WEBVTT - An Economist Explains Why Losing Weight Is Kind Of Like Defeating Inflation 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.400 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.880 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, we've 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.960 been working together for a long time, a few years, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:22.160 maybe coming on three and a half years or something, 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.320 and we've been doing three years, yeah, three years, and 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.560 we've been doing this podcast for a while. But do 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:30.400 you think we really know each other well? Like? Do 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.200 you think I don't know? Do you think so well? 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.680 The fact that you're asking me this question worries me 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.479 a bit and makes me think that maybe you think 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.400 that we don't know each other that well. But I 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.720 also feel like you share a lot of yourself on 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.080 social media, so I learned about you through that avenue. 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.080 That's a good point. And we've traveled together and stuff. 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.080 We've traveled to London together for work, and we've traveled 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.600 to Hong Kong and we've gone out to eat in uh, 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.480 you know, various night markets in Hong Kong. So I'd 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.360 say we know each other pretty well. I hope so 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.280 I really do. But why are you asking me? Because 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.840 one sometimes I wonder if, like I've always throughout my life, 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.800 I've had this sort of very weird interest in unconventional 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.839 dietary habits, extreme diets in one way or another. I 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.720 was vegan for a long time. I was raised vegetarian. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.039 I've always just sort of been fascinated by people who 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.480 take ideas to the extreme in one way. And I 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.040 sort of wonder whether we've ever talked about that at all. Well, 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.119 I was about to say that that I do know 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.039 about I know about your history as a vegan growing up, 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.760 and I know I think it wasn't until you were 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.720 in college or something like that that you actually ate meat. Yeah, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.160 that's true, So you're probably crazy. Sorry, I can't imagine it. Yeah, 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.000 especially anyone who follows me on Instagram. Anyway, Probably people 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.240 who are listening are wondering where the heck we are 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.920 going with this conversation, aren't they? Yes, has Odd Lots 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.080 become a cooking show, which we totally should do, By 0:01:58.120 --> 0:01:59.760 the way, I'd be totally fine with that, and I 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.760 was seriousness. But today I think we're going to have 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:08.160 a very nice crossover between multiple topics, because we're going 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.440 to be talking to an economist who has been blogging 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.320 for a long time and writing about various aspects of 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.440 the economy and monetary policy and stuff like that, who 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.600 also of late, has been writing about diet and obesity 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.960 and the research that he has done in this area, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.359 and much of what he talks about is of high 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:36.600 interest to me. Today we are going to be talking 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.200 to Miles Kimball. He is an economics professor at the 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.960 University of Colorado in Boulder. He has a great blog 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.320 called supply Side Liberal, where he writes about all kinds 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.440 of topics, including economics. But lately he's been writing a 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.000 lot about obesity and diet, and he has become a 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:59.320 proponent of fasting, so going long intervals without eating anything 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.080 at all, and why that is an important and feasible 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:07.080 approach to losing weight. And I find his insights in 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:11.639 this journey to be extremely interesting. So on that note, Myles, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.520 thank you very much for joining us. Thanks that's great 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.000 that you could have me so, Miles, Before we get 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:23.440 into your interests in obesity and the merits of fasting, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.760 and the merits of eating high fat diets and all 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.160 this stuff which interests me a lot, I'm curious about 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.240 your career. You're you're an economist, You're at the University 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.920 of Colorado, Boulder. What's been your sort of primary focus 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.880 of study throughout these years. Oh well, actually I'm labeled 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.840 a macar economists, but I'm interested in almost everything. In fact, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.119 just like people google themselves, I look up my ranking 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:56.360 on this research papers in economic site repic and of 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.760 course you want to cherry pick the one that makes 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.280 you rank the highest. And the thing I rank the 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:07.520 highest and is the diversity of of citations across fields 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.200 of economics. So I'm interested in almost everything. You have 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.480 to search hard for something within economics that I'm not 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.880 interested in, and you know many things that are outside 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:24.320 the traditional boundaries of economics. So does nutrition count as 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.640 economics in this context? Or I guess what I'm asking 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.479 is how you got interested in that topic. Let me 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.280 tell you my view on that first of all, and 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.080 what I'm saying is true of other disciplines as well. 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:42.080 What defines economics to me is the training that economists get, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.000 and of course that evolves over time, but very slowly. 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:49.320 And so given the training that economists have, I think 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.520 that the economists should go out and address every scientific 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.520 question that they are well prepared to address that they 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.400 have in economist terms of compared advantage at addressing the 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:06.000 other thing I think is that any important scientific question 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.960 you can't trust one discipline to do it. Every important 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.560 scientific question you need at least two different scientific disciplines 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:18.120 with different traditions to look at it, because every individual 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.000 scientific discipline, including economics, gets to have an orthodoxy and 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.640 it gets blind spots. So if you don't have two 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.479 different scientific disciplines looking at every important question, you're going 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.360 to get in big trouble. So obviously obesity, you will 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.600 just jump right into the topic at hand. Obesity is 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.800 a issue that intuitively spends many different disciplines and questions 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.400 about obesity because obviously there's health within that. There's nutrition, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:52.400 public policy, sociology, certain aspects of behavioral stuff, why people 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.240 eat what they eat or live a certain lifestyle the 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.160 way they do. You know, I think it's pretty intuitive 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.359 that there are many ways to attack it. But before 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.240 we get to sort of some of your research on it, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.920 what is the conventional story about how people become OBEs? 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.760 The mainstream view that is perhaps riddled with some blind spots, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.400 which people eat too much and exercise too little. That's 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.039 the conventional view. And what's wrong with that view? Oh, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.600 it doesn't ask why people eat too much. I mean, 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.800 I guess the exercise too little is is easier to understand. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.839 But even that, there's is more affected by what you 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.800 eat than you might think. You know, if you eat 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.760 things that give you a lot of energy or that 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.000 leave you with a lot of energy, then you'll tend 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.680 to move around more. And but it matters what you 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.520 eat and when you eat, because that will determine your 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.640 energy levels, it will determine how many calories you feel 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.360 like eating. So the blind spot is acting as if 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.800 we just consciously choose the amount we eat and consciously 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.320 choose the mount we move around. That's not true at all. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.880 You have all kinds of things below the conscious level 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.480 that are and sometimes literally metabolic things that are determining 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.440 how much energy you burn and how many calories you eat. Wait, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.400 but isn't the conventional wisdom that when it comes to 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.920 how much we want to eat, we are biologically programmed 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.320 to get basically as many calories and fat into our 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.800 system as possible. Right Like we evolved from cavemen that 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.120 had to harvest things, and they tried to save up 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.160 energy for the lean times, the lean winters, and that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.680 continues today. And well, that I think is a myth. 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.680 I mean, the way to see that it's a myth 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.080 is that there are many many other types of animals 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.000 that had a similar kind of issue with, you know, 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.880 being able to survive the winter or lean times as 0:07:54.960 --> 0:08:00.560 humans did. And animals don't get obese like humans do. Obviously, 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.200 if you're a hibernating animal and you've got to sleep 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.600 through the winter, you've got to get fat before you 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:07.840 go and sleep through the winter, or you wouldn't make 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.280 it through the winter. But other than seasonal things like that, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.200 animals don't get very fat, and evolutionarily, the reason is 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.280 there's a real cost to being fat. I mean, you 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.040 can't run away from predators as well if you get 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:25.400 too fat. That matters for that mattered for our ancestors too. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.560 You can't you can't move as fast in order to 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.920 catch wild game either if you're too fat. So there 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:37.040 are plenty of evolutionary disadvantages to being too fat. This 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.360 this argument just doesn't hold water, though it's widely believed. 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:46.040 So what made you Before we get into your own 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.320 endeavors in the area and some of your thoughts on 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.760 the subject, what made you interested in this topic other 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.559 than the fact that you're a poly math who's who 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.760 is interested in everything. How did this become an area 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.480 of focus and you thought it would be worth putting 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.760 time into it? Well, really personal, it's because I've been 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:10.079 interested in losing weight myself, and I've never been dramatically overweight, 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.200 and the averages in our society have gone up enough 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.320 so that I don't think I've ever stood out as 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:21.679 being as being fat, but I've felt overweight and wanted 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:26.080 to lose weight, and so it's exploring over time what 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.840 would work. You know, back in the I think it 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:34.720 must have been the eighties. I listened to the advice 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.479 that was out there to eat low fat, and so 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.880 so I did that with I mean I tend to 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.439 pursue things fairly thoroughly, so I ate a lot of 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.679 them milk and brand flakes, and I gained quite a 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.480 few pounds on that. So I've been interested just for 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.320 personal reasons and trying to keep my weight under control 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:03.600 or like many many people, and that sparks the intellectual interest. So, Miles, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.320 what was it that you found in your research. I'm 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.040 guessing it's going to be something that contradicted the popular 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.800 nighties advice to eat a low fat diet, and Joe, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.760 I know that partly by watching your Instagram and your 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:21.880 Twitter feeds where you're eating a lot of fatty foods. Well, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.679 Joe has oversold my my research a little bit. So 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:30.640 I am indeed involved in research projects involving obesity, but 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.880 they have begun very very recently, since you know, not 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.840 not that long before I started blogging about this issue. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:42.040 What I have done is identified some really great books 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.080 on the subject. So I'm a big fan of Jason 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:49.319 fun who wrote the book The Obesity Code and then 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.880 the Complete Guide the Fasting. He's a doctor who started 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:58.000 out as a kidney doctor, but then you know, a 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.560 lot of kidney problems come from diabetes. Eatis and diabetes 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.760 is associated with people being overweight. So pretty soon Jason 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.319 Flung got involved in trying to help his patients lose weight. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:15.720 And he then started with putting them on a low 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.959 carb diet, and he found that was actually a little 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:21.960 hard for them, and that worked, but it was hard 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.400 for them to understand. He would tell them to not 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.959 eat bread, and then they would come back and said, oh, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.520 I didn't eat any bread, I only ate pea and this, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.560 And so he found that and they they didn't have 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.720 time and everything, and so he found that fasting that 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:43.160 is periods of time with eating essentially no food, you know, 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.800 drinking water or drinking coffee, drinking tea, but not eating 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.440 any food was actually easier for people to do then 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.040 to change in a complicated way that things they were eating, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:01.400 and he had great success with that. It's also something 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.520 where not my research, but many people's research is starting 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.920 to verify the idea that fasting for periods of time 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:15.120 is really really helpful. And you know, sometimes you know, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.000 the research isn't quite as on point as I'd like, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.600 but it definitely reinforces. In other words, they're not doing 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.800 it exactly the way I would do it, but still 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.960 if it suggests that fasting is really really helpful, So Miles, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.079 not to bang on about the conventional wisdom, but isn't 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.120 the response to fasting usually that you put your body 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.640 in starvation mode and your metabolism ends up slowing. I'll 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.360 tell you what puts you in starvation mode. If you 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.960 restrict your calories but spread them out throughout the day 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.040 every day, that will put your body in starvation mode. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.520 That's a big mistake. What you don't want to do 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.280 is just cut back on the amount you eat, but 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.320 spread it out through every day in the kind of 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.120 timing that people normally do. That's a huge mistake. Puts 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.720 you in starvation mode. Fasting doesn't, because what happens is 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:11.400 if you have no food at all, then for anyone, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.560 your insulin levels and other associated hormones will get low 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.280 enough so that your your body starts burning its own fat. 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.640 And once you burn your own fat, you've got energy 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:27.120 flowing through your bloodstream and you're going to be fine. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.640 There's plenty of nutrition for yourselves because with designs for 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.560 periods of of no food if if not, our ancestors 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:40.440 wouldn't have survived. So this is a really important distinction 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.280 that we need to clarify. The goal of going for 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.480 periods and so in your view and in the work 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.840 of some of these researchers, is not to reduce calories. 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.640 It's not to say, take a typical American diet and 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.040 then dropped the amount of calories by It's to lengthen 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.520 the window of time when you're getting no calories. But 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.160 during the periods when you are eating two eat sort 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.800 of a normal amount of food. Absolutely, Yeah, So what 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:15.400 happens during that window. Why is it important to sort 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.040 of restrict your eating to a narrow window even if 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.000 you end up eating the same amount of calories as 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.000 someone who doesn't fast. Well, you know, thinking about it 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.560 as a window is really a convenient way to think 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.400 about it. But what actually matters is the length of 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.760 the periods of time with no food. You know, if 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.960 if you're eating at least once a day, then the 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.760 length of the eating window is by arithmetic, that's going 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.000 to be closely related to the periods of time with 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.840 no food. But it's really the length of periods of 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.720 time with no food that matters. And if you're you 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.520 skip a whole day of eating, obviously that then it 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.840 gets to be I think different from just the length 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.840 of the window. But what happens is most of us 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:04.880 are to some degree insulin resistance, and actually what that 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:10.200 means is your body then produces extra insulin. And what 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.640 that means is if we eat even a little bit 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.960 of food, we're going to hang onto the fat. And 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.600 so if you really have to get very very low 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.440 on your body's hormonal signals of insulin and related hormones 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.000 before you're going to burn your fat, and for most 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.880 of us. You know, if if you ate well all 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.040 your life, this might not be true. But for most 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.840 of us, we've already missed, missed our system up enough 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.920 that the only way to get to where you're really 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.000 burning a lot of fat is by substantial periods without food. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.680 It's just things less than that you just won't cut 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.640 it very well. It might work a little bit, but 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.320 in the tough cases, let's put it that way. In 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.480 the tough cases, it's the periods without food that really matters. 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.160 On your blog, you talk about insulin and you liken 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.040 it to money supply or velocity of money supply, and 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.400 then you talk about inflation and you liken that to 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.480 body weight. Can you walk us through that parallel? How 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.560 do you see the connection? Absolutely that this is This 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.920 is one thing I can bring that's new to it 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:26.800 is comparative economic and obesity. So let's think about it. 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.280 So what happened in the seventies, This is something that, 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.280 by the way, is burned into the brains as central bankers. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.320 And why I don't think we're going to have a 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.480 lot of inflation in the future because the way people 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.520 are trained in economics, PhD programs and the way the 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:48.480 people come out of financial backgrounds feeling about inflation. It's 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.640 like that was a big bad example in the seventies 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.160 when we increase the money supply too much for a 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.840 variety of reasons, and we got the double digit in 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.200 lation in the seventies. And then how did that end? 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:08.560 It ended when Paul Looker decided, you know what, I'm 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:13.679 willing to have a recession to bring down inflation. Okay, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.760 you could try to bring down inflation without from double 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:24.520 digits to you know, four without a recession, but good luck. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.440 The success rate of trying to bring down inflation without 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.960 a long way, like you know, eight percentage points or 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.600 something without without a serious recession or some kind of 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:45.320 recession is not so great. So the analogy is, if 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.680 you're significantly overweight, good luck trying to bring down your 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.119 weight without the equivalent of a recession, which here is 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.600 a period of time with no eating. The big difference 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.560 I've got to say is recessions are horrible, but fasting 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.879 it's not. Fasting is remarkably easy if you do it right. Well, 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.040 let's talk about that aspect, because I wonder if there's 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:12.439 a behavioral economics sort of substory within this or just 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.560 a behavioral story at all. Because people are sort of 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:21.359 familiar with various adjacent diet ideas. So people have obviously 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.200 been pitched the low carb idea for a long time. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.560 That's pretty well known in popular culture. The keto diet, 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:34.640 which is pretty similar ideas also, people have heard that 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.639 buzzword a lot. But one of the persistent problems with 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.679 almost any scheme via which people lose weight is the 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.600 ability to stick to the plan, And so people come 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.400 up with all kinds of personal tricks to stick to it, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.320 but in the end that proves to be very difficult. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.719 So maybe some diet will work for three months and 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:58.080 then people revert. So what is it about the fasting 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.680 approach that you say is easy and which in your 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:07.919 view creates a higher degree of durability? Shows that well, 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.720 first of all, I want to say that it's proven 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:16.080 that this is durable. Jason fun has good experience with 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:21.080 this particularly, But why is it so? First of all, 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:26.080 the great secret is that a low carb diet and 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:32.760 fasting go brilliantly together. The fasting is really hard if 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:38.320 you're eating a lot of sugar and bread and potatoes 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.120 and stuff in your normal diet and then you try 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.640 to go straight over to fast. And so most people's 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.960 experience of having a period with no food is pretty 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.679 unpleasant because they're going straight from their usual, you know, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.560 diet with the sugar and the processed food and the 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.960 bread and the potatoes and the rice and everything, to fast. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.359 Think that is tough, That is tough, That is painful. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.920 But if you're eating low carb h you know, no, 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.560 you know, you basically stay away from bread and potatoes 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.280 and rice and sugar, and and you know, if you 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.919 stay away from sugar, you're gonna pretty much have to 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.560 stay away from most processed foods too. So sometimes people 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.760 talk about processed foods as the big bad but but 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.159 you can't really distinguish processed foods from foods with sugar 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.119 very well. There. You know, almost processed foods have sugar 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.399 in them. So who knows whether it's processed foods that 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.240 are bad or foods with sugar in them, because they're 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:40.920 almost the same thing. But if you if you stay 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.879 away from sugar and bread and potatoes and rice, and 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.800 then you can fast. And here's what I'll say. It's 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.160 not like you're not going to be hungry at all. 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.399 But it's a mild form of hunger. It's not insistent hunger. 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.320 So what do I mean by a mild form of hunger? 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:00.919 I mean that you can distract yourself if you have 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.280 a if you have a good TV show, you're not 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.400 going to feel it while you're watching the TV show. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.159 If you're busy with work, you're not going to feel it. 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.600 In fact, I time my fast to be my big 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.280 busy work days. You know you can. You don't have 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.840 to do a regiment. The funny thing about these fasting books, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.080 including Bason Funds, is they have all these systems for 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.760 the timing of the fast. But the beautiful thing about 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:25.520 fasting is you do it whatever the heck do you 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:28.200 feel like it. It doesn't have to be on any schedule. 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.600 Any substantial period of time with no food is going 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.360 to help you lose weight and help, you know, improve 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.200 your body system, and a variety of other ways too, 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.800 So you don't have to do it in any regular way. 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:49.040 It you need to have enough discipline to do a 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:53.000 certain total amount of fasting of periods with no food, 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:57.080 but any old schedule. You want substantial periods of time 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.479 with no food, make sure you're you can you've got 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.119 a lot of stuff going, so you can be distracted, 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.119 you know, even then I'm you know, if you real quickly, 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.280 when you talk about a substantial period of time, what 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:15.760 are you talking about? Well, so you experiment on yourself 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.760 and see what works. So one of the simple facts 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.800 about losing weight, and there's some interesting science behind this, 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:28.040 but it's a lot easier when that that when your 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.800 weight is high to begin with, then as you get 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:35.240 closer to go away. And so at the beginning, just 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.879 going off sugar is gonna do a ton for you 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.720 in terms of losing weight. And if you go off 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:45.040 sugar and bread and potatoes and rice, you're going to 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.800 lose a lot of weight. Typically that might take you 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.280 let's say that takes you ten pounds, then a plateau, 0:22:54.480 --> 0:23:00.159 then you can maybe you get another fifteen just from eating, 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.359 uh you know, for a while. Anyway, while you're an 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.440 active weight loss, eating just once a day. So you 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.320 eat once a day. For when I say once a day, 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:13.000 you might have a four hour eating window and basically 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:18.480 within the realm of low carb you basically eat whatever 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.000 you want as much as you want within a four 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:26.680 hour window. And that twenty hour period of fasting before 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.240 the next day, you're gonna lose a lot of weight 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.679 from that. And then you know, if you plateau and 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.080 you still or maybe you plateau and you're creeping up 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:39.639 a little bit, then you know you can skip a 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:42.119 whole day of eating. And the thing is, if you 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:44.879 do it gradually like this, if you do it in 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:48.600 those three steps, you'll find it isn't so hard. You know, 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:54.159 because you've gone off sugar and you know, some other carbs. First, 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:57.560 you don't even start trying to do the fasting until 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:00.600 you've done that. And then because the fasting as associated 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.800 with the low carb it's easier. And then you know, 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.919 if you've been fasting for twenty hours for many, many days, 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:10.719 you kind of have the tricks down and you've figured 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.399 out how to distract yourself and everything, and it's not 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:18.360 insistent hunger. So going a whole day without food when 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.840 it's a busy day at work just isn't that hard. So, Miles, 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:26.440 at the beginning of this conversation, you drew a bit 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:31.400 of an analogy between economics as a topic and nutritional 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:35.680 theory as a topic. And one parallel I see between 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:40.399 the these two things is that different economic theories or 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.840 schools fall in and out of fashion in the same 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:47.199 way that different nutritional theories fall in and out of 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:49.320 fashion throughout the years. So we used to be told 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:52.280 that cholesterol was bad, for instance, and now there's a 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.080 general recognition that maybe it's not as terrible for us 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:58.760 as we once thought it was. I guess I'm just wondering, like, 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:03.440 what confidence can we have in this theory that you're 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:07.560