Fat Loss Scientist: It’s Easy To Lose Weight, But Here’s Why You WON’T Do It! | Dr Andy Galpin

“Oh, my test. Yeah. We'll come back to that in a second. Okay. And then, of course, you've got melatonin, right? The issue with all these is the same that you have with your podcast. These are doing the exact same thing.”

“It's really common. If there's like levels to this, you probably like level one, two, and three, level one being things like, actually, surprising enough, magnesium, chamomile, melatonin, of course, lots of randomized control trials. Level one being the best. The best of the best. The best, highest quality.”

“And then there's this one over here, melatonin, that a lot of people are aware of. Yeah. Strong. What level is melatonin? So melatonin probably has more evidence than the rest of these things combined because it's a medicine.”

“Nobody is going to be super concerned about risk factor profiles with eating two kiwis. But you start getting to the level of something like a melatonin, and now you have to have real conversations about risk versus benefits. We typically don't use melatonin at the dosage that's normal.”

“A lot of times we're trying to find like one milligrams, cut them in half, kind of things like that. The only real reason we use melatonin outside of some fringe cases is when we actually legitimately need to reset circadian rhythm, travel, jet lag, things like that.”

“things like that. And it is effective and it is useful there. It is safe in small doses. Where people mistake melatonin is I use it every night to go to sleep and or I wake up in the middle of the night, can't go back to sleep. I go grab a melatonin. Why is that bad? It doesn't work. It doesn't work.”

“They're doing all the right things. It's cold. It's dark. They're meditating. They're doing all this stuff. They're popping in even a moderate dose of melatonin. And the amount of melatonin the next day in their urine is 100x, the upper end of the reference range, which means they're spending the rest of their next day in a hyper-dose melatonin state.”

“This is not a normal waking physiology that you should be going through. Presumably, that's just melatonin from sort of cheap sources that haven't been tested. That's going to knock off a huge part of your problem, right? Only, this is why we'll always say you don't, no one needs supplements.”

“This should not be a part of your nightly routine most of the time. What exactly is going on in my brain when I take melatonin? Because a lot of people take it, and we know that it makes us feel tired, but understanding the mechanism, I think, will help us understand the application. So, it actually doesn't really make you feel tired. That's part of the issue.”

“for these exact reasons. Vitamin D has a similar profile of inaccuracy. The other issue with that, then simply, let's say you're buying it from a high-quality source, you're dosing it too much and you're taking it too late. So, take it earlier than you think before bed so that your body has a chance to break it down before the next morning.”

“The easiest, most technical way to get to say it is it's an acute phase reactant, meaning it will change in response acutely to inflammation. Some markers will go up and some will go down in response to that, like D, like vitamin D goes down. If what? If you. In a stressed environment.”

“scanned. I'm not concerned about an acute emergency. The two things on here that I thought were shocking to me are my vitamin D levels and my omega levels, which I was told were deficient. Yep. I thought I was smashing it with those two because I think I was living in LA at the time.”

“Kind of lower end of that number is 40. That might actually be fine. I think I heard you say something about vitamin D. Again, I don't want to butch your words if this wasn't what you said, but you kind of make the assumption that most people are deficient. Yeah, it is true. Why does it matter? So vitamin D is a nice microcosm of overall health.”

“There's two things: correct physiology, performance enhancement. Totally separate categories. Correct physiological deficiencies are, in your case, your vitamin D. What is low? What is high? What is off track based on blood work, right?”

“for muscle growth or endurance or what are you taking right now? Zero. Zero. Vitamin D? Like this week? No. No. Summertime. I live in the forest. Omega-3? Nope. Why? I got full control of my diet and we get a lot of fish right now.”

“And it really matters sound when you sleep. Yeah, as much, if not more, of any other factor. There's also screen usage, light, your pillow, and wearables. But the other thing is, we're spending more on sleep, and sleep is getting worse. And for this last 20 years, I've been doing science, coaching, and education that enhances human performance.”

“If you flag that and you want to move up the next step, then you kind of have a couple of different ways. And your two options are what we'll call wearables at home tech. These are typically, we'll call them $100 to $600 range. And then past that, you have a true medical option, which is a sleep hospital.”

“It is a giant pain. I know it, but it is probably worth it. If you want to use the wearable, you can do that. The problem with the wearables is numerous. They are awesome at things like awareness, at accountability. They're pretty good for things like total sleep time.”

“and my wearable said to me, You had a bad, really bad night's sleep. And I could kind of put two and two together and kind of establish cause and effect. And I could almost, I guess, test that then going forward and say, okay, don't do that, or maybe get in bed earlier, or the heat was way too high, whatever it might be.”

“B, and C yesterday, or I felt better today. That's not the only metric. And to be really clear, I'm not advocating to ditch all the wearables. We use them extensively. It's just really being careful about what data from those we pay attention to and what we don't.”

“to have more sleep. And for him, like that was the canary in the coal mine. So that's the type of stuff where wearables can be like, you can't replace that, not only from a data, but from a coaching perspective. It was so easy for me to communicate to him: here's your data.”

“You're wildly groggy. You can't get out of bed or you're just getting throughout the day. This is like, don't talk to me until I've had my coffee kind of response, right? This is not a normal waking physiology that you should be going through. Presumably, that's just melatonin from sort of cheap sources that haven't been tested.”

“the trick, like the trade I'm making on the other side as a general rule. So, do you know the only thing that I've still not been able to, I guess, understand the full trade-off of is coffee because the upside is so significant. No one can articulate to me the downside other than they say if you have it after midday, it's gonna impact your sleep.”

“no free passes in physiology. With coffee specifically, actually, we have a meta-analysis led by my colleague, Dr. Ben House, puts it together. But if you look at the research on caffeine and sleep, it's very interesting because if you go through sleep deprivation, your physical and cognitive performance goes down.”

“physical and cognitive performance goes down. No surprise there. Coffee can offset that. Caffeine specifically is the thing. But what it doesn't do, at least the data and the meta-analysis suggests, is it doesn't actually put you back into the augmented spot.”

“If you go into sleep debt, the sleep itself will reduce your performance. And the coffee can bring you back to normal, but it won't bring you back to that augmented state that you had when you were rested and caffeinated. This is important because a lot of people will be like, ah, I'll throw away the sleep or I won't worry about it as much because I'll just take more stimulus tomorrow.”

“So, we're going to dig into all of those in great detail. So, the first one is a really good one: Kiwis. Kiwis. Yeah. So, there's been good studies on them. So, if you have two to three Kiwis before bed, you'll see people sleeping better. Next on our list is sleep divorce. People generally don't sleep as well when you're in the same bed as others.”

“It's a really common way of that as kind of like distilled chamomile. Look at these lovely kiwis. What's funny here is this is actually what happens in research. They will give people two to three kiwis. They will eat them right before bed. And you will very routinely see people sleeping better after ingestion of kiwis.”

“Kiwis. Kiwis have scientific evidence that they improve sleep for some people. It's really common. If there's like levels to this, you probably like level one, two, and three, level one being things like, actually, surprising enough, magnesium, chamomile, melatonin, of course, lots of randomized control trials.”

“Level one being the best. The best of the best. The best, highest quality. And you'd say, what, magnesium, kiwis? Yeah. Kiwis would probably be like a level two or level three. Okay. So there's been good studies on them, enough to put them on this table, enough to say there's data there. So you're getting some product below it.”

“right? It's a hormone. You're going to be able to move some units with this one. Nobody is going to be super concerned about risk factor profiles with eating two kiwis. But you start getting to the level of something like a melatonin, and now you have to have real conversations about risk versus benefits. We typically don't use melatonin at the dosage that's normal.”

“So lovely, delicious-looking tart cherry juice. And I'll go through why that is there. You've got some chamomile tea. You'll see this in the supplement form of apigenin. It's a really common way of that as kind of like distilled chamomile. Look at these lovely kiwis. What's funny here is this is actually what happens in research.”

“doing the same thing. They're a cognitive turnoff. Chamomile specifically will play that role. It is a reasonable switch that says frontal cortex turnoff. And so you're getting there through the podcast where you could get through food or supplements if you'd like as well.”

“You'd probably like level one, two and three. Level one being things like, actually surprising enough, magnesium, chamomile, melatonin, of course, lots of randomized control trials. Level one being the best. The best of the best. The best, highest quality. And you'd say, what, magnesium, kiwis?”

“It's not going to do anything. You would, in fact, not to, I don't want people, but you would actually be better reaching for something like a chamomile perhaps because if you're having a hard time getting back to sleep cognitively, this is not going to do it. The other issue is we've done a lot of morning urine testing.”

“And I'll go through why that is there. You've got some chamomile tea. You'll see this in the supplement form of apigenin. It's a really common way of that as kind of like distilled chamomile. Look at these lovely kiwis. What's funny here is this is actually what happens in research.”

“they're doing the same thing. They're cognitive turnoff. Apigenin or chamomile specifically will play that role. It is a reasonable switch that says frontal cortex turnoff. And so you're getting there through the podcast where you could get there through food or supplements if you'd like as well.”

“So you're getting some product below it. In this case, apigenin, in this case, other phytochemicals that either reduce a little bit of cognitive function, they reduce arousal, they put you in some sort of checkout state.”

“Another thing you want to pay attention to in your sleep environment, labeled ergonomics here, is your pillow, your bed, your mattress. This is mostly based on feel.”

“What about these like eight sleep beds? Eight sleep is fantastic. So eight sleep is not a bed. It's a cover which regulates temperature. If you are in a bedding situation where you're getting hot, then that's a problem.”

“My wife loves to be really constricted. So she likes the sheets tucked in tight. She likes to bed, and I hate it. Like, I feel like I'm in Shash and I can like break me out, like, rip it all out of there. So there's little things like that that don't require you to buy anything. Where you can just change kind of the setup and the scenario to where their movement doesn't impact you as much.”

“is of a higher quality and a more focused intent. I mean, this might be a good time to just quickly take a, I mean, everyone's talking about creatine at the bloody moment. Do you have your athletes taking it? Yeah, of course. You do. Yeah, everybody. Do you take it? Yeah. What do you take?”

“Now you have performance accelerators on the other side of that question. This is when creatine can come in. If I'm traveling, I'm going to take things like fiber, right? Because it's harder to get vegetables when you travel. You probably know this, but airplanes, airports, restaurants, like vegetables are nowhere to be found.”

“I'm going to take fiber there, or I'm generally not taking it as much when I'm home because I can control my diet. Performance enhancers are things like creatine, are things like beta-alanine, sodium bicarbonate. So depending on what fitness training goal I have at the moment, I'm going to alter those based on if I'm looking for muscle growth or endurance or what are you taking right now?”

“Rather than threonate, that's up there as well. You will also see things like omega-3. This is your common fish oil. Oh, this is interesting because this popped up on your labs as something we have to work on. Oh, my test. Yeah. We'll come back to that in a second.”

“are going to be filled with mercury. But I was low omega and high mercury. So what that tells us is if you were to jack your omega-3s up, your mercury is going to get into the line that we don't want it to be in. So solution: you need to alter the source of your omega-3s, get it from a higher quality place.”

“Zero. Zero. Vitamin D? Like this week? No. No. Summertime. I live in the forest. Omega-3? Nope. Why? I got full control of my diet and we get a lot of fish right now.”

“And it really matters sound when you sleep. Yeah, as much, if not more, of any other factor. There's also screen usage, light, your pillow, and wearables. But the other thing is, we're spending more on sleep, and sleep is getting worse. And for this last 20 years, I've been doing science, coaching, and education that enhances human performance.”

“Another thing you want to pay attention to in your sleep environment, labeled ergonomics here, is your pillow, your bed, your mattress. This is mostly based on feel.”

“Noise would be the same one. If you are sleeping with somebody who makes a lot of noise, tosses and turns a bunch, you could put a pillow in between so when they roll over and move, they don't hit you, earplugs, things like that. So that one's a pretty straightforward one.”

“You will physically reduce it. That's why they, one of the supplements I was told to take is a fiber supplement. It's not always going to something. And I want to be really clear. If you have numbers like you had, you need to work with a doctor and you need to get screened.”

“This is when creatine can come in. If I'm traveling, I'm going to take things like fiber, right? Because it's harder to get vegetables when you travel. You probably know this, but airplanes, airports, restaurants, like vegetables are nowhere to be found.”

“You will also see things like omega-3. This is your common fish oil. Oh, this is interesting because this popped up on your labs as something we have to work on. Oh, my test. Yeah. We'll come back to that in a second. Okay. And then, of course, you've got melatonin, right?”

“What is low? What is high? What is off track based on blood work, right? We try to solve this through food. But what this oftentimes looks like is a high-quality multivitamin, oftentimes fish oil. Now you have performance accelerators on the other side of that question. This is when creatine can come in.”

“Speaking of training, you know what this is, don't you? Sure. This is a grip strength machine. Yeah. A lot of people told me that grip strength is the single biggest predictor of, I think they said like longevity and stuff like that.”

“It's great. It's an important message. But we have to be careful in being lost in what that means. Getting a grip strength device like that, which is probably under $40, is amazing. And what you will see consistently is those people that are really, really, really weak are in worse health on average.”

“Tons. Really? Yeah. As much, if not more, of any other factor. The big thing with sound is inconsistency. A lot of people do things like put a sound machine in the room. Most people put them too loud because of that thing. So you put them pretty common default is like 40 to 50 decibels for a sound machine.”

“More of the data suggests sub 40, especially for kids. If you're using a sound machine for your children, most people put them too close and too loud. What's a sound machine? Just a little device that makes a white noise. And what that does is it cancels out a bunch of low-level inconsistent sounds.”

“I'm going to take fiber there, or I'm generally not taking it as much when I'm home because I can control my diet. Performance enhancers are things like creatine, are things like beta-alanine, sodium bicarbonate. So depending on what fitness training goal I have at the moment, I'm going to alter those based on if I'm looking for muscle growth or endurance or what are you taking right now?”

“What are those things? So lovely, delicious-looking tart cherry juice. And I'll go through why that is there. You've got some chamomile tea. You'll see this in the supplement form of apigenin. It's a really common way of that as kind of like distilled chamomile.”

“given one of about three choices: medication, what's called a CPAP device, right? So, that's the big like dark meter breathing machine, or potentially what's called an oral appliance. It's a mouthpiece that kind of repositions your jaw and neck.”

“What about these like eight sleep beds? Eight sleep is fantastic. So eight sleep is not a bed. It's a cover which regulates temperature. If you are in a bedding situation where you're getting hot, then that's a problem. So if then an eight sleep will help you regulate that temperature, it's a great solution.”

“was fast. And then we put him on a force plate and we started collecting objective data. And at the same time, I had some of my students around and I had them do it. Kind of like what you did with your grip strength with Jeff.”

“You can try to mimic your sleep environment at home on the road. Some people will take their pillows. Other things that are on this similar list are smells like lavender. Lavender is moderately associated with helping people fall asleep. None of those is going to like knock you out.”

“It's really common. If there's like levels to this, you probably like level one, two, and three, level one being things like, actually, surprising enough, magnesium, chamomile, melatonin, of course, lots of randomized control trials. Level one being the best. The best of the best. The best, highest quality.”

“More of the research now on magnesium for sleep is turning to a particular form called magnesium bisglycinate. Rather than threonate, that's up there as well.”

“What is low? What is high? What is off track based on blood work, right? We try to solve this through food. But what this oftentimes looks like is a high-quality multivitamin, oftentimes fish oil. Now you have performance accelerators on the other side of that question.”

“that they're oftentimes missing. Here's a good example. We had 1,200 days of data from, I think it was an Oura ring. And we are actually able to find that in one of our clients for every one drop in resting heart rate.”

“and we do the same thing. Totally. We do the same thing we did last week. We put the stair master machine on level eight and we do 10 minutes. Yeah. And we did that for the last seven months. Whereas we should really just put it up one, but in order to do that, we kind of need a plan, as you say. Because you can't just go up one every time.”