I got a you bloody champs. It's harps. I hope you're great. So a few days ago, well, could be a long time ago, depending on when you listen to this, but a few days ago on Planet Me at the moment, Planet Me at the moment being ten thirteen, and the am on the ninth of the tenth, which is Wednesday. Is it Wednesday? Is it Wednesday? Or is it Tuesday?
It's Wednesday? Just checking looks at his phone. So I spoke about I opened the door on the strength conversation, about which I've spoken about a few times over the nearly seventeen hundred episode journey that is typ I've spoken
about the importance of strength training. I've spoken also about cardiovashkeellar fitness, and a whole bunch of other health variables and wellness variables that impact the way that we live and the way that we age and our capacity to have a long health span as well as a long lifespan, hopefully. I've spoken about food micros and macros and the thermogenic effect of different foods and energy in and out and
all of that. And we've spoken about you know, when I talk broadly about health, I talk about the stuff that's in our control, and that would be things like exercise, how hard, how often, how much, what kind lifestyle, how we live, the way we put it all together, how much booze we drink, and work and play, and recovery and holidays and sleep, and all those kind of lifestyle
variables that make up the thing that we inhabit. Mindset, of course, influences our health and all those things that intersect with our mental and emotional state, anxiety, depression, having a purpose reason, all of those things, food, as I also mentioned. And then there's the stuff that we can't control so much, but we can can kind of do something about genetics. We can't change our genetic disposition, but we can manipulate the way that we optimize or use
our genetics what we have to work with. We can't change what we've done up until now, and what we have done up until now to our body, in our life, with our choices, behaviors, rules, and rituals, all of those things have an impact on what we look foreel function, operate think like today, of course, but we can't change
any of that, but we can change moving forward. And also our chronological age we can't change, but as I've said many times, we can lower our biological age, so my body doesn't need to be as old in inverted commas as the calendar says, I am, so at sixty one, chronologically, I can have the equivalent physiology and function and biology and performance of a person who is ten or fifteen or twenty years younger than me, typically in terms of function, if I do certain things and optimize what I have
to work with. And I haven't done a biological age test for a while, but I would think I would guess that my bioage would be somewhere around a decade, maybe a decade and a half. I'm not sure, younger than my sixty one actual years on the planet anyway, So that's kind of a bit of backstory. But today
I want to talk to you about food. But I don't want to talk to you about the science of food and energy in and out in micros and macros and recommend the daily intakes, and I want to talk to you about essentially our relationship with food and the way that we, for one of a more science y term, the way that you and I do food. And so I was going to call this episode con eating, but because it kind of is about being conscious about the
way that you eat. But I did a bit of a deep dive having a look at how a lot of people define conscious seeding, and it's a bit more woo woo. It's a bit more about being a thoughtful eader and eating slowly and savoring every bite and being in the moment. It's almost like this intersection of food and spirituality and chanting, which isn't really isn't really where I want to go. This is more a cognitive and a cerebral and an awareness thing. So I'm calling this
episode eating awareness. And as somebody who has as I've mentioned many times, I've had issues with food over the years, and that's probably in terms of health and wellness and performance and body composition. Food has been my biggest challenge the other things I've found because I don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs, I sleep pretty well overly stressed or anxious, so I have a good social life. All of those things are pretty good. But for me, the challenge in
terms of bringing it all together has been food. And so I'm coming from I'm coming from a kind of an intimate and personal, experiential perspective when I'm sharing the questions that I'm about to share with you, and I am by no means an expert or an authority or
a high level researcher in this particular space. But I think I am qualified enough and experienced enough, and I've seen enough and worked with enough people with similar issues to at least have some thoughts and ideas and comments about it that you may or may not find helpful, empowering and valuable, and you might answer the questions I'm about to share and then do something with what comes
up for you. Right, And so I've just written a series of questions that I'm going to unpack because I think these are questions that can can lead to some kind of positive shift if we use them the right way. And so they're really down to earth. They're fundamental, they're not complicated. You don't need any kind of, you know, academic background in this or education or high level knowledge. Question one is, is the way that I eat working?
Is the way that I currently eat working? So I can answer that now and say yes, But for a long time, if I was honest, and I probably wouldn't have been at times, I probably wouldn't have been because I didn't want you to know what I was actually eating. There would have been times when you might have asked me that question, or I might have asked myself that question, and I would have bullshitted both you and me, because being truthful would have mean that or would have meant
that I needed to own up and step up. And it also would have meant that I needed to acknowledge that I was telling people to do something that I wasn't doing myself. I was advising my clients and the people that I worked with in the health wellness space, in my gyms, in my own gyms. I was giving people advice and information and education that I couldn't even fucking execute myself. And so this is a real, you know,
this is a real self awareness, self reflection piece. And so when I say is the way that you eat working, I mean is it producing the kind of outcomes from an energy and from a physiology and from a performance and from a function point of view that you want? You know, you can get a lot of things. You can get another job and more money in another you know, house, and another car and lots of stuff, but you can't get a new body. And I can't get a new body.
And I just I worry about people that tend to tend to put this stuff on the back burner because they'll get to it one day. They know that, they know that the way that they eat is a form of self sabotage. They know that it's not really doing them any good. But they're always going to get to it soon. It's not now. It's soon. They're about to get in shape, they're about to change their body, they're about to overhaul their life and their habits and their
food behaviors. But it's never now. And this is not meant to be a judgment or a criticism, it's just true. And as someone who has observed many people wait until stuff breaks before they actually make significant health decisions, I can tell you with some level of confidence that being reactive not proactive, is a fucking dumb strategy when it comes to your body. And so the question is the question is is how I currently eat? Is it working?
And you know the answer, And it might be that eighty percent of the time it's good, twenty percent of the time it's not good. And I'm not going to say what the percentages should be or could be, but you know, I think that most of the time, most of what we do to our body should be mostly positive. Let's just say that. My second question is what kind of a relationship do I have do you have with food? And so when you think about why why we eat?
I mean, by the way, when I'm talking about our relationship with food and eating awareness here, I'm not suggesting that you should be some robot that just puts a set amount of micros and macros and calories in your body and it's like, well, this is this is optimal. So I'm eating fucking one hundred grams of chicken and seven pieces of lettuce and a bunch of our felfa at this meant No, I'm not talking about that. It
doesn't mean that we can't enjoy food. It just means are we doing Are our behaviors with food complimenting or aligning with how we want to be and who we want to be in terms of our own health. And for a long time I had a very tempestuous, volatile relationship with food, and as I said to you just before, you know I it was my biggest challenge. And so we eat for we eat because we're bored. We eat
because we want to reward ourselves with food. Sometimes we even sometimes we even incentivize our kids that if they do a certain thing, will take them to a certain place. I won't mention the name of any fast food restaurants, but so many times kids get taken somewhere because that's a reward for doing a thing that a parent wanted them to do. And that's not great training, and that's not programming, and that doesn't set them up for success
in the future. Is if you do this thing, I'm going to allow you to put shit food in your body. We eat because we want a distraction. We eat because it gives us that instant gratification, that reward, that pleasure, that dopamine. We eat because it's what the situation requires, or that's what we tell ourselves. Or while I'm at a party, I'm at an event, I'm in an airport lounge. I pay for the membership and the food's here and
so on. Or we eat on the plane. We're not even hungry, but we take the food because it gets offered to us. And so this is not around this point that I'm making here is not around judgment or condemnation or criticism, but rather just truly just rather curiosity and why an awareness? Why am I actually eating this? Why am I putting this thing in my body? Do I need this food or do I just want it? Like when our body needs food, we have a genuine hunger.
I'm not talking about a short term craving based on some blood sugar resting or some you know, stimuli that's just come into our awareness on a TV ad or smelling something or whatever. But there's a big difference between wanting something because it smells good or looks good and a genuine physiological need for energy. That is, I am genuinely hungry. And so one of the one of the questions that I when I was trying to overcome my food addiction, when I was trying to or when I
was overcoming my food addiction. And when I say food addiction, that sounds melodramatic, but for me, that just meant eating food food that I didn't need. It meant making decisions
that were out of alignment with intelligence and health. And I was at the point with my food behaviors often where I would be eating in secret, I would be as I said earlier, I would be telling lies, and I would do anything possible for people to not know the real me around food because of the humiliation, the embarrassment, the damage to my brand and all of those ego driven things. Right, And so this is for some of you,
this podcast will be irrelevant. I get it. It might be interesting, but it might not be personally relevant to your journey. But for those of you who it is, and again, I don't have a three step solution to this, I'll give you some thoughts at the end, but there ain't no three step universally appropriate, universally effective strategy because we're all different. We're all different. But when we start to think about what consciously, what am I doing this for?
Am I eating this because I'm hungry and my body needs food? Or am I eating this because it's there? Am I eating this because it tastes great. It's nothing wrong with eating food that tastes great. But if I'm putting in twenty five hundred calories a day, for example, even if it's healthy food, by the way, even if it's clean, organic, bloody, ticks all the right boxes food. If I'm putting in, for example, five hundred or one thousand calories a day on average, even if the food
is high quality and nutritionally dense. It's still bad eating. It's still bad eating because the volume is too high. So I want to try and eat one. I want to try and eat quality f food, the right quality, and I also want to try and eat the right quantity, so that I am meeting my nutritional needs, not exceeding them. I'm meeting my energy needs is probably a better term. I'm meeting my energy needs, not exceeding them. And when you go, well, how do I know how much to eat?
Cut out the junk, cut out the crap. Yes, easier said than done. Reconnect with your body, and your body will tell you when you need food. So as I record this right now, it's ten twenty nine. I got up this morning at about five thirty. I did some work, then I met somebody. I did a coaching coaching session. At seven o'clock, I came home. Now, quite often I
will eat breakfast at eight fifteen, eight eight thirty. This morning I got home and I wasn't hungry, And at eight thirty I wasn't hungry, and at nine I wasn't hungry. And then it took till about probably twenty or thirty minutes before I started recording this for me to be hungry, and I just have my normal oats and nuts and stuff bird food as my mum calls it, and I love it, and it has a bit of protein powder and a few other bits and pieces. But anyway, I
ate that. But I ate that at I don't know whatever it was ten o'clock, because that's when I was hungry. That's when, and that's when my body said, okay, it's time now. I will probably eat dinner tonight at somewhere around seven o'clock. This is not a recommendation, this is not a prescription. But if per chance I'm starving at five o'clock, I'll eat dinner at five. If I'm not hungry at seven, I'll wait till I'm hungry. I'll wait till seven thirty. I'll wait till eight o'clock. I'll eat
when my body tells me to eat. I tend not to eat unless I'm hungry. And even if I make a meal and I get three quarters of the way through that meal and I have an awareness that I don't need anymore, I will stop there. And that's hard to do, isn't it. When it showed me I understand that. But one of the challenges is truly this kind of awareness around what is my body telling me. I mean, your body, As I've said before, your body is a
buyo feedback system. We have these two We have a billion hormones, a million hormones, but we have two really interesting hormones in this conversation, for this conversation. And one hormone is called Grellon, which has spelled ghri l i N grellin and Grellin is a hunger hormone. And so when you're hungry, when your body needs food, when your
body needs energy, your Grellon levels increase. And so if we took a little bit of blood from you and we measured your Grellon levels, and if you genuinely were hungry your body needed foods, you would have high Grellon levels. Conversely, when you are let's say now you are hungry, and now you eat and you've had a decent let's say you've had the right meal, then we did some bloods again, what we would see is we would see your grellon,
the hunger hormone level go down. It doesn't work like this, but instead of being a nine out of ten, it's now a one. We'll just use that for understandability. But there's another hormone called lepton lptim, which is a sotiety hormone. In other words, how satisfied I am, how content I am, I'm not hungry anymore. And so as the Grellon level goes down, the leptin, the society hormone that goes up.
So our body knows and our body even gives us, you know, clear indicators of when we do and don't need more food, and when we take away the emotion around food, and we take around the take away the socializing around food and the thinking and the beliefs and the ideas. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with loving your meals. There's nothing wrong with socializing around food. It's all about the way that we do our meals
and the way that we do our socializing. So you know, for me, I have because of my lifestyle and because of my quite specific rules and issues. Can I say issues around food when I socialize, I do it in quite a specific way. I still I don't want to be a social data. I still want to have fun, hang out with my friends, talk shit. But if there's you know, if people are having three or four courses. That's completely okay, but it's not what I'll be doing.
I'll be having a main course that I choose, one that kind of fits in within my parameters. I'll eat that main course generally speaking, I'll enjoy it, I'll love it. I'll have a good time. But me hanging out with my friends and me socializing and me having fun is not dependent on the food. But you and I, if you live in Australia, you and I live in a culture where it's sometimes everything fucking revolves around food, and it's almost like the quality of the experience is only
about the food. It's we live in such a food obsessed culture. And when you consider that sixty seven percent of Australians are overweight or obese, that ain't working out for us. That's not an insult, that's not an opinion, that's not a judgment. That's fucking data. That's data. And so you know, this is really about stepping back to that you've only got one body, What are you going to do with that body? Don't wait till shit falls apart.
Start to get more or conscious, start to get more aware, start to be more real with yourself, ask yourself good decisions, don't give yourself a get out of jail card. Don't spend the next five to ten years waiting for the right time to address this issue. You know, if physical health is one of your core values, then a great question is how do I need to eat for the most part to live in alignment with those core values. How do I need to eat to optimize my genetics?
How do I need to eat to be full of energy? How do I need to eat to have a body composition that for me is healthy? And so, in winding up this brief chat, how can we you me? How can we create a healthier relationship with food? How can we increase our eating awareness, self awareness around eating, and then do something positive about that. I think step one is really just to own up, you know, not throw
yourself under the metaphoric bus, but just don't up and go. Look, you know what I'm currently doing shit, which is stupid from a health point of view. From I can't get another body point of view from a I'm not walking my talk. I talk about all this stuff, but I'm literally sabotaging my own body, sabotaging my own health with decisions and behaviors that just don't align. So it's just about being real. It's just about being you know, vulnerable
and authentic. And once we've done that, then we can start to strategize around doing better. You know, I think a big part of it is being willing to delay gratification. You know, there's those moments where there's that thing in front of us and we know we could grab that thing that we don't need, but we know it would taste amazing, we know it would make us feel good. We know it's got the fat or the sugar or the salt or the combination that is just fucking yummy.
No one's looking, I get it. But it's in those moments often when no one's looking, when no one cares and it's just you and that thing. It's in that moment of being able to not do that, of being able to not put that thing in your mouth that you don't need, not open the fridge door, not open the pantry door, to be able to delay gratification even when in the moment that delayed gratification doesn't equal anything positive in the moment. And this is one of the challenges,
you know, isn't it. It's like you know, when I was the morbidly obese kid, I'd eat the pie and I'd feel fucking amazing for about five minutes, and then i'd feel shit. But if I didn't eat the pie, I didn't get instant weight loss. So I'll eat the pie and i'll start tomorrow. I'll eat the sausage roll and I'll start tomorrow. I'll drink the chocolate beer and I'll start tomorrow. And this was my perpetual story for a very long time, is that I will start soon.
I don't like how I look or feel. I don't like my weight, I don't like that I can't run, I don't like being obese, but fucking hell, this cake tastes great, and I'll start soon. And that just became, for way too long a cycle of my own bullshit that kept me trapped in a holding pattern, if not
a holding pattern, a going backwards pattern. So, you know, having some accountability, having some plan, having some structure, involving potentially involving another person, be that a coach or a mental or a dietitian or a doctor or a trainer or an exercise physiologist, or just a friend that won't always tell you what you want to hear an unreasonable friend and someone who will call you on your own bullshit.
Maybe that's the kind of accountability that you need. And also, I guess on a really fundamental level, there needs to be a shift in our thinking. You know, same thinking, equal same choices, equal same behaviors, equal same outcomes. But when we go into something like where we're trying to change our relationship with food, we're trying to be more aware of how we are around food, you know, and we start to think, Look, I'm not going on another diet.
I'm not temporarily changing my behavior. I'm not looking for attention, I'm not looking for accolades. Look at me, Look at what I'm doing. Here's a fucking photo of another salad that I ate on Instagram. Tell me, I'm all that bullshit has got to go. All that bullshit has got to go. Because as long as we're dependent on validation and approval and a round of applause and a trophy every time we go for a walk or every time we do something good for our body, and then we've
just now created a new addiction and new dependency. It's what we do most of the time. I believe what we do most of the time when no one's looking. That matters most over the long term. So not a new diet. You're not just rolling the dice and see how it goes where creating a new operating system with food. We're creating a new forever relationship with food. See you next time.