20:29
execute and I'm not suggesting simple maybe rather than easy. Whereas you're talking about sort of really unpacking a lot of stuff that people probably would prefer just to not even think about, you know, and don't really sort of see the relevance, I guess. Yeah. And I would agree a hundred percent. I'm even with them, right? Even though I do this work, I agree. And that is the big problem. However, we also know

20:58
that it gets pretty tiring after the 10th, 12th, 13th time where we lost the weight, regained the weight, or get some health and then are less healthier. So we get tired of these patterns. What happens is life has a way of whispering in your ear and then tapping you on the shoulder and then shoving you in the back and then finally kicking you as hard as it can in the stomach to make you pay attention. And so what happens is after these recurrent patterns, these struggles that occur again and again, these stuck emotions,

21:26
we start waking up to the fact that, oh, this is not really working effectively for me. And that's when we start paying attention. So one way or the other, you're going to get here. And so you may might as well start paying attention, but let me try to make it very easy for people because we can get very confused. Oh, there's all this stuff I have to do. One of the things that I like to do is just tell people, you know, think about an actor, right? There's two types of actors. There's a traditional actor and there's more of a method actor.

21:56
is someone who when the director says action, they start playing the part. And when the director says cut, they stop playing the part. And this is very much like a dieter, right? It's basically like, you know, when I'm at a meal, I'll try my best, especially when I'm around people and they're watching, I'm going to try to look the part. I'm going to try to go to the gym. But what happens is...

22:16
you're still mostly aligned with your old self. You know, the dieter is just this sort of like, it's like playing a role. You know, you go in, but 90% of the time, you're the couch potato type person. That's who you are. The other type of actor is the method actor, which once they know they're playing this role, they begin to play the role immediately. They research every aspect of the role. They start living it immediately. They start to get into the feeling of it. And it doesn't matter if the director says action or cut, because they've already been playing the part. They just basically go right in,

22:46
They continue playing the part and then they, you know, go forever playing that part. And what happens is with method actors, they sometimes have a difficult time realizing who their old self was. So the easiest way to think about this is that think about, I'm going to be a method actor. I'm simply going to play into the role of a healthy, fit, functional me. What does that person look like? That's how come I don't like this saying, fake it till you make it.

23:12
Faking means when people are watching, you're on, and when people aren't watching, you're off. It's more like be it until you see it, which basically means whether people are watching or not, and more importantly, when they're not watching, you are being the thing. Being is an alignment in thinking, feeling, acting, and choosing. And so one of the things I do when I'm coaching people in the mental-emotional realm is I look for that alignment. How are they thinking, feeling, acting, and choosing? What happens is most people, when they go on diets and programs,

23:41
They have short-term thinking and acting, right? But they don't have the feeling, you know, part of it. And the choices are iffy, right? The choices are really iffy. It's kind of like if I feel like it, I'll do it. And if I'm motivated, I'll do it. And if I don't, someone who's being the thing, there is no feeling like it. Feeling has nothing to do with it. They just are, right? That's the difference between a decision and a choice, by the way. A decision is...

24:09
a consideration, you know, we're considering choices. The choice is just the act. And so you have to be in alignment with thinking, feeling, acting and choosing. Your brain is watching you all the time and it's going to call bullshit on you. Whether people are watching or not, it's watching and judging you. And so this is the way to think about it, to make it simpler for yourself. You just start playing the role of the method actor and you'll start to figure it out pretty quick. Be it until you see it.

24:38
the script in their head that, well, they're just going to fail. Even before they start something in their head, they're like, well, I've failed every other time before. So why am I going to succeed this time? So they're almost only sort of half in it anyway, just in relation to diet. But I love that. It reminds me of the as if principle by Richard Wiseman, you know, just acting as if you are the person, but you sort of approach it much more.

25:06
fully. Like, and do you find Jade that when you talk to people about this idea, be it until you see it, does it take them a while to sort of find their feet with it? Or actually they're like, actually that makes a whole lot of sense. Like are people accepting of it in your, in your? At first they're accepting of it, but then they run into problems really quickly, right? Because what they, what they look at is they go, when you're, when you're

25:33
in the mindset of a dieter, you're kind of in the mindset of duality. I'm either on or I'm off. Right? And that is what they tend to fall prey to. So as soon as they, which they will, as soon as they run into not being perfect, they go, oh, I got to go back to my old identity. That's where they get hung up. So yes, they're very excited about it, but then they can't get out of the duality. Well, what happens to a method actor who ends up having...

26:00
who's a fit person who ends up having a doughnut. Just think about how that person acts. The doughnut's not a problem because they know 90% of the time they are doing and choosing and feeling and thinking differently. So they just go, oh, so what? I had a doughnut. Doesn't matter. I'm not the doughnut. I'm not that person. I don't eat doughnuts on the regular basis. And they just know that in their head.

26:25
So yes, people hear this, they get excited about it, they think they can do it, but they also don't realize that psychologically speaking, they're not prepared for failures that will come. And that's the major thing. And this comes back, by the way, right back to psychology and this aspect of, well, one of the cool areas of research actually is in the area of self-compassion. What happens is if we take two different people.

26:52
who go on a diet and one person berates themselves every time they mess up, we can predict that that person who's very hard on themselves and very harsh on themselves and doesn't show self-compassion, we can predict that they are not gonna be able to stay on that diet. Whereas the person who has self-compassion for themself and others, and there's many different types of compassion, right? There's compassion for self, there's compassion for others, and then there's the ability to receive compassion from others.

27:19
What we know in research is people who are harshest on themselves and have an inability to receive compassion from other people tend to have the most difficult time changing. And the reason why is because every time they mess up, they berate themselves. Now can't we all listening know and see how that would be a pattern from, you know, childhood age? I come from a generation where parenting was a little bit more harsh and a little bit less

27:49
today. I can be, you know, somewhat harsh on myself. Compassion wasn't necessarily, you know, the prominent way of being for a lot of people in their homes. And so a lot of people don't understand compassion. And so self-compassion is another one of these psychological techniques that a method actor, when they're acting that, they don't see it as I messed up.

28:15
They see it as I had a treat during an otherwise phenomenal way of being because this is just who I am. And so they don't see it as a cheat meal. You can even see this in people's language. It's not a cheat meal. It's more like I just enjoy food. And every once in a while, I enjoy this kind of food. They don't see it as a cheat. And so there is this idea that people carry around with them that...

28:40
It really comes down to stories, Mickey. So like, you know, you and I can spot this in clients all the time. It's the story that people are telling themselves about the world. Uh, to me, you know, that's how some people, they say, we hear this all the time. And it's true consistency and things like that. But the trick is how do you be consistent? Right. You be consistent by sure. Choosing foods that are going to be less likely to make you hungry. Those are going to be things like.

29:06
you know, lean proteins, fiber, water-based foods, etc., things like that. But you also do that by learning techniques that are proven to, you know, put you in a place of acceptance of yourself. There's a whole therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy that essentially addresses this stuff and it works. But if you're someone who's not used to this way of doing things and you're sort of like, you know, the harsh coach inside,

29:34
go harder, push harder, do more, get over it, no pain, no gain. All those stories in your head, these tend to be the people who continue to struggle. Yeah, I completely agree. And the people who are like, no, I'm just stubborn. And they're not really meaning about their diet, they're just sort of in life. If I'm talking to a client and I'm like, well, can't you do XYZ? They're like, oh no, well, I'm just stubborn. I'd never do that.

29:59
You know, even those statements there immediately tell me that this person's not open to looking at a different way of doing things beyond what they sort of want to do, which is related, but a slight tangent to what you're talking about. But it's a story that tells itself. Well, no, I actually think it's directly related because, you know, if we look at psychology and we look at psychological profiles, like...

30:24
Myers-Briggs and some of these things. These things aren't well studied and there's not a lot of evidence, but there is a lot of evidence for the big five or the big six personality traits, and openness is one of them. Openness to new experience. These individuals who are closed off to thinking and doing anything differently. That's why I say, what are you being authentic to? Which identity? A past self, a current self, or a future self? Someone who says something like, I'm just stubborn, is being authentic to a past

30:53
or current self and is not able to be open to doing things psychologically differently. And they don't even know that that's the problem. They just think it's about, I need to go get another diet book. And that's why we continue to run into problems. Now, again, let's not make this about everyone, but I would argue it's a good sizable chunk of people, perhaps the majority. Yeah. Okay. So you've worn up those psychological quizzes or types and I was wanting your opinion on this actually. So we did one at work.

31:23
like a couple of years ago and not Myers-Briggs, it was something else and it told me that I wasn't a completer finisher, you know, and it wasn't just it told me like other people, you know, you got feedback on people and this was the sort of resounding thing about me. And I'm like, so part of me is like, oh, that explains all of the reasons why I start things and then I lose interest and I move on and I just leave this thing unfinished.

31:50
And I almost felt a little bit like lead off the hook, like, okay, cool. I understand that now. But then part of me was like, actually, well, that's bollocks. I look at all the things that I have actually completed, you know, like I feel like different personality types. Well, I'm talking about personality types here, but, but I feel like there are different ways that you can, you can approach these things, but sometimes these personality types are sort of unhelpful in that they continue this narrative about.

32:16
the type of person we are rather than allowing us to open up to be someone else. I don't know. I was just thinking about that. I think that's exactly right. I think we have to be very careful and think about a lot of these tests. Um, what they're essentially doing is they're asking you a bunch of questions and we all know when we take these, if you really pay attention to yourself when you're taking these questions, you do tend to filter it through

32:40
what would be the best thing to answer here, right? So you even have to go into it to be like, I have to be completely honest here. And then all they're doing is saying back to you what you told them. But we all know based on different situations, if it was a real world situation, we may behave differently. So what it's looking at is it can point you to patterns, but that's the problem because what we see and what we think, and this is another personality trait that keeps people stuck, most people see identity as immutable.

33:09
Right. And they see it and they they're they're who they are and they're sticking to who they are. And actually they also tend to see people who are like that tend to see other people like that too. We see this in romantic partnerships right where this one person has changed and the other person will not allow them to change. They've got them in a box. They're not taking them out of the box and that ruins the relationship. The truth of the matter is change is inevitable. So the idea that think about this ask let's all ask ourselves right now. Do you believe people can change or not?

33:39
That will tell you right there. Your answer to that question will tell you an awful lot about your ability to change. And so to me, absolutely people change. People change all of the time. I see it. However, most people, if you asked them that question, can people change? They're going to be like, no, not really. Yeah. When in reality, change is inevitable. It's just whether we're guiding that change or not. Well, and I was going to ask you about that as well, because I feel like

34:08
some people are a little bit stuck in the patterns that they have because they're afraid of what others think around them. Because once they start changing their behavior, suddenly that changes their interactions with people and their relationships with people. And that's not a comfortable space for someone to sort of be in. Because I get that a lot actually from clients.

34:37
of being human. We are pack animals, essentially. Other people's emotions are contagious upon us. We are not islands unto ourselves. So when we want to change, we have got to account for everyone around us. Now, here's typically what people do though. There's an easy shift here. Let's go back to playing the method actor. Do you want to be the person who is inspiring and an example for everyone around you?

35:05
Or do you want to be the person who sort of follows everyone around you? All of us have the unique ability to learn from others, but we also have the unique ability to teach others and to create things for even people we don't even know. So what happens is you have to start to begin to understand we're here for three reasons and three reasons only, to learn, to teach, and to love. Most people stay in learning mode, and that keeps them stuck with these people around them. But what happens if you take it upon yourself?

35:34
for your future identity and you start playing into the role of, I'm going to be the person who through my actions, not through trying to convince people, you can't convince anybody of anything. They have to convince themselves. And there's interesting research on this. The study of awe, this experience of something so grandiose and big that is beyond us. Usually, we think we get this with nature and things like that. Well, guess what research has shown is people report as the greatest

36:02
aspect of awe in their lives. Other people, what other people do, other people's ability to handle struggles. In other words, we are an example and experience for the world. We inspire other people. In fact, we are the major source of inspiration for the other people in our lives. We just don't take that on. And so what we do is we instead go, I'm going to just play this role here instead of going, I'm going to become... You don't even have to announce this to anybody either.

36:31
All you have to do is say, I'm going to begin to slowly but surely live into this role, and I am going to become an example for my family, for my significant other, for my coworkers, for my peers and an experience. What you'll find is, as soon as you begin to change and show up differently, it is difficult for other people to just jump on board right away.

37:00
They must change. This is the whole dynamic of us humans. However, if you do this with love and you don't try to force it on them or anything like that, what ends up happening is oftentimes a sizable portion of those people will come right along with you. We probably all had the experience. I certainly have when I decided to go into naturopathic medical school instead of conventional medical school. Everyone told me, and by the way, this was at a time in the sort of 90s, early 90s, mid-90s, where...

37:28
naturopathic medicine and alternative functional medicine was not a thing. It was considered, you know, witch doctory basically. And most of my family and most of my friends and actually my advisor at school who was, wanted me to go to the medical school that I was going to go to before I switched was very upset with me. However, once I made the choice and now, you know, sort of look at the career that I've carved out for myself being authentic to Jade.

37:55
everyone's on board. And this was so funny to me because some of them even take credit for it. I always knew you were going to be this and that. And by the way, it doesn't matter that I've had outward cultural level success. I'm happy. And so to me, people sometimes, it's funny recently, I had a run in with someone on social media, pretty big influencer that sort of called me out or whatever. And essentially they're calling me a quack. And to me, I go, that's right.

38:23
I am a quack. I totally own that because I just go, there was a conscious choice, not a mistake. This was a choice. That's what's so powerful about when you choose for yourself because you're so confident, you don't really care because you're so happy. That's the difference. Whereas if you're not confident and you're kind of wishy-washy and you're not making the full choice, then yes, every time someone says something to you, it's going to make you...

38:52
sort of back up and slow down. But if you're purposeful in your choice and you're just like, this is the direction I'm going, what ends up happening is most of your friends and family, the people who really love you are on board. And guess what? You're always going to have haters. Even if you stay still, you're going to have haters. Sometimes I think being alive is really just about the courage to be disliked. It really is.

39:17
That's actually quite hilarious you bring it up because I totally saw that and I saw the thousands and thousands of thousands of like supporting comments. People like me who followed you for years and like do you not even know who this guy is you know like it was it but you handled that so beautifully and really showed that exactly what you're talking about there that you're so comfortable in what you do and you're so. I get you're comfortable with what you do not only comfortable you're happy and you really own it because yeah.

39:46
which was quite different from the post itself, because that person is really well known for trying to roast someone on social media, despite the fact he's actually very knowledgeable in his area. I think it shows his insecurities, I think, more than anything else. That's what I get from a lot of his posts. Yeah, you know, it's funny when you're in love with what you're doing in life. I think he's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really don't have a...

40:15
a real problem with him, other than I just think it's hypocritical. But that's all. So what? I'm hypocritical in certain ways too. It's just a really funny thing. But isn't it nice though, Miki, when we... And by the way, I'm not perfect. I have my own... That part I've just grown up and it doesn't bother me. There's other areas that are more distressing to me. So I understand that we all have this. However, there is power in ownership. And I do think that when we're talking

40:45
It's really about owning things. This brings me to something that I think is important here. When you are trying to change metabolically, you're trying to lose weight, you're looking at diet and exercise regimes and things like that, one of the aspects is ownership. That ownership comes around owning a diet and a lifestyle you can actually live with, love, and own. In other words, part of the reason a lot of people fail in this space is because what they're doing is

41:14
the diet to other people and they don't even like a lot of this stuff. You know, there's people going on keto diets who don't even really like meat that much. Right. And so there's this idea of going, you know, what do you love? Right. And of course, we can't as humans, we all know we can't do everything we love. You know, I love pasta, wine, cheese. I can't just eat pasta, wine and cheese all day, every day. But I'm certainly not going to never have that stuff. In other words, I'm trying to design a diet exercise lifestyle.

41:43
that allows me to look, feel and function well, but also to enjoy life. I oftentimes think about this field as really funny because we act as if, and I remember, again, I've been in the game a long time, as you mentioned, but I remember going through a phase where I thought diet could cure everything. And certainly, I think diet is one of the most powerful things we can do for our health.

42:08
To me, it's really interesting when you look at Blue Zone studies and stuff like that, people go, oh, is it because of the way they exercise? Is it because of the way they eat? Well, these people do a lot of other things. They drink a lot in certain of these areas. But you know what they do have? They have connection. They have community. They have purpose. They have belonging. I believe it's really about the psychological components of these places. And it's really interesting.

42:35
and we have a lot of evidence for this. This is why you can have cultures that do, you know, people talk about toxins all the time, toxins this, toxin that. The number one toxin that we know of, then we know that it has no real positive benefits is alcohol. Yet, we have all these cultures who consume an awful lot of this toxin, but do it around other people and they don't seem to have the ill effects from it. So to me, the...

43:00
the paradox that we talk about, like the French paradox is about the community. The Greek paradox is about the community. The Asian paradox is about the community. Perhaps what at least, you and I are in different places, but in the United States, what I think is the problem primarily is the disconnect, the loneliness. And most of the Western countries are suffering from this as well. When in reality,

43:25
It's getting into touch with our Dharma, our purpose, bringing that to our community. And when you do that, your diet, your exercise is a tool to help you do that job rather than a tool to help you have power and popularity. You know, it's like all of a sudden, you know, we have, we had racism, we had sexism, we had all, now we have healthism. You know, it's basically like, I'm better than you because I'm healthier and fitter than you. When that is not the way.

43:55
that anyone really wants to make a difference and matter in life, and it's a mistake. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And you mentioned community, and I, of course, my mind very quickly goes to the last three years with the pandemic and just the division that it caused here for us in New Zealand and undoubtedly, like sort of worldwide, and I just wondered to what extent.

44:21
this plays into people's health habits now, only because I'm still talking to people, you know, it's been 18 months since our borders have been open. I think that's about right. And yet, I'm so, you know, we've, as a country, in all sort of intents and purposes, we should have moved on by now, but people are still using that. And it's a reason for their inability to get back into healthy lifestyle habits. They're like, oh, because during lockdown, I did XYZ.

44:50
And now it's just super hard for them. And I just wonder what sort of underlying stress still sort of pervades or exists because of that due to some of those things. It's absolutely huge. And think about that. We talked about the idea that change is inevitable. That was a change. And then look, now people are attached to that old identity, right? So they, they went in with a particular identity, then they have a lockdown identity and now they can't get out of that identity. So it's whether or not you're controlling the change or not.

45:18
To me, the pandemic was incredibly eye-opening in the way that people showed up. To me, Mickey, it's duality thinking. We talk about enlightenment and self-development and stuff like that. It's a very simple concept. It's the fact that most people, 90 plus percent, I would say, think in dualities. They think in black and white, up and down, so they have to take teams. I call this culture-level thinking. One of the...

45:42
best things you can do if you want to make a diet and exercise program work, if you just want to be happier, if you want to connect more, if you want to be more open, if you want to understand what we're doing on the planet is to get rid of duality thinking, right? It's like this diet is better than this diet. This political party is better than this political party. You should wear a mask, you shouldn't wear a mask. You should get a vaccine, you shouldn't get a vaccine. This is the sickness of duality.

46:10
and it permeates everything that we humans do. A non-dual thinker doesn't get caught up in that kind of stuff. And then that frees you to be able to find the diet that works for you, to be able to find the exercise program that works for you, to be able to find the way of relating to people that works for you. So I honestly think psychologically speaking, it's duality thinking that is the major...

46:37
problem that is sort of like, you know, if we want to talk about viruses, the duality virus is probably the most dangerous virus for a human to have and we're all infected with it. Yeah, nice. Jay, do you think that everyone needs to do this work before they go on a diet? You know, like I, like what are your thoughts around that? Is this a compulsory element? No, no, I don't at all, actually. A lot of what we've been talking about today is...

47:02
It's not something that you need to do. It's something that you need to be aware of though. Because what happens is, I was just talking to a friend recently where they're just like, well, once I'm ready to start, once I've got it planned out, I'll take the step. And what I said to him is I said, the problem with that is you won't know what the plan is until you take the step. And a lot of us forget about this. And so I think what happens is that diet and exercise is something that we should be doing anyway.

47:31
It is just something that is, you know, there are many things that are just built into being human that modern day has circumvented and it causes problems. So no, you don't need to think like me. You don't need to go get a psychology degree or philosophy degree. You don't need to go necessarily get a life coach or something like that. But what you need to do is be aware of once you begin the process, once you start, and where I would say, don't start with any of this. What I would say is if you're listening to me and you're just like, oh my gosh, Jade,

48:01
you know, diet and exercise thing, because I'm just really trying to lose weight and I want to get started. I would just say, okay, two things, stop eating junk food and start walking. Plain and simple, just that. Nothing else. Don't worry about all the metabolism stuff. Don't worry about all the latest diet stuff. Don't worry about all this psychology stuff I just talked about. Just start doing that. And then what will happen is now you're playing the role. Now you're the method actor without us even knowing it, you're stepping into that. And what happens is that will begin to get the snowball.

48:30
rolling. You'll start feeling a little bit better. You start paying a little bit more attention. Just in that one statement, stop eating junk food and start walking is going to get your mind thinking like that method actor. Okay, well, what's junk food? Is this junk food? Is that junk food? And you'll begin the process of learning and experimenting and changing. And so long as your psychology is primed to be like, I'm just going to play this role and I'm going to see where it takes me. In other words,

48:58
You know you've arrived when arrival is no longer the goal. This is a process, not a prescription. So you just start the process. You just get on the path and you let it take you where you want to go. And then you might say, wow, you know, Mickey Jade, I was listening to you guys on a podcast, you know, years ago. And one of the things that I did is I just started the process and I started walking and I never lifted weights and I never did any metabolic conditioning stuff. And, you know, I stopped eating all junk food, but I kept my wine in and

49:24
wow, I lost 50 pounds, 60 pounds, and whatever it is. And this is how it works. Now, other people might choose to go more with it. You also might say, hey, Mickey Jade, I listened to this podcast two years ago, and now I'm in the Tour de France, and I'm doing XYZ. The point is, what will happen is when you take these steps and you put your health and your fitness upfront, and you do it with this psychological awareness of engaging in the process, you're gonna go to beautiful places. However, if you start outsourcing that stuff,

49:54
you expect me to give you all the answers or you expect Mickey to give you all the answers or you expect a book to do it or a podcast to do it, then what you're going to be doing is just decisions, right? Considerations. Oh, they said this. Oh, he said that. Oh, she said this. Oh, that book said this. And you're going to be so confused and so overwhelmed. So to me, you start with the simple stuff. Start walking, stop eating junk food. That's going to take you in the direction you need to go to. And don't do anything or pay attention to anyone.

50:24
who starts confusing you. When you get confused, just go back to, I'm playing me. I'm playing the method actor role of me. I don't eat junk food and I don't sit down. I move and I don't eat junk food. And then maybe a year from now, you're gonna be like, I move, I lift weights, I don't eat junk food and I make sure I read self-development books. And then maybe...

50:47
A year after that, you move, you don't eat junk food, you lift weights, you do self-development books. And I decided that I'm a teacher and now I'm a health coach and I teach people this stuff. And then a year after that, you're just evolving. And that's the way to start this in my mind. You don't need to have a master's in psychology or be an expert in metabolism. I love that. Because a couple of things which I would love to comment on. One is the...

51:15
what you described, like that very basic sort of almost beginner steps, like just people will build confidence that they can do it, you know, and I think confidence is the thing that you start to that sort of that psychological transformation, you start to prove to yourself that you actually can do things differently and be a different person. But I also love Jade that you said, actually, you know, if you do want to go balls to the wall, go from zero to hero, like that's actually all right as well, because I see, because I think people get confused.

51:43
in that realm as well. People are like, apparently I shouldn't overhaul my entire diet because it's not sustainable. That's not true for some people actually. That's the only way that they can do it in order to actually be successful in the long term, is to actually really go all in. Like you said earlier on, we're all individuals and what's going to work for us is going to be different.

52:08
Yeah. And the best coaches are going to be like, that's what makes you a great coach and teacher, Mickey, because a great coach is going to tell you that. You're going to come to them and say, I just really want to do it all at once. And they're going to go, okay, let's see how that works. And by the way, here's the difference, right? The process is this. The process is whether it works or not, that's duality thinking. There's a lesson there. So you're not worried if it works or not. What you're worried about is what are the lessons I can learn to take forward? Duality thinking goes...

52:37
Oh, is this going to work? Oh no, I don't know if it's going to work. Is it going to be good or is it going to be bad? The truth is there's no good or bad. There's no failure in this. It's just lessons. And once you get out of that thought process, and to me, that's why you just start. Because if you just address that and stop listening to all the noise, that is what keeps you from being a duality thinker. A duality thinker is always looking for considerations. They said this, but they said this. But what about this? Up, down, left, right, black, white, right?

53:05
The other person just goes, there is no failure in this. It's just lessons. I'm just here to learn, teach and love, period. And I just need to live that path. Yeah, no, I love that. Jade, I've never heard you talk about this. Maybe it's because you don't have an opinion on it, but any thoughts on the health at every size, body positivity movement versus...

53:30
the real risks that are associated with carrying excess body fat. And you can tell my judgment there even by the way that I say that. Like, have you given any of that any thought or has it come up for you at all? Yes. And I've also looked at the research here and I would say two things. I feel like we have moved into the age of healthism because of duality thinking. So, you know, racism, sexism, now it's healthism. I'm healthier than you.

53:54
I'm thinner than you, you're fatter than me, therefore you're a bad person. What I'm interested in is, I don't care, we're all going to get age. This is the first thing I'll say, I do have some thoughts on this, but the first thing I'll say is we're all going to age, we're all going to get sick at some point, we're all going to die. It doesn't matter what you do, you biohack all you want. One day you're going to die and you're going to suffer. To me, I go, what's important? Did you live a good life? Did you feel like you mattered and you made a difference?

54:21
and we should be celebrating every human at all shapes and sizes and in my mind, not telling them they're a bad human simply because they're not the healthiest or they're overweight. That's the first thing I'll say. However, to me, there is definite health disadvantages for most people who are overweight. But what we can see that seems to be emerging from the research, and this is very controversial, so it's probably a preliminary for us to be talking about this, is that...

54:49
There does seem to be that people who sit around and who are lean may actually have worse health outcomes than people who are slightly overweight but who move. This isn't as clear, but certainly morbid obesity is highly disadvantageous for your health. So to me, I think it's probably a bad message for most people to go, you know, it's okay that you're overweight.

55:18
What I would say though is a better message is just go like, hey, just move, start doing the things, you know, don't make weight loss because the truth is I've been in this field for a very long time. And if we are honest, most of us don't really know. It is very difficult space to take people who are very overweight. And the research hints, by the way, the recent research hints that a lot of this is programmed in development.

55:45
and has a lot to do with in utero exposure and whether or not the mother is moving and how insulin sensitive she is and all of this kind of stuff. So from my perspective, we know we can make overweight people healthier if we get them moving. We don't necessarily know that we're going to be able to get the weight off all these people. So from my perspective, that's the message that I would say. Health at any weight, I don't necessarily agree with that, but I think it's the wrong metric. The right metric is we shouldn't.

56:14
berate people because they have a different body shape than us or they're slightly overweight or make them feel bad. That honestly is duality thinking. It's healthism. It's not helping them anyway. It's non-compassion coming at the society level. Instead, what we should do is be like, hey, whether you're overweight or not, we know if you move, you're going to be healthier. And that is something they can do. We don't necessarily know that we're going to be able to reliably take fat off people.

56:42
It is incredibly difficult to do. We know this because 90 plus percent of people who lose weight regain it within three years. There are very, very few people who are able to lose the weight and keep it off, but everyone can start a walking regime. And even if they can't, they can start a moving regime. No matter how big you are, you can lay on your back and move your arms and legs. Movement is what we should be focusing on, not the size of these people in my opinion.

57:11
is being intellectually honest at this point can say it's okay to have lots of excess body fat. If you're 10 pounds, 15 pounds overweight, you're probably fine if you're moving. If you're morbidly obese, that is a problem. We just don't know that that is all about just the fact that you eat too much. It could be other things, environmental issues. There's a lot we don't know. So does that kind of help?

57:40
Yeah, yeah, no, completely. No, thank you. And because we're on sort of the subject, I'm just interested. Like I had a conversation with someone yesterday actually, and she said, you know, she has a girlfriend who has told her the only way she's going to lose weight at this point in time because she's 43, it's to do weight loss surgery. And like this woman is, you know, maybe 40 pounds, 20 kilos or whatever overweight. So, and I...

58:10
assured her, well, to my mind, that's not the answer, you know, for where she was at. Like, what are your thoughts, Jade? Like, you know, the idea, I mean, weight loss surgery, from my, you know, I think it's a very, it's such a useful tool that can definitely help improve health outcomes for so many people, but are we too quick to look at these sort of quick fixes? And of course, alongside that would be the new weight loss drugs, which seem to be, you

58:39
Yeah, 100% I think we're too quick. To me, drugs and surgery are more heroic measures, more surgery. There's a lot, a lot of downside and we don't hear enough of me being in the medical field. Trust me when I say there is a lot of complications that go along with those surgeries. You're trading one problem for...

59:04
know, many other problems, but it is life-saving for, you know, some people, obviously, for the morbidly obese. The new drugs, the GLP agonists and things like that, you know, those things hold a lot of promise and there is a place for them. However, what we will see, and this is a guess, by the way, we may not because we're still early in the research on this, but, you know, I can guarantee we've seen this story play out before. So we do have some past things to look at. If you're not making the lifestyle changes,

59:32
These drugs are probably going to lose their potency. So to me, I'm all for anything that someone needs to do. But in life, I do think we can say, and of course, you know, maybe you'll check me, we can all check and see if I was accurate. But I do think it's a universal truth that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is in life. These things don't come. You can't really, there are no real shortcuts here. So yes, use the.

59:58
I just think the problem is if you're going to do the surgery, if you're going to do the drugs, if any of us are going to do that, which from my perspective, I oftentimes like to think to myself, one day I might need to do these things. Like I'm running right now, I'm a healthy guy, I work out, I eat relatively well, I'm pre-diabetic. I'm trying to do everything I can to, why is this going on with me? And I sometimes think to myself, it's not because I'm not trying. And I do think that's true for a lot of people. However...

01:00:27
I think it's a whole different ballgame when you're doing the things and in the process and doing the walking and avoiding the junk food and all that. And then you're like, you know, I've been doing a lot of things, nothing's working and I really am. Then maybe you want to add these things on. I just think they should be more of the last resort. And it's an opinion. And of course, this is my bias. I'm a natural medicine practitioner and, you know, a trainer my whole life and all that kind of stuff. So I am biased. But to me,

01:00:56
That's just also good common sense. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense, Jade. And I know that we're running up on time, but I've got like two more things to ask you. One, continuous glucose monitors. What do you reckon? I quite like them. Yeah, same here. Here's the thing with all that kind of stuff. To me, any tool that you can use to look under the hood of your metabolism, to look inside and to see this is what's going on is going to be useful.

01:01:25
When you match that with subjective ways you're feeling, sleep, hunger, mood, energy, cravings, exercise, performance, exercise, recovery, and now we've got things like HRV and glucose that we can see, and pretty soon we'll hopefully be able to see insulin and ketones as well. All of this stuff is amazing and beautiful. The more we can look under the hood and understand our unique metabolisms, the better. What's really cool about that is that we used to think before continuous glucose monitors, and I've been doing this work for a long time, that we just didn't have...

01:01:54
I would actually have people go home with the, the prick their finger constantly. So I would have them prick their finger before a meal, uh, and then 30, 60, 90 minutes after a meal. Now we have the CGMs we can use. And I can tell you that I saw this a long time ago. We used to think that a food is just bad, white bread, bad, bad for everyone causes blood sugar excursions. You know, no one wants to eat that. Now we know, and there's, there's actually a study on this. You give a hundred people white bread and

01:02:21
a certain percentage of them respond just fine. Their hunger goes down, their blood sugars are stable, and it doesn't seem to have any adverse effect. And other people, their blood sugars go sky high, and they have hunger reactions. And this is true of lots of different foods. We even see this with dairy foods. For some people, dairy foods could be highly insulinogenic, so can protein. For other people, they're not the same. So, to me...

01:02:45
Being able to look under the hood and find the 10 best foods for Mickey or the 10 best foods for Jade in terms of blood sugar and hunger responses and things like that, it's unbelievably valuable. However, it's just a tool. It doesn't substitute anything else. So I think there's a danger when all of a sudden it's like I'm doing the CGM diet, right? And all I'm doing is paying attention to blood sugar in that way. That's potentially...

01:03:11
problematic in my opinion. Yeah, no, that's, um, that I agree with you on all of that. And there's seemed to be a lot of pushback in the medical field of, of seemingly healthy people being interested in this stuff. And I just think that, well, we don't know whether or not your health, I mean, how do you, what is health, you know, like, so I think it's that if you've got the means and the ability to get one, then I think it could, it could tell you a lot as you said.

01:03:37
Now, take my final question. Actually, let me just say one thing about that, Miggy, because I think that gives us a hint as to human psychology. Think about it. The people who are most interested in CGMs, continuous glucose monitors, and all this new tech are people who already identify as healthy, fit people. Isn't that interesting? Their identity is that they're a healthy, fit person. Therefore they're interested in the things that can make them healthy and fit. That's something to think about for the people whose identity is not.

01:04:07
as a healthy fit person. It's marketing 101 in a sense, but you would think that the people who aren't healthy would be most interested. But their identity isn't that. It just makes them feel bad about themselves. So they don't do it. People like you and I do it. Yeah. Yeah. You're so right, Jane. I don't even know how you would sort of move beyond that. It ultimately comes down to what people want to become in their authentic future selves. So I don't think you need to move beyond it necessarily. I think it's a good thing. But what it points to is for people who...

01:04:35
aren't excited about it, it tells them it's an identity issue. So what I really think the issue is, is that if you really want to get fit and healthy and lean and all those things, it's not your habits you need to change. It's not your diet you need to change. It's not your exercise you need to change. It's your identity that you need to change. And then your diet and your exercise and your habits change automatically. Yeah. Yeah, no, so true. Jade, one final question. You mentioned toxins and you're a naturopath, so I really actually want to get your thoughts on this.

01:05:04
Well, firstly, I've got to say, I'm quite happy that you mentioned that wine in the company of others is probably health promoting. So I'm a big believer in that. That really suits me. Um, but like there are so many things that I could be avoiding in my every day to day, because it will literally kill me if I listen in and from what I know about, you know, the health impact of so many things, I often get asked, you know, should I worry about

01:05:30
this toxin or this toxin or this thing that's out in the environment. Like from a naturopathic mind, what are the things that we actually should be focusing on? And I know this is actually very removed from everything we've spoken about right up until now, but this is my sort of side quest. Yeah. Well, the first thing I'll say, and it's going to be highly controversial and it's okay. Just everyone who's listening to this can decide whether you agree with me or not. However, what I'm going to say, I stand by it completely. And it's in my opinion, it's an educated opinion.

01:06:00
To me, the most powerful thing in medicine is the placebo effect, which is the belief effect. And to me, the number one toxin that we can have is the belief that there's toxins everywhere. This is putting us in a fight-flight-threat response. It is a needless stress. And we easily could believe the world is safe and beneficial in that placebo response.

01:06:23
is probably protective. Now that's highly controversial. You can decide whether you agree with me or not. Now that being said, I don't want to just leave us with that answer. There are real toxins I think that we need to be aware of that I think the evidence-based is there for. And these are primarily the endocrine disrupting persistent organic pollutants. These would be phthalates from plastics. These would be bisphenols. This would be things like pesticides from glyphosate and things like this. We know they're endocrine disruptors.

01:06:52
We know that they are atrazine. We know that that is having impact in animals lowering testosterone and disrupting estrogen and having fertility issues. We know that persistent organic pollutants like phthalates and things like that can interrupt thyroid function. We know these things. And so from my perspective, these are the things that probably there's a good evidence base there. So what does that mean? The best way to get rid of these things?

01:07:22
is to not take them in. So that means, and this is good for the environment as well, it means like using glass, not plastics, using silicone, not plastics, right? These kinds of things, you know, not heating things in plastics, not avoiding plastic bottles, you know, all of these kinds of things, glass, silicone, aluminum, you know, cans, things like that. Those things are probably things you should be doing. Whole foods, by the way, if you're, if you're, you know, doing those kinds of things, you're avoiding these things.

01:07:52
Also, you're decreasing sort of the trash and you're helping the environment as well. Organic foods, if possible, because of the pesticides. This also has, again, as next level humans who are aspiring to be next level humans, our choices matter. Remember back 20, 30 years ago, whole foods wasn't a thing. Organic foods weren't really a thing. Now they are. Now, we have to, of course, as consumers, we have to get even more.

01:08:20
diligent to make sure, you know, like, what does it mean? What does grass-fed really mean? What does natural really mean? You're a marketer. So, we have to be on top of that. But I would say the endocrine disrupting chemicals are the big ones. And of course, alcohol. You know, if you're going to complain about toxins, alcohol is a big one. However, even alcohol in moderation, as we talked about with people, is probably not that big of a deal. The other thing I would say is sweat therapy is one of the best ways we know to get rid of these

01:08:48
these persistent organic pollutants. And so if you really want to be worried about something, I would not be worried about Wi-Fi and that kind of stuff yet. We have no evidence that that's really a thing. Of course, a lot of people yell and scream about it and claim we do. I spend my whole life doing this stuff. I just don't think it's there yet. I'm willing to be proven wrong. I think all the evidence is there though for pesticides, glyphosate, atrazine, chemicals of industry, phthalates, bisphenols.

01:09:17
These things in my mind are best avoided. However, they're impossible, by the way, to avoid. And so if you start stressing yourself out, that might be worse than the toxin itself. So just remember, do the best you can and understand the placebo effect, the belief effect, is the most powerful thing in all of medicine. So perhaps what we perceive about our diet.

01:09:41
I'll give you an interesting study by Haliya Crum, who looked at this, who basically called the milkshake study. She basically gave two groups of people a milkshake. One group of people got a diet. It was labeled diet low calorie milkshake. The other group got decadent high calorie fatty milkshake. Then they measured their hunger hormone responses, ghrelin and cortisol and things like that. Obviously, the people who got the diet milkshake were hungrier and their hunger hormones went up. The people that got the heavy milkshake with lots of calories, their hunger

01:10:11
The problem was that there was the exact same milkshake in both groups. The only thing was that the marketing was different. The belief was different and it had real physiological effects. Now, I would say this absolutely happens if you believe you're getting poisoned by something. You may indeed be causing some negative physiology in your body that you don't need to have there. And so to me, yes, avoid these things. Do the best you can. Really look after the persistent organic pollutants.

01:10:40
regulate the things that you can do. But if you are convinced that everything's a toxin, you may be creating a toxic environment in your metabolism. Yeah, Jay, what a great answer. Thank you. And I think you pretty much covered up the field of, not the field of nephropathy, but that whole area so beautifully in about three minutes. So that was amazing.

01:11:04
Um, so, you know, if people, obviously if people were a little bit disappointed that we did not talk about diet and exercise, well, they needn't be because you share so much on social media, like almost every sort of second post is literally saying, look, if you need, if you want to lose weight, you do these things. Like it's all out there. You've got your books, you've got your courses. Um, Jade, can you just, for people who are unfamiliar with you, let people know how they can sort of find you.

01:11:35
Yeah, sure. So, Mickey, thank you for having me. I really appreciate this. I'm at jade tita on all social media, jade like the stone, and my websites are jade tita.com and nextlevelhuman.com. And I have a podcast as well called the next level human podcast that really delves into all the things that actually Mickey and I discussed, you know, from

01:11:58
All the four jobs, health and fitness, finance, personal relationships, and purpose and meaning. Yeah, no, I love that, Jade. And of course, yes, I love your podcast. I love catching up with it weekly. Thank you so much for your time, Jade. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Mickey. It's been great being here.

01:12:25
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that. And as I said, Jade has been a mentor for me and a lot of my insights that I have have been from the learnings that Jade has. And he's got a ton of both free and paid resources. So practitioners, but also just the general population, if you've got any interest in this area at all, totally recommend that you dive into his content. At the very least, follow him on Instagram.

01:12:55
Alrighty, next week on the podcast I have Dr Mike T Nelson who is another person who I think really highly of in terms of his knowledge and information. I have a chat to Mike next week on the podcast. And if you are wondering how to get a kickstart on 2024, head to my website, mickeywilledon.com, sign up to

01:13:20
fat loss in the festive season. It's my webinar that is coming to you Sunday November the 12th. It is free of charge and I'm going to share with you my best tips and strategies for surviving the holiday season and also just getting ahead of your 2024 fat loss goals. All right team you can catch me over on Instagram and Twitter it's not really Twitter anymore is it @mikkiwilliden you can

01:13:49
at mikkiwillidennutrition.com or head to my website mikkiwillidenn.com sign up to fat loss in the festive season. Looking forward to seeing you there. Have a great week, speak soon, bye bye.