0:00

There's a reason why people are

0:03

overweight and sick, and that's because

0:05

they're doing things that gratify the short

0:07

term UH systems.

0:09

That basically what this is is a hyperactivation

0:12

or artificial activation of the dopamine pathway.

0:15

This is your mind was designed by nature

0:17

to seek the stimulation, and when you overstimulated,

0:20

it feels better. And it's

0:22

hard to get people to realize they must sacrifice

0:25

that sort of short term gratification

0:27

in order for longer term gains. Everyone.

0:47

I'm doctor Oz and this is the

0:49

Doctor Os podcast. There

0:52

are folks who have spent their professional

0:54

life working on the psychology of

0:57

fact, an area that intrigues

0:59

me because unlike some addictions where

1:01

you can just say you know, don't do that, you know you can

1:03

actually live life and never smoked a cigarette. I've

1:06

never smoked a cigarette. You can go through life never

1:08

having done harsh drugs, but you can't

1:10

go through I never smoked a cigarette.

1:13

Never smoked not one, not one, not between

1:15

behind the barn someplace. No. I've taken

1:18

a whiff of a cigarette puff.

1:22

But I have problems.

1:26

I'm gonna subscribe to English the second language.

1:28

Send a picture in you in college with a cigarette

1:30

in your hand. No, I never spoke. I've

1:32

had cigars. I never smoked a cigarette. But

1:35

my English and the second language UH

1:38

show today is UH. It's

1:40

gonna focus a little bit on the psychology, and which

1:42

we brought a gentleman and Dr

1:44

Doug Lyle, who's psychologist

1:46

in Santa Rose to California. And it's one

1:48

of the most innovative and curious minds in this arena.

1:51

And you've done well in your

1:53

professional education. But you've both spent a lot

1:55

of time working at the National Center

1:57

for post Traumatic Stress Disorders, where you're

1:59

on staff. You've spent a fair

2:01

amount of time as a forensic psychologist. What, Doug,

2:03

what is a forensic psychologist? It's criminal

2:05

work. So what to means? Like a curious case

2:08

you've been involved in no names,

2:10

no games. Oh I don't know the worst

2:12

of the worst. So you just try to figu out what's

2:14

wrong with their heads. Yeah, it's it's pretty

2:16

hopeless, but you try anyway.

2:19

The detectives call you, there's starting

2:22

a Friday call up and say that I've got a rule winner

2:24

here. He's doing these crazy things. Actually, a

2:26

lot of my career I spent doing UH evaluations

2:29

for the judges. Judges would ask

2:31

what we should do with people, and

2:33

uh to trying to figure out what

2:36

the best move was for the chrono justice system

2:38

in the individual cass You mean in terms of what it's

2:40

worth putting in jail? Is tutionalizing him? Was

2:42

he really in jail? Would be the light thing? Was

2:45

that? Right? Yeah?

2:47

Whether they need to go to the big house for a long time

2:49

and how long and etcetera, or whether

2:51

there was any hope at all other people you say

2:53

it's hopeless. They might put them in a you know,

2:55

electricate some kind of no no not. I

2:58

wasn't involved in any cases that magnet. So

3:01

although we're not talking about that today, we may come back to that

3:03

game. But he's actually led

3:05

your nationally to health professionals, physicians

3:07

and others on topics including

3:09

evolutionary psychology UM and

3:12

a lot of the other psychological

3:15

therapies that might actually play a role in folks

3:17

which trying to lose weight. And

3:19

so his book The Pleasure Trapped, Mastering

3:21

the hidden force that undermines health and

3:23

happiness, he's gonna have topically why do you write

3:25

the book? UM? I think I wrote

3:28

the book because of probably the same struggles

3:30

that a lot of doctors have when

3:32

you have people in front of you that are trying to

3:35

reach very important goals for themselves. So if if

3:37

you're Doug Lyle tucked away in Santa Rosa

3:40

and you have a woman that's coming in that's

3:42

trying to lose weight so that she can look better and feel

3:44

better about herself. Or if your moment oz

3:46

and you're a world famous heart surgeon and you're gonna

3:48

try to talk to somebody about what they need to do to

3:50

save their life. The point is is that

3:52

we run into the same problem, which is it

3:54

is very difficult for people, even once

3:57

they know the right thing to do, to actually do

3:59

it. As as I read

4:01

through sort of the big

4:03

sum reason that we get for these books, I was struck

4:05

by this concept of the pleasure trap that

4:08

and if you just walk us through how something

4:10

that evolutionary perspective

4:12

makes so much sense it might actually be maladaptive

4:14

in modern society. Well,

4:16

the thing is is that we lived in a completely

4:19

different environment than we do today,

4:21

or I wouldn't say completely different, but very

4:23

significantly different in in ten

4:25

thousand years ago, our biggest problem with scarcity,

4:28

So we needed to be tuned, or our

4:30

senses needed to be tuned to even very

4:32

subtle differences in for example, and coloric

4:35

density of food. So we were really

4:37

good at detecting the difference between an apple

4:39

that might be uh, seventy calories

4:41

of pound or excuse me, seventy calorie apple and

4:43

one that's seventy five. Would be the difference between

4:45

one that's a little bit tart and one that's sweet.

4:48

So now if you put next to that that with

4:50

the very same machinery that's really there

4:53

to save your life to detect even subtle

4:55

differences in calories seventy to seventy five

4:57

colies, right next to it, you put a chocolate

4:59

apple that's seven a hundred fifty, right, And

5:02

that's what the problem is. So

5:06

how do you escape? How do you get out of the pleasure trap?

5:08

Well, I think the first thing you have to do is recognize

5:11

a trap. It's it's everywhere.

5:13

It's our whole environment now is organized

5:16

to try to play into our evolutionarily

5:18

built tendencies. So we're designed

5:20

to be ferreting out the most pleasurable

5:22

stuff with the least amount

5:24

of pain and the least amount of effort, and those

5:27

tendencies that we call the motivational triad.

5:29

Uh, pleasure seeking, pain avoidance, and energy

5:32

conservation. Those are running the show. And

5:34

even though they were extremely important tendencies

5:37

in the natural world, they've now put us

5:39

in a situation where we're in the modern

5:42

world. They're going to take us off course. You

5:44

need to know what these traps are.

5:46

You need to be able to recognize them. It's like

5:49

being um playing chess

5:51

and having a friend who's better than

5:53

you keep setting the same trap over and over again.

5:55

Right. Once you start to recognize the trap,

5:58

you can do things to avoid it. It's with

6:00

the motivational trial again. You said it briefly.

6:02

You want to seek pleasure, yes, yeah,

6:04

it makes we all try to do that. You wanna avoid pain? Makes

6:06

sense? You want to conserve energy, right, which

6:09

seems slovenly. Yes. And

6:12

see, the thing is we're designed by nature to

6:14

be I guess you'd call it lazy. Uh,

6:16

not really lazy, but you had to take every

6:19

shortcut possible in order to survive. If you

6:21

look at Canadian geese, for example, when

6:23

they fly south for the winner, they draft

6:25

on each other and they have to do that in order to

6:28

save a few precious calaries that will make

6:30

the difference between success and failure. That's why

6:32

they fly on that characteristic V pattern. But

6:35

you tie this into to the emotional

6:37

link as well, right, So that all

6:39

makes biologic sense to me, But that

6:42

doesn't mean you're happy necessarily. So

6:44

how does happiness figured into this and differentiate

6:47

happiness from pleasure and all the other words we used

6:49

to make the the make

6:52

ourselves to think we understand what these virtually means.

6:54

Yes, um, I think that was

6:57

one of the big clarifications

6:59

for me when I was writing The Pleasure Trap was to try

7:01

to sort of get a distinction as to why pleasure

7:04

was so important and why it becomes

7:06

the thing that we can't seem to give up even

7:08

though we need to when we need to get on

7:10

the right track. And I think it's because

7:12

we have a whole system. The where psychology

7:15

is engineered is to

7:18

use good. We're really seeking good

7:20

feelings and anything that feels bad is

7:22

really a sign of biological failure. Happiness

7:25

is a set of experiences that

7:27

our mood states that come as a result

7:29

of of successes, and those successes

7:32

were designed by nature to try to

7:34

tell us that we're on our way to pleasure.

7:36

So, for example, if you're a young guy

7:38

in a chemistry class in college and you're trying

7:40

to hit on the girl next to you, if she wants

7:43

to go out with you, or she says yes, you're

7:45

happy. It's a mood of happiness. But happiness

7:48

isn't really what you're after. It's pleasure,

7:50

which you're ultimately after, and so

7:52

you're The problem is, if we can

7:54

short circuit our way to the pleasure, it

7:57

feels like that's the most important thing to

7:59

do. So people are very often willing

8:01

to basically short circuit

8:04

themselves to intensive pleasure experiences

8:06

in drugs and process food, whatever

8:08

it is, uh, And in doing so,

8:10

they'll undermine their happiness because you

8:12

need to be look good, feeling good, and being healthy

8:15

to really be happy. How does avoiding

8:18

pain fit into this? Is been? And is

8:20

pain ever avoidable? I mean totally

8:22

avoidable? Well, you're

8:25

design to certainly look as to

8:27

pain as a signal to tell you to

8:30

avoid something, and so when things

8:32

are unpleasant in any way, we

8:34

try to get out of it and weasel our way

8:36

out. That's a big problem with

8:38

modern medicine. You could see see

8:41

this coming as soon as human beings got smart

8:43

enough to figure out how to use substances that would

8:45

block pain, there was going to be

8:48

on the first hand, certainly a great

8:50

relief that could be incredibly useful. I wouldn't

8:53

want to live in a world without novocaine. But

8:55

at the same time it sets us

8:57

up for a big problem, which

8:59

is that thinking that the pain is

9:01

gone tells us that

9:03

that the warning light is off. And that's

9:06

our problem today. That we can use

9:08

some of the genius of modern medicine to block pain,

9:11

our block symptoms, but that

9:13

creates its own pleasure trap. Why

9:16

is it that we have a disconnect between what medicine

9:19

seems to know about these realities. In your

9:21

book, for example, it's called the pleasure

9:23

trap, by the way, and we're speak with Doug Lyle, it's

9:25

spelled l I s l e by the way. Search

9:27

for his name under you know the singer Lyle you

9:29

will find him

9:30

the l I s l e um.

9:34

Why is it that this isn't becoming more

9:36

pervasive in our medical noge Why don't doctors

9:38

talking about this? I think this is a hard

9:40

thing for doctors to deal with. I think

9:42

many doctors know the direction that people

9:44

should be going. But people

9:47

are going to fight you tooth and nail, and I

9:49

think it wears doctors down. The

9:52

truth of the matter is people want to quick fix.

9:55

Uh. It isn't because they're bad. It doesn't

9:57

because they're slovenly. It doesn't mean that they're

9:59

on disp one. It's that they're designed by

10:01

nature. Make me feel better as fast

10:03

as I can. And uh, and

10:06

it's it's an understand It's like a magnet

10:08

for human behavior. And so I'm not surprised

10:11

that the doctors get tired of

10:13

trying to coach and educate people to

10:15

do things that are health supporting. Is

10:17

there really a way around this? I mean it would

10:19

seem to me and you. You put out in the book that

10:22

our biological program to reproduce,

10:25

so we've got to do things that requires us to

10:27

survive so we can reproduce. And

10:30

some of the things that we naturally would not seek out on happiness,

10:33

which was that which is that warning symptom actually

10:35

to us that not to go that direction anymore, to stop

10:37

trying to swim across the river, you know, don't don't let

10:39

you eat yourself anymore. Uh, aren't

10:42

really uh, you know, provided

10:44

a role to us millennia ago. But

10:47

in today's environment, when you can short circuit them,

10:49

we don't need those kinds of warning symptoms anymore. We just

10:51

go for the end game. I'm not

10:53

sure just talking someone about it can change

10:55

the way they think about it. Well,

10:57

I think that this is what occasional

11:00

forums like your show and UH and

11:02

books and educators, this is

11:04

what we try to get is to to really get

11:07

across, is for people to realize

11:09

that the the endgame. If they ignore

11:12

this is very dangerous and very

11:14

serious, that they will undermine their health

11:16

and happiness. There's a reason why people

11:18

are overweight and sick, and that's

11:21

because they're doing things that gratify

11:23

the short term. UH systems

11:26

that that basically what this is is a hyperactivation

11:28

or artificial activation of the dopamine pathway.

11:31

This is your mind was designed by nature

11:33

to seek the stimulation, and when you overstimulate

11:36

it, it feels better. And

11:38

it's hard to get people to realize they must

11:40

sacrifice that sort of short term

11:43

gratification in order for longer term

11:45

gains. It's worth doing. But

11:48

this is I think in a way, you're resetting

11:50

what pleasure feels like. Is that true.

11:52

Yeah, this is very important when

11:54

people think about if they

11:56

got advice from you that

11:58

what they needed to do is to change their diet,

12:01

and they were going to change their diet from a

12:03

conventional, very high cleric diet

12:06

a lot of salt, a lot of oil, a lot of fat, a

12:08

lot of sugar. If they were to do that and to move

12:10

towards a more whole natural foods diet, they

12:13

will experience a reduction and pleasure. They

12:15

absolutely will, in the same

12:17

way that that when you go from

12:19

a very bright outside

12:22

and then you go into a movie theater and it seems dim

12:24

uh. In that same way, the taste buds are going dim

12:27

on you. But it's not permanent, and

12:29

people need to know that it's not permanent. You were

12:32

designed by nature to then readapt

12:34

to the appropriate level of stimulation,

12:37

which for us and food is whole natural

12:39

food. If you think that, for

12:41

example, you could not eat asparagus

12:43

without salting it, that you couldn't eat corn

12:45

without buttering it, you're in the pleasure trap.

12:48

That's your signal to tell you that

12:51

that you are that your tasteners

12:53

are not working as they were designed. His

12:57

laughtbowl that came from but first, a quick

12:59

break

13:08

the evolutionary diet that your espousing,

13:11

and you mentioned in the book several folks that are well

13:13

known. We've had a bunch of them on the show. Uh, this

13:15

is a diet that least is a vegetarian. I

13:17

have my whate of these millet hammet Where are you, honey? What

13:19

are your feeding me today? Carrots

13:22

beats, but they

13:24

taste like hamburgers, and they're they're really good.

13:27

But but but we've talked about

13:29

this before on the show, and you

13:31

you bring it up beautifully, the infantilization

13:33

of our taste buds. We we end up with,

13:36

Uh, and you know, the three year old taste buds that serve us

13:38

well when we can afford to have a lot of simple carbs

13:40

in theory where we should have craved

13:43

them because we're growing rapidly, are still there were twenty

13:45

five years old. There's something wrong there. And

13:47

uh, And I am intrigued that you say

13:49

you can reset those taste buds. How long you think it

13:51

takes? I think we know. I think chemical

13:53

census studies have actually told us um

13:56

in the same way that m visual

13:58

nerves. For example, take about ten minutes

14:01

when you walk outside out of that movie

14:03

theater, you walk outside, it's about ten minutes

14:05

that the sun seems really bright till you get used

14:07

to it. Um In the same way that if

14:10

you your nerves will tell you if you go

14:12

into the hot tub, it's gonna seem really hot

14:14

for about ten minutes. Uh.

14:16

And for the smelling, if you go into someone's

14:18

house at Christmas time and there's a tree in there

14:20

that smells great, it only smells great for about ten

14:22

minutes. Unfortunately, taste

14:25

buds will take about ten weeks. And

14:28

that's our problem. That people will

14:30

take a plateful of whole natural

14:32

food and if you were to say, look, this

14:34

is the solution to your cardiovoscar problem, this

14:36

is the solution to your way problem, and they'll

14:38

take, uh, dive in for about

14:41

ten seconds and they'll say, forget it. I'm not willing

14:43

to do this. They don't know just how

14:46

short term this problem really is. The

14:49

diseases of the Kings when you talk about as well, we've mentioned

14:51

on the show it was the reality that folks

14:53

were more affluent a thousand years ago actually

14:55

had more problems because they eat or

14:57

of the foods that we know today to be a

14:59

social with rapid, frequent happiness

15:02

and pleasure. But because they reset

15:04

our expectations with a different level um,

15:06

they reach other havocs

15:09

upon our body. Now, I uh,

15:12

if you're talking about the modern society where everybody

15:14

has that same ill in this program, we're

15:16

left with the reality, as one of your chapters says,

15:18

that we're looking for health in all the wrong

15:20

places. So how do we go about taking

15:23

the ten week process that you arguing

15:25

they required is required to retrain our taste

15:27

buds and make it feasible? How do we wait people

15:29

up who are not used to delay gratification

15:32

to the to the possibility that that may actually bring

15:34

them greater pleasure down the road. Well,

15:36

I think the first thing is they have to know

15:38

that this is going to happen. Uh. There,

15:40

your intuition is that it won't. Because people

15:43

believe that their taste buds are constant.

15:45

They think that what they like is what they

15:47

like and that they could never like it anything any any

15:49

different. So they must understand

15:51

that this is that they have basically adapted

15:54

to this very high density diet

15:56

and at a lower density, lower clower density

15:58

diet, less calaries per pound.

16:01

Basically, when we put the fiber and all the natural

16:03

stuff back into the food. Uh,

16:05

it's gonna turn out that you can, in

16:07

fact enjoy that food a great deal. You're designed

16:10

to have that food to be tantalizing. Um.

16:13

And so it's important to know that. But also

16:16

so you have to realize that

16:18

that is really the keys to the prison door. If

16:21

your self esteem is locked into

16:23

and behind a trap

16:25

that is put fifty extra pounds

16:27

on you. If you're on a bunch of pills

16:29

to deal with your heart condition or high

16:31

cholesterol or high blood pressure. Uh,

16:34

if you are dealing with all

16:36

kinds of the problems that most of

16:38

our population gets sick and literally

16:40

dies from. This is the solution.

16:43

This is the way home. If

16:45

I understand correctly, I think you said it very artfully

16:47

in the book, Uh, that we often want

16:49

to add things. Right, you don't feel well, We want

16:51

to give you a pill, have you do something.

16:53

In fact, the true solution might be the opposite.

16:56

So it's almost homeopathic in a way

16:58

that you want to give as little as pow in fact, take something

17:01

away. The subtraction model. Yes, we're

17:03

really designed by nature to actually

17:05

want to add things, to do something that's

17:08

a very common natural bias inside

17:10

of the way minds work. It's not just our minds. You'll

17:12

find it throughout the animal kingdom.

17:14

The the often the best solution

17:17

seems to be the beat default solution is to do

17:19

something towards towards more stimulation.

17:21

So if you're going to try to train a pigeon to flutter

17:24

its feathers, and you're gonna have you're gonna use

17:26

like keys to have a pack

17:28

the keys when when it flutters

17:30

its feathers, if you light the key, they'll

17:33

they'll learn it. But if you go from a late key

17:35

to a darkened key, they won't learn. So

17:38

you are when you increase the stimulus. Everybody

17:40

is excited when you add something. Creatures

17:43

are excited when you take things away. If that's

17:45

the solution, very difficult to grasp.

17:48

One of the solutions you you offer, and

17:51

we talk with Dr lyle Um, is

17:54

fasting with just water, which

17:57

you know, I must say, we've never had anyone in the show. Who's

17:59

are you for? The kinds of fast that

18:01

that you're proponent

18:03

of. Yes, walk us through how someone

18:06

can fast for a week or

18:08

twenty days or even longer, which is water?

18:10

How does that work? Well, it works surprisingly

18:12

well if you actually look

18:14

at the fact that we were built

18:17

genetically to store fat. There's a reason

18:19

for that. The reason is is that

18:22

we're also designed by nature to have to go

18:24

through periods of periodic deprivation.

18:26

That's the only reason you've got fat stores.

18:29

And so the fat stores are

18:31

an adaptation to our species having

18:33

to go through periods where they might go to

18:35

three or four weeks without food. Um.

18:38

Now, we never do that. So the

18:41

polar opposite of that is water only

18:43

fasting. It's the it's the period

18:46

of time where where there is no calories

18:48

out there in the environment, and the body makes

18:51

use of the existing fat stores. And while it

18:53

does that, we now know that it

18:55

takes advantage of that opportunity and does a

18:57

tremendous amount of internal housekeeping. So

18:59

a law out of uh actually

19:01

today, probably more than ever, we

19:04

need this solution, or need to use it. It's a it's

19:06

a solution that's sitting right under our nose,

19:08

but we would never think of it. You would never

19:10

go out looking for a period of deprivation.

19:13

It would find you. And yet if we

19:16

invoke this now voluntarily, it turns out

19:18

that a lot of problems particular problems

19:20

of dietary access get better and they get

19:22

better fast. Let's let's play

19:24

this through it a little b If you don't work, so, how long have you ever

19:26

fasted? Forward? Just one a week? So

19:29

during that period I would gather for some folks think

19:31

there would be concerned that if you started the fast

19:34

the nutritionally depleted state. If you go from

19:36

having killed bosses at the Cubs games to

19:39

a fast, then you're

19:41

probably starting off actually nutritionally depleted.

19:44

You have muscle mass and you have caloric stores,

19:46

but you might not have the right amount of vitamin E or

19:48

C or make a three fatty acids for that fast,

19:51

so you supplement them doing the fast at all? Not at

19:53

all. It turns out that these things,

19:55

vitamin's, minerals, etcetera, so critical

19:58

that they're don't really overly

20:00

abundantly supplied. So people are

20:02

not walking in with any serious nutritional

20:05

deficiencies. Maybe they might be on

20:07

rare occasion and that would show up at blood tests. Before

20:10

you would do this, we would only recommend fasting

20:12

be done in a medically supervised environment,

20:14

which is what ours is that our True North Help facility

20:17

in California. What does that mean excume

20:19

what does that mean? Medically supervised? We have a medical

20:21

doctor, Dr Peter Sultana who's actually

20:23

supervising this this process. But what does

20:25

he do? I mean, what does he check for? What

20:27

does he look? I've always been curious about that means. And I'm

20:30

a doctor. I mean, if he came to mean so I'm fasting, I said, all right,

20:33

we'll go take the room the top left, having

20:35

some water up right? What else would I

20:37

check? What do I? I guess I look for a dehydration.

20:40

Yeah, we have blood in eurine tests. We're looking

20:42

for all sorts of parameters and watching them

20:44

change. We know how they work and how they change,

20:46

so that when something looks a little out of line

20:48

and or a rare circumstance where someone may

20:50

not be tolerating a fast, well, for example,

20:53

potassium may drop a little bit too quickly,

20:55

so we know we've got an electoral light and balance that

20:57

can show up in some people maybe by week.

21:00

Okay, so then you do you take

21:02

them off the fast? Do you start? You do you supplement

21:04

the imbalance? We don't supplement the

21:06

in balants. Our colleague Dr Joel Furman, who's

21:08

also an authority on fasting, he would

21:11

oftentimes choose to supplement that imbalance

21:13

and continue the fast, because you consider

21:15

the continued fast to be highly valuable. We

21:18

don't do that. We let the parameters

21:20

sort of tell us. So we

21:22

don't have strong opinions about that. But we

21:25

we tend to error on the side of being

21:27

conservative in us. And so when the body

21:29

starts throwing up a red flag, well

21:31

we'll go ahead and in the facts at that point. And

21:33

do they stay at the center during the entire fast?

21:35

Yes, they do. What do they do? I mean, obviously

21:37

you don't have to feed them, so how's Yeah,

21:41

it's quite inexpensive. There's

21:43

nothing actually what we do. And so they

21:46

do. They hear me preach and

21:48

nagged them about how they're going to face their

21:50

friends and relatives as they try to head home

21:53

and dealing with the basically environmental

21:55

crush that comes from from doing

21:57

things very differently than everyone else. So

22:00

we we try to get them ready psychologically

22:02

for trying to go back into the world and live helpfully

22:05

and um. And it allows

22:07

for a period of reflection on other parts of their

22:09

life where they can kind of really think things through

22:12

and and really take some time out to uh

22:15

set their set their priorities in place. So

22:17

you wouldn't recommend people do this at home

22:19

just say I'm not going to eat for the next week. I

22:21

don't think that that's such a good idea. Sometimes

22:24

the responses to water fasting,

22:26

the body really uh

22:29

basically takes the opportunity

22:31

and goes for broke. You will sometimes

22:34

find some rather acute responses. There

22:36

may be diarrhea, diarrhea

22:38

and nausea, vomiting, etcetera. I mean, it's

22:40

not fasting is hard work, and the

22:42

body will take this opportunity to go through sometimes

22:45

a rather vigorous

22:47

detox. What about the boomerang effect

22:49

on that? Because I've I've gone to um

22:52

uh it wasn't really a spob a

22:54

place. So we did a fast and

22:56

I know the day I got out of there and I was all

22:59

calm and I felt it wasn't it wasn't really

23:01

all water. We did enzymes and

23:03

we had some green but not a lot I'm

23:05

green juices. But um

23:07

the day I got out, and that was in California,

23:10

in and out Burger for an animal style

23:12

cheese cheese sandwich. You know, I

23:14

mean immediately that that happens,

23:16

I think pretty commonly, doesn't it. People want

23:19

to stuff themselves when they're done fasting. Well, that's

23:21

why we have people stay with us after

23:23

the fast ends and we reintroduced them

23:25

to whole natural foods diet at the

23:27

end of the water fast. Believe me, there's nothing

23:29

like going a week on water. Pretty soon

23:31

you're dreaming about the carrots on the water moltain

23:34

your your taste buds are so sensitive

23:36

that whole natural food finally taste the

23:38

way it was supposed to always taste. And

23:40

people are enjoy tremendously

23:43

h their food at that point, and really at that

23:46

time, can't imagine going back

23:48

to the kind of food that

23:50

they were were eating the got them into trouble

23:52

in the first place. Again,

23:54

I'm curious about the fasting because Mike and I have talked about

23:56

it quite a bit and we've had some hesitation

23:59

because of concern. Is the folks that use it as a weight lost

24:01

tool. Yes, and I do

24:03

see some merits in the way you're arguing

24:06

that it could play a benefit and reach resetting

24:08

our taste buds. So let's say you did make

24:10

a practical for el listen, are out there they want to do a three

24:12

day fast, which you can probably do without much medical

24:14

supervision. And at the end

24:16

of that three day process, you re introduced now foods

24:19

that are wholesome in your best interest. But during

24:21

that three day fast you're probably going to be driven

24:23

by your biology of blubber to think, as you said,

24:26

about nothing but food. Is it possible

24:28

to do that at home? I think it

24:30

is, and I think if people are

24:32

going to do it three day fast, I might not use the water

24:34

fault. I might do a juice fast, for example. And

24:36

in doing a juice fast, what we wind up doing

24:38

is taking all the salt out of the diet basically,

24:41

and all the fat out of the diet. So to the three

24:43

big receptor sites on the tongue are now

24:46

put to sleep. They're put in sensory deprivation.

24:48

It's all about getting senses

24:51

to sensory deprivation that then rekindles

24:53

their sensitivity. Just like if we shut

24:55

off all the lights. Uh, then when

24:57

we bring even back a candle after ten minutes,

24:59

like candle seems bright. If we shut off all

25:02

the lights on the salt receptors and the fat

25:04

receptors, when we come back three days later

25:06

with a bowl of oatmeal and some bananas and raisins.

25:09

That's gonna taste very good. Is the third

25:11

one carbohydrates. That's what's the throgether.

25:14

It's right, we're leaving that one alone. And it's

25:16

by using juice we're keeping you on glucose

25:18

metabolism. Uh so we're gonna leave

25:20

those sugar receptors alone. But if we get

25:22

rid of the fat and salt receptors, we can do an

25:25

awful lot of good and even three days. Why

25:27

wouldn't just do a water fast in three days? Why

25:29

is it better to do a water fast for longer? Um,

25:31

Oh, you could do a water fast in three

25:33

days. I'm just not too wild about doing a water

25:35

fast on your own. I think it's a good

25:38

idea, because you will if people

25:40

do things at home, they're gonna keep moving around, They're

25:42

gonna go to work, et cetera. If you would

25:44

kind of lie around in bed and water fast for three

25:47

days, that would be fine. But people want to keep

25:49

They get bored and they want to get up and moving,

25:51

and we don't want to be doing that sort of

25:53

muscle skeletal contraction. You don't want to be burning

25:56

muscle by moving around when you're on a water fast.

25:59

So what choices was you recommend? Oh,

26:01

I don't know, I fresh freshold

26:04

juices, like I'd use something like carrot apple or

26:06

carrot apple celery, things like that. We

26:10

have a lot more to talk about, but first let's

26:12

take a quick break mastering

26:22

the hidden force that undermines health

26:24

and happiness. Many of you think that multiple forces that do

26:26

that, Like argues that they're actually a

26:28

few simple principles. And one of the ones

26:31

that's very practical, um that we're

26:33

gonna talk about in some detail is the

26:35

deducing fast that might be

26:37

worth doing for a lot of you out there. You can do it at

26:39

home for about three days. You said it could be carrot

26:41

apple celery or some combination. That way, you don't

26:43

have to buy a juicer. You can buy those in the health food

26:46

store. And then Mike was asking you about

26:48

retreating of the taste buzz. Now you said earlier

26:50

that and it's actually very interesting

26:52

because because it does sort of bring back

26:54

some realities about how a reflex has changed. But

26:57

you go from a dark area to a light area within a few minutes,

26:59

you adjust, same goes if you um

27:02

if you had have different taste buds

27:04

in your mouth. Uh, and that period

27:06

said was ten weeks overall. I'm sure you begin to

27:08

adjust much more rapidly than that. But

27:11

at least I can go off for three days in a perfectly

27:14

humane, fast as elegant

27:16

spot and then she goes out to in an out burger, which is known

27:18

for being I guess you take it in quickly and it comes out

27:21

so delicious, and

27:23

they know they're very fresh stuff. Yeah, they

27:25

are fresh.

27:27

Yes, Well, I mean that's certainly going to be

27:31

a problem, a potential problem, and

27:33

that is that once you've sensitized those nerves,

27:35

you're going to get an even bigger bang out of the

27:37

dopamine hit than you did before. So

27:40

that's why you we need a really

27:42

sometimes a longer and more comprehensive

27:45

process of staying in line, because

27:47

then you you really get to see that

27:50

you can fully enjoy a whole natural

27:52

food just the way you were designed. And

27:54

of course the pleasure trap is always out

27:56

there in the words. When you go from say,

28:00

uh, strawberries to strawberry

28:02

ice cream, you're gonna see a difference

28:04

because you're going from three hundred

28:06

carry pound food to you know, fift hundred

28:09

carry pound food and so that that hit

28:11

is there. It's always out there. The reason

28:13

why people are having such trouble is that everything

28:16

you do that feels really good

28:18

is the wrong thing. And when you go from when

28:21

you do the right thing, it doesn't feel good when

28:23

you go the direction the other direction, from high density

28:26

food to low density food. So basically your

28:28

instincts are setting you up for this problem.

28:30

It's hard to get out of it, you know. I was reading

28:33

through the book and I it was once the

28:35

same one of the book. We start talking about modern foods

28:38

and how they create this pleasure trap, and

28:41

uh talk specifically about neuro adaptation. Yes,

28:43

And I thought about the scene of Supersize

28:46

Me when the protagonist

28:49

has been on the fast foods for about

28:51

three or four days and he's in the room. He says in the car, rather

28:53

he says, you know, I don't feel so good. I think I went up and

28:56

then he objects, and it was

28:58

just so poignant as you saw him

29:00

get sick, as he began to retrain

29:03

his body for a

29:05

different food style that it had been used to. He'd been in pretty

29:07

good shape ahead of I don't know if you saw the movie, so

29:10

it which I don't personally feel good when

29:12

I eat that kind of food. Are there some people who

29:14

naturally don't like that? Are those the guys that are

29:17

naturally thin because they actually don't feel

29:19

better when they have a high satuated fat

29:21

hamburger? Well, I think that most

29:24

of us would get used to the high saturated hamburger

29:26

after a while. You're you're gonna

29:28

have a lot of little changes that are gonna take place,

29:30

and including the whole taste preference

29:32

mechanism. The so we're

29:35

designed by nature to be pulled towards

29:37

the more high clerk dense foods. That's

29:39

an internal compass that tells us how

29:42

do we're going to make sure we get enough to survive

29:44

in the natural world. The problem is

29:47

is that what we don't see is

29:49

what it's going to take to get back and

29:51

that's the process that's going to take a few weeks and

29:54

we uh. As my friend Dr Greg Young,

29:56

a psychiatrist, says, the big problem is

29:58

people have with instant gratification

30:01

is that it takes too long. But

30:04

but but you push a bit harder

30:06

on this when I when I sit down for a

30:08

meal, that's not gonna be so good for me. Yes, I

30:11

keep thinking, you know, I'm not going to like this in

30:13

an hour or two, and

30:15

so for most folks, I would think you'd turn

30:17

the shy away. Most people don't

30:19

think that way though. Most people think this is delicious,

30:22

much harder toxic material. Absolutely, no,

30:25

you know what, that's a good example because this last night

30:27

I had the exact same experience. I bought this um

30:29

organic, actually raw meat cat

30:32

food for the cats because I didn't want them

30:34

getting all those things from China. There's wheats

30:36

and everything that they were getting when they

30:38

were so addicted to the bad cat food,

30:41

the kinds that were killing the cats and giving them kidney

30:43

poisoning. If you put both down, they won't even look

30:45

at the cat food that's good for them. They absolutely will

30:47

kill themselves eating the poisonous cat food. This

30:50

is all about dopamine's whatever.

30:52

Even though you may know and you've made the connection

30:55

that an hour later you're going to be in a little low grade

30:57

pain. You'll actually watch people

31:00

watch myself, even if after I'm full,

31:02

if there's some really high, clerically dense dessert

31:04

there, you'll literally watch the pleasure seeking

31:07

mechanisms and the pain avoidance mechanisms do

31:09

battle in your own head, and

31:11

and you'll one more by it is it's still

31:13

worth it. Oh now, my stomach is hurting, and

31:15

you'll you'll watch these processes that play

31:18

right. So, for many folks out there that are that are

31:20

listening, we're thinking about doing the three day

31:22

juice fast. You get up in the morning, you guess,

31:25

you do some ceremony the night before, I say I'm done.

31:29

You hin your ears back, pin your ears back,

31:32

sacrifice of flour, and then you to

31:34

wake up in the morning say I'm gonna juice fast. I've already bought

31:36

the juices. You go out and buy in the morning,

31:39

and then you drink it. Whenever you feel

31:41

thirsty, you drink. Absolutely,

31:43

you can put down a couple of thousand calories with even these

31:45

juices. That's okay. Well you probably

31:47

wouldn't, but it doesn't matter

31:49

if you did, because we don't really care about that. What we

31:52

care about is retraining those taste nerves. We

31:54

want those things back to much

31:56

more close to where they were designed, so that when you

31:58

go back to whole foods, they taste

32:00

good and you're willing to stick with it. And three days

32:02

is enough time to start that process. You Oh, Yeah, it's absolutely

32:05

just in the same way that uh, an

32:07

alcoholic will be way better off

32:09

after a year abstinence. They can

32:11

start to feel that their life is much better even

32:13

after a week. And so you're it's

32:16

a process that we're on here. It's a it's a direction,

32:18

and if you can just get yourself going for a little

32:20

while, sometimes you can field the momentum if

32:23

you know that the processes is

32:25

can be completed. Right, They shift gears

32:27

down to the actual weight loss issue,

32:29

which is obviously one that tends to

32:31

be popular on this program and

32:34

just any other media endeavor these days. How

32:36

do you lose weight without losing your mind? To talk a little bit about

32:38

the loss atiety, what's that? Well, the

32:41

way you're designed is your your mind

32:43

is designed by nature to keep you in natural

32:45

balance. That's why you don't have to worry and think about

32:47

breathing. That's why, actually

32:50

you just trust your your society

32:52

centers and hypothalamus for drinking enough

32:54

water, etcetera. You certainly sleep to

32:56

society. Animals all over the world do this. Animals

32:59

all over the world eat too stidy. They eat

33:01

as much as they want. They don't have to

33:03

worry about sitting at the at

33:05

the edge of your vegetable garden worrying about you know

33:07

that gopher, thinking maybe it eat one too many

33:09

tomatoes. They just do what they want,

33:12

and so it's mighty suspicious.

33:14

You've got two million species on the planet. Three

33:16

of them are having weight problems humans, dogs,

33:19

and cats. Uh, that's

33:21

because they're eating processed fit and

33:24

all. What we need to do is if if we eat,

33:26

if we can get people to eat unprocessed

33:28

food, large amounts of whole natural food and

33:31

not maybe completely not perfect, but

33:33

if they can get a lot of salad, steam, vegetables,

33:35

fruit, whole grains, if they can get those

33:37

things into their diet, uh, then

33:40

they can eat to satiation and they will

33:42

not have weight problems. Losing weight

33:44

doesn't mean trying to gnaw

33:46

on your knuckle and not easy eat as much

33:49

as you want. That's losing

33:51

your mind. You need to learn that you

33:53

can relax and eat to satiation and you

33:55

can actually normalize your weight just fine.

33:58

Is it possible the your

34:00

normalized weight may not be the model thin weight

34:03

that we attribute with beings in these days.

34:05

I think that's true. But I think that you're going

34:08

to find if you look around nature. You're

34:10

going to see that animals have very modest amounts

34:12

of fat stores, and the amount of fat stores you

34:14

would find on people if they're eating a whole

34:16

natural foods diet would be esthetically very

34:18

pleasing. Some some women would be a little

34:20

curvier than other women. Uh, some

34:22

men would be a little bit more robust and stronger,

34:25

but all of them would look good. Were

34:28

they would look good because they would be good. You're

34:30

you're pretty thin. Yes. Do do you

34:32

ever go on a diet? Do you ever think about it? Food?

34:35

You just eat what you want. I just I just eat.

34:38

Try to keep myself out of the pleasure trap. I bat

34:40

for try

34:43

to do a real good job there, and I let it take care of itself.

34:45

I mean, do you eat out? Yeah, I'm gonna say. We have a

34:47

good friend who we did

34:49

a show with his Steve ROSSI yoga

34:51

master. So Steep came out of the house. He was

34:53

doing this event for my birthday a

34:56

few months ago, and uh, he

34:58

didn't trust a lot of

35:00

the foods, not that we because he didn't know what he didn't

35:02

know us that well. But he brought his own

35:05

food. He traveled with his own food. He's also

35:07

as youth thin Um. He didn't seem

35:09

like he was fasting. He just was eating grailar food.

35:12

He only eats rough food as well. Right

35:15

now, I eat out. But what I tried

35:17

to do is I try to eat in order. I eat

35:19

in the order of cloric density. So I'll eat salad

35:22

first, then vegetable second, then whatever

35:24

concentrated food like carbohydrate or whatever

35:26

I'm gonna eat third. And so by doing that,

35:28

I make sure I get a lot of low

35:31

density food. Salads and hunder carries a pound

35:33

without the dressing, that is, and vegetables

35:36

are two hundred carries a pound, Fruits three

35:38

hundred carries a pound. Concentrated starch,

35:41

carbohydrate, potatoes, rice center those are six

35:43

hundred carries a pound. If you go in order

35:45

of cloric density, your taste buds

35:47

like it that way. If you start with the concentrated

35:49

food, you won't want to go back and eat the

35:52

less concentrated food. So I just simply followed

35:55

the simple little rule over and over again, and it

35:57

keeps me in a good group. Uh

36:00

that fruit mostly things like that.

36:03

Once in a while, if the McDougall program in Santa Rosa,

36:05

they have some really cool chocolate vegan pudding.

36:07

I look forward to that. All run

36:11

avocado. Is that the one made

36:14

with avocado. I don't know what Mary

36:16

McDougall does, but it's great. We have one that's with avocado

36:18

that you'll be dreaming up. You'll

36:21

you'll wake up with nightmares and you're not near one.

36:24

Uh beverage, uh

36:27

water, juice. Just take

36:29

it easy, nothing special.

36:31

She'll have o J, your grapefood ses. Absolutely,

36:34

she's not a problem. Do you drink

36:36

coffee? No, I don't know why not. I

36:39

think there's evidence that there's all kinds of

36:41

little problems. These are relatively powerful

36:43

nervous system stimulants. It's a sleep disruptor.

36:46

You can see the disruption

36:48

in stage four deep sleep even you know

36:50

the night that people have used even half a cup

36:53

of coffee. I mean these are a little possible

36:55

disruptors. You eat meat,

36:57

No, I don't. And how about

36:59

nuts, Yes, I'll have some nuts,

37:02

not a lot. It's just sort of around salted

37:04

or not roasted or not. I

37:07

don't eat salted nuts actually, but

37:09

you do roast them. I'll have some roasted

37:12

nuts on occasion. You know,

37:14

got Lisa and I have a debate about that.

37:16

I obviously think what roasted nuts

37:18

taste better? Oils?

37:21

Well, actually three essential futty

37:24

acids. Well, I was concerned

37:26

about that. I specifically asked he calling

37:28

Campbell that very question, and he

37:30

assured me that I was safe there. So,

37:33

if you roast your own nuts,

37:37

I don't know what the truth is on that. I

37:39

think you're better off with FRAU. I'm sure that's probably

37:41

true. How physical activity what role is that play

37:43

here? Um? I think it's

37:46

certainly it's a significant part of any

37:48

of any overall health program. And so diet,

37:51

exercise, sleep fasting,

37:53

and these are all parts of a set

37:56

of things that are very useful to help

37:58

the body renormalize and reintegrate

38:00

and get itself healthy. Exercise,

38:03

I think it's very important and key. However,

38:05

when it comes to losing weight specifically,

38:07

the most important thing people need to do is

38:10

they need to get out of the pleasure track. They need

38:12

to be eating a diet that's much more consistent

38:14

with their natural history, and exercise

38:16

is not going to get it done for you.