Speaker 1: Oh hey, welcome to Healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us
Speaker 1: today on this Body and Soul podcast. I am Felicity Harley.
Speaker 1: Joining me today in the studio is doctor Nick Fuller.
Speaker 1: He's a health expert and leading obesity researcher and he's
Speaker 1: just pend a book called Healthy Parents, Healthy Kids. And
Speaker 1: it's not just for kids, no, there is so much
Speaker 1: information for everyone. And he is going to talk about
Speaker 1: the relationship between exercise and maintaining a healthy weight, what
Speaker 1: all the research says, and he's going to give us
Speaker 1: some tips on how to maintain that exercise regime. If
Speaker 1: weight loss is your goal. Now, if you do like
Speaker 1: what you hear from doctor Nick Fuller listening to extra
Speaker 1: Healthy Ish, our sister podcast where he shares his simple
Speaker 1: steps to maintaining a healthy size, you can grab that
Speaker 1: wherever we get your podcasts. Nick, welcome well back to
Speaker 1: healthy Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: In a minute, having me back on it has been
Speaker 2: time flies. It's great to be back in this.
Speaker 1: Jude, I waited for so long because you are just
Speaker 1: a wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 2: Oh that's very kind of you.
Speaker 1: And thankfully put it in a new book. Congratulations, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's pick up on one of the themes in your book,
Speaker 1: which is about well movement, structured movement, exercise. What does
Speaker 1: the research say when it comes to exercise and weight
Speaker 1: if you want to lose weight?
Speaker 2: Definitely an interesting topic this one because often when we're
Speaker 2: going out on a weight loss journey, patients ask me,
Speaker 2: can I just focus on diet? He said, okay, for
Speaker 2: neglect exercise sleep health. The answer is no, you need
Speaker 2: to be focusing on the three key pillars being diet, exercise,
Speaker 2: and sleep health and these should form, you know, the
Speaker 2: key components of any lifestyle weight management program. Now. The
Speaker 2: reason being is because exercise has sort of three key
Speaker 2: components or three key benefits. Now, the first one is
Speaker 2: that you're going to get benefits independent of weight loss. Now,
Speaker 2: what I mean by that is you might not lose
Speaker 2: much weight or any weight when you just go and
Speaker 2: embark on a weight loss program, but you'll start seeing
Speaker 2: significant improvements in your health from the minute you start moving,
Speaker 2: So reductions in your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart disease,
Speaker 2: type two diabetes, but also improvements in other aspects of
Speaker 2: life vitality and energy and mental health. So that's a
Speaker 2: real key component to really focus on because when you
Speaker 2: are embarking on it, I guess a health kick weight
Speaker 2: loss journey. You really need to do need to reflect
Speaker 2: on the improvements in health that you're going to be
Speaker 2: getting from day dot. We like to fixate on the
Speaker 2: number on the scales, but health is just or more
Speaker 2: important than weight. But exercise is also helping with two
Speaker 2: other key components. Now, the second one is the improvements
Speaker 2: in body composition that you're going to be getting. Now,
Speaker 2: when we are losing weight, we want to be losing
Speaker 2: it predominantly from body fat stores. We want to hold
Speaker 2: on to our muscle mass stores, and the best way
Speaker 2: of doing that is by actually moving undertaking regular daily
Speaker 2: physical activity. You're going to be holding onto your muscle
Speaker 2: mass stores, losing the weight predominantly from body fat stores.
Speaker 2: Which brings me to the third point, which means you're
Speaker 2: going to be able to keep that weight off long term.
Speaker 2: Because muscle is one of those determining factors of how
Speaker 2: quickly your engine is revving along or your metabolic rate,
Speaker 2: and that is how many calories you're burning at rest.
Speaker 2: So you could have two people of the same weight
Speaker 2: one hundred kilos, but the person with the more muscle
Speaker 2: or better muscle to fat ratio is going to have
Speaker 2: a higher metabolic rate and consequently be able to keep
Speaker 2: that weight off much better than the person that has
Speaker 2: a higher body fat to muscle ratio. So exercise is
Speaker 2: doing all of these wonderful potent things and importantly helping
Speaker 2: you with that long term weight management journey.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing, just going back to your first answer
Speaker 1: that question is sleep is just calling out sleep. We
Speaker 1: don't often think about and weight loss together, do we know?
Speaker 2: And our research shows that it's actually a third or
Speaker 2: third a third. So what I mean by that is
Speaker 2: diet is about thirty three percent of the focus. Interesting,
Speaker 2: thirty three percent should be exercise and thirty three percent
Speaker 2: sleep health. But usually you know we talk about, oh,
Speaker 2: is it an eighty twenty split eighty being diet twenty
Speaker 2: percent exercise. No, it's actually a third or third a third.
Speaker 2: You must be focusing on all three key pillars, and
Speaker 2: you know, just to touch on sleep really quickly if
Speaker 2: you're getting poor sleep. And that's usually because we're the
Speaker 2: last thing we're using before we go to bettes. The
Speaker 2: devices emitting blue light, disrupting melatone production, making hard to
Speaker 2: fall asleep and stay asleep, you wake up sleep deprived.
Speaker 2: It's hard, really hard getting to sleep and then staying asleep.
Speaker 2: Poor quality sleep means you wake up sleep deprived the
Speaker 2: next morning. Your appetite hormones are surging. If I take
Speaker 2: blood samples off you, which we do in our clinics
Speaker 2: at the APA Hospital, Sydney UNI, Grellon level or the
Speaker 2: hunger hormone is actually going up after one night of
Speaker 2: sleep deprivation, so that means you're going to be hungrier.
Speaker 2: So that's not just a subjective feeling, it's an objective
Speaker 2: response to that sleep deprivation. Grellon levels are being produced
Speaker 2: or grellin is being produced from your stomach, acting on
Speaker 2: your brain a clever part of the brain called the hypothalamus,
Speaker 2: telling you to go and eat more. You're also going
Speaker 2: to go for go to the vending machine because it's
Speaker 2: the easier default option to look for that high She'll
Speaker 2: go high or fat high are you looking for? We've
Speaker 2: all been there, well been there, And you're also going
Speaker 2: to neglect things like physical activity because you're tired and lethargic.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting because I've never heard someone
Speaker 1: answer with that that as part of the mix when
Speaker 1: it comes to, you know, the whole shebang of how
Speaker 1: you will have a healthy weight loss back to exercise.
Speaker 1: Is there one type of exercise well? Is one type
Speaker 1: better than another? You know, talk about building strength? Is
Speaker 1: strength better than hit or is it a mixture of both?
Speaker 1: Or what works When.
Speaker 2: It comes to losing weight, and this is also a
Speaker 2: question that comes up a lot, the real important thing
Speaker 2: is to firstly get moving regularly and in a way
Speaker 2: that you can sustain. So often when we start again
Speaker 2: a health kick or a weight loss journey, we sort
Speaker 2: of subscribe to this sort of four to eight twelve
Speaker 2: week approach where we do the all or nothing. We
Speaker 2: go to the gym or start the boot camp, and
Speaker 2: then unfortunately we get bored, or we hate it, or
Speaker 2: we get injured, and we go back to our old way.
Speaker 2: So the first thing you need to bear in mind
Speaker 2: is that what are you going to do to form
Speaker 2: a habit that actually sticks and that will last. So
Speaker 2: that's why it's important to firstly focus on incidental activity.
Speaker 2: What can you do in your day to day life
Speaker 2: to actually bump up your movement Because the biggest reason
Speaker 2: or the largest reason why we don't lose any weight
Speaker 2: when we embark on an exercise program is because our
Speaker 2: baseline activity level is so low. So then we start moving,
Speaker 2: all we're doing is getting to the level that we
Speaker 2: should be for general heart health. Now, the research shows
Speaker 2: that you need to be doing sixty minutes of physical
Speaker 2: moderate physical activity every day to actually lose weight.
Speaker 1: Now, the guy that even for a fairly active person,
Speaker 1: that is quite a lot.
Speaker 2: It's quite a lot, and that's why you need to think, Okay,
Speaker 2: what can I do to bump up my incidental There's
Speaker 2: a lot we can be doing there in terms of
Speaker 2: using stairs instead of lifts, parking away further away in
Speaker 2: the parking lot, when we going grocery shopping. It all
Speaker 2: adds up, and that can be part of your sixty
Speaker 2: minutes of modern intensity activity. But this is the real
Speaker 2: reason why you're not losing weight with an exercise program alone,
Speaker 2: because our baseline level is so low. So first you've
Speaker 2: got to start to build it up in a gradual
Speaker 2: way so we don't get injured. We don't, and we
Speaker 2: also in corporate activities that we like. But then coming
Speaker 2: back to your question, there is no better exercise. All
Speaker 2: exercise and physical activity is great. What you need to
Speaker 2: be doing is mixing it up, particularly with weight loss.
Speaker 2: So we have a translational program into a weight loss
Speaker 2: for adults, and in the weight loss months, we get
Speaker 2: them to shake up what they're doing. So one day
Speaker 2: they do a modern intense walk huffing and puffing. The
Speaker 2: next day they might do a hit class, and then
Speaker 2: they get in the pool the next day, so that
Speaker 2: you're mixing up and you're allowing your body to recover
Speaker 2: in between. So there is no best activity. It's about
Speaker 2: incorporating ones that you love, that you are going to sustain,
Speaker 2: and also that get your heart rate up every second day.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important and I think it's great
Speaker 1: that we're you know, so perhaps five or ten years
Speaker 1: ago exercise you see about go to the gym, doing
Speaker 1: a hit class, going for a run, but now exercise,
Speaker 1: and you talk about this in your new book. While
Speaker 1: it's named at kids, I think it's very much also
Speaker 1: aimed at parents that we should really view walking to
Speaker 1: the bus, walking to pick our kids up from school
Speaker 1: as exercise as well, because that was never factored into
Speaker 1: that equation.
Speaker 2: Definitely, we evolve to move, but now we drive everywhere
Speaker 2: from A to B. We think about it. If we're working,
Speaker 2: we drive to the office, we might walk a few steps,
Speaker 2: we sit down for the majority of the day, and
Speaker 2: then drive home. And then we absurdly probably drive to
Speaker 2: the gym to do our structured activity and then drive home. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and look, this is embedding our day to day life now.
Speaker 2: But what we really need to do is refocus how
Speaker 2: we can embed physical activity into our day to day lives.
Speaker 2: This is particularly relevant for the next generation because we
Speaker 2: need to wire their brain to know that exercise is
Speaker 2: a must have, not a nice to have. It's a
Speaker 2: must have. It has to be incorporating into your day
Speaker 2: to day life and it's something you do every day,
Speaker 2: which is where the new book, Healthy Parents, Healthy Kids
Speaker 2: comes in to equip parents with six healthy habits so
Speaker 2: that they can get their kids moving, they can get
Speaker 2: the meeting healthy, enjoying nutritious food, and importantly getting good
Speaker 2: sleep health so that we can raise the next generation
Speaker 2: so that they don't have this lifelong struggle with weight
Speaker 2: and health that many of us as adults are going through.
Speaker 1: Nick, thank you for coming on healthy It is thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Felicity next book is called Healthy Parents,
Speaker 1: Healthy Kids, and in that book is of course a
Speaker 1: lot of his wisdom and his research, but also some
Speaker 1: beautiful recipes for everyone. Anyway, I hope you did enjoy
Speaker 1: this chat you got something out of it. If you did,
Speaker 1: tell us, rate and review this episode, Subscribe to this podcast,
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Speaker 1: and until tomorrow, stay healthy ish