Dr Rupy: Hello. This is the 100th episode. Very, very strange for me to be sat here in front of a mic. It's just going to be me today. If you're an intent listener to the podcast, you'll know that I was forced to do a podcast in the first place by my publishers a number of years ago. It was something that I didn't want to do, quite frankly. I had quite a few things on my plate. I was working full time as a GP, but they suggested to me that as a way to promote my first book, The Doctor's Kitchen, I should do a six series, six-part series explaining the principles of healthy eating. So eating fibre, eating whole, eating larger plants, etc. And what I thought was just going to be a couple of episodes that stood there as an educational piece, really kind of sparked my interest in this whole beautiful world of audio and the simplistic way of transmitting messages through a format that can be hugely, hugely impactful. And I've since become an avid user and consumer of multiple different podcasts to educate myself. But it's, it's been an absolute journey for me because over the past three years, over the last 100 episodes plus, we've had guests who are New York Times bestsellers, Sunday Times bestsellers, thought leaders across medicine, nutrition, economics, as well as exploring other topics that I find really interesting to me and hopefully I can bring value to you guys, the listener, even if that does step out of the realm of nutritional medicine. So things like fair trade, as well as inspirational people whose stories have deeply touched me, whether they be patient stories, whether they be stories of business and entrepreneurship, which is something that I'm super, super interested in. Today, instead of this being like a traditional reflective piece of, oh, these are my favourite episodes and etc, etc. It's very hard to pick out a few because I feel every episode offers value in a different way. So instead, today, I'm going to essentially introduce a number of different things that I've found over the podcast as well as my own musings in my master's in nutritional medicine, my own patient experience, my experience on the clinical frontline, and the privilege of having to be able to speak to people off the podcast as well. And so I'm going to introduce a few things. Four formulas for lifestyle that I feel everybody should know. And these will cover nutrition, behaviour change, but also happiness and productivity. Four things I feel if there's anything that you glean from the last 100 episodes, you should know these four formulas. And the reason why I've put them as formulas is because they're very easy to understand. I think a formula in this world of bias and opinion and slant and how you can misrepresent messages, I think a formula, math is is sort of a great truth. And I think these will offer a lot of value to you guys as well. I also want to talk about health problems and a strategy for approaching health issues, health problems or a way to improve your livelihoods. I want to talk about locus of control. I think over the last year, people have realised just how little control we have, but I want to heighten people's awareness of two key things that you do have ultimate control of, and they do reflect some of the learnings from the formulas as well. And I want to talk about habits to start today. These are things that I've started doing over the last couple of years, or some more recent as well over the last few months, and I think they are absolutely game-changing. So hopefully, today's podcast, instead of it being these snippets from previous conversations that I think are fantastic, I want to take the mic and just give you everything that I feel people should know right now. Okay, so we're going to start with four formulas for lifestyle that everyone should know. We're going to start with happiness. So this is the happiness equation made famous or created, I should say, by Mo Gawdat, who was on the podcast a few episodes back, who had the experience of tragically losing his 21-year-old son, but prior to that was also suffering from depression. And despite being hugely successful, wealthy, respected, etc, etc, he was still deeply unhappy and suffered from depression. And so the happiness equation, I think, really struck me because in its simplicity, it really, really makes sense, hugely makes sense. And you can apply this to different arenas. So the happiness equation is this, it's happiness is equal to or greater than the perception of events in your life minus your expectation of how those events should be. So how does that fit into a real-life situation? So if the perception of your event is that, let's use an event that I think most people would look forward to, let's say your wedding day. And the perception of that day when you are experiencing it is one of stress, of regret, of lack of enjoyment, of fatigue, a whole bunch of things. If that is your perception in that moment, and your expectation is that it should have been incredible, you were vivacious, you were energetic, you know, your expectation was that it was literally going to be the best thing ever, then your ultimate, the sum of those two things is that you're going to have a negative experience, you're going to feel unhappy. And so the happiness equation works by becoming aware of the actuality of that, the perception versus the expectation, but also it gives you onus on how you can take control of your own happiness because if you can alter the perception of the events in real time and not necessarily lessen your expectations, but certainly modulate them, then your ultimate happiness is going to be greater or you're going to achieve happiness in itself. To use the same example of the wedding day, let's say you anticipated that, you know what, this day is going to be pretty stressful, I'm probably going to be tired, but you know what, I'm going to go in with an open mind, I'm going to appreciate the fact that I'm doing this day with someone I love, I'm going to be around my family, I might not get to see everyone, but you know what, I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can. That perception will almost alter your expectation as well, and thus your overall happiness is going to be greater. I hope that's an example or an analogy that people can get behind and understand. And it's not to say that we should just lower expectations, and I think that's quite a facetious way of looking at it. It's more about the perception in the moment, in the present moment. I guess in practice, what this means is that when you see your life's events as equal to or better than the expectations that you have, then you'll be happy because the annoyances, the things that cause ups and downs don't frustrate you. And it's very hard to put into practice. I'm not saying that this is easy. It's very hard to put this in practice in modern life because of this concept of hedonic adaptation. And this is the propensity of us to return to a stable level of satisfaction or happiness for for for the sake of using the same terminology, despite an improvement in our quality of life or a sense of living. So, for example, if you remember the first time you got a smartphone, you can imagine the complete wonder and the immense appreciation you had for this phenomenal feat of technology in the palm of your hand that enabled you to look up questions on search engines, plan your day, take pictures, incredible, right? Now, think back to a time where you might have opened up an application and it crashed, or you ran out of battery, or you were dissatisfied because the battery life has gone down for whatever reason, or something about your smartphone is slow. This is essentially hedonic adaptation in in action. You lose that appreciation, you lose that gratitude for something that gave you so much joy perhaps six months, 18 months before. And in a world where we are constantly evolving from a technological standpoint, but also from a quality of life standpoint, it's very easy to spiral into that perception versus expectation of how things should be mismatch. And this is what ultimately causes lack of happiness. So the anecdote to hedonic adaptation, but also an ultimate life hack when it comes to happiness is gratitude. And if you've followed me on social media at all over the past few years, you'll hear me bang on about gratitude all the time because I really do think it's the ultimate life hack for happiness. It is that pure appreciation for the ability to walk, the fact that you wake up in the morning and you are pain-free, or you get the opportunity to speak to a loved one, or you have someone that texts you and and looks after you or is is caring for you or someone who's empathising with you, the fact you have a friend, you know, all these different things that we do take for granted can be magnified by the simple act of gratitude. So I do a three things I'm grateful for every single day and I think particularly over the past year and a half, it's been very, very useful for me. And like I said, I think it's the ultimate life hack. So that's the the first formula for lifestyle. I think that everyone should know. Happiness is equal to or greater than the perception of your events versus the expectation of said events and how they should be. And if we can we can modulate those, we can ultimately control our happiness. And I think it's very interesting as Mo talks about in his book that I highly recommend everyone read, our default state is happiness. So if you look at children living in third world countries and they literally have nothing, they literally have nothing, but you give them a ball, you give them community, you you put them in a social group, they are happy, they have beaming smiles, whereas if we were ever put in that same situation, because of our expectations, because of how we've adapted to our current way of living, we would not find it happy whatsoever. Another formula for for lifestyle is all about change. Now, the formula for change is actually about organizational change. So this is a formula that was started, I believe, by Gleicher and adapted by Kathleen Dannemiller and then made popular by Richard Beckhard, who you may have heard of because he wrote a whole book all about organizational change. And the premise of this formula is that organizational change can only happen if a few criteria are filled. There is organizational dissatisfaction, there is vision for the future, and there is the possibility of immediate action. All these things need to be greater than the resistance to change. So that's dissatisfaction, vision, immediacy, and the the potential for immediate action have to be greater than the resistance to said change. And this, like I said, was all about organizations, but I believe we can actually utilize this on a more personal level. So if you think about it, dissatisfaction, first of all, you have to be aware of what your dissatisfaction might be when it comes to change. Maybe you feel fatigued and you know you need to sleep more. Maybe you are unhappy with the way you look, maybe you're unhappy the way you feel, maybe you know that you should be quitting smoking or changing your alcohol habits or whatever that might be. So, A, you need to make sure you don't sugarcoat it and you have to be very aware. And I think there is a very clear difference between shaming yourself and being aware of guilt as a positive emotion because guilt, as unpopular as it is to talk about this on social media, it's a very, very important natural human emotion that keeps us on the straight and narrow. And so we can't shy away from guilt. We have to embrace it, but make sure that doesn't spiral into a shaming exercise, a self-shaming exercise. Vision. Vision is essentially making a plan. So you have to make sure that you plan. If you don't put a plan in place for whatever your change might be, the likelihood is you will fail when you start. And again, the possibility of immediacy, that action has to be small because if you feel that you need to, let's say you're trying to train for a marathon or something, if you, if your immediate action is to do 15ks of running every other day, that's not going to happen because the possibility of that happening immediately is very, very low versus if you were to say to yourself, I'm going to walk for 15 minutes. That immediacy is a lot more possible. So it's essentially it's about making your action small enough such that you can complete that immediate action. And if all those things are greater than the resistance to change, then that's how we make change. So that's all about behaviour change. And you can use this for weight, for financial planning, for meditation as a habit, for exercise. And for me personally, this has been really, really useful because I made a list of things that I wanted to change. I made a plan, I a vision for the things that I thought I could action. And I made sure that those things, the the first start was small enough such that I could make those changes immediate. And all of that made it stronger than the resistance I had for making the change in the first place. So that's Richard Beckhard or Kathleen Dannemiller, whoever, you know, came up with the formula initially, but the formula of change, I think for behaviour change, that's very, very important. Okay, so the third formula is all about productivity. And you've probably heard of Parkinson's law before. I think it's never been more important considering so many of us are working from home these days and there are so many different distractions and ways in which to procrastinate and extra social media distractions. So basically, Parkinson's law is all about how work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. In a sense, a task will take up the complete amount of time that you allot for its completion. So to use an example, let's say if I said you have to write a thousand-word essay on the 100 episodes of The Doctor's Kitchen, and you have a week to do so, you may do a skeleton of it, you might get distracted by a particular episode, you might do some extra research on one of them, you go down a whole bunch of different rabbit holes and it'll take you around six, seven days to do it. However, compared to if I said, okay, well, you've got to do a thousand-word essay on The Doctor's Kitchen last 100 episodes, you've only got 12 hours to do it. The magic of this deadline will give you the time pressure and force you to focus on executing said task. And I think it's something I use very, very often, in fact, most days. I have a Google calendar and to use this podcast episode as an example, I gave myself three hours to do the research, put the formulas together, come up with a cohesive sort of script that I'm using at the moment, whereas had I given myself a few days to do that, it probably would have taken a few days. So it's a it's a very simple law. It's less of a formula. There is actually a formula associated with Parkinson's work, but that's more about organizations and and employees. So it's less of a formula, more of a more of a truth. But if you just remember that work will expand to fill the time available for its completion, I think it's it's it's very poignant and I think today, very easy to fall into that trap of, oh okay, I'll give myself a few days to do it and then that's just give yourself a dedicated timeline and you'll be surprised at how much focus that can conjure up for its execution. And as a productivity app, fantastic, fantastic. So, fourth one, nutrition. Obviously, the most controversial area, something that we spend hours and hours talking about on the podcast. You know, I have people from different viewpoints, whether they be vegan or vegetarian, Mediterranean, etc, etc. So I'm I'm I just want to say from the outset, I'm agnostic about people's diets. But generally, if I could provide some sort of formula for nutrition that is easy to understand, and obviously this has to be taken with a lot of salt and and and nuance. I'm ignoring that for now. But nutrition or healthy diet, if you like, is the combination of time-restricted feeding plus whole food plant-based diet, plus/minus animal products. And when I say animal products, that is less than 10%. So I have to I have to finalize and refine the last bit of that formula, but basically, if you have time-restricted feeding, which if you've listened to the episodes on fasting is basically where you stop eating after 12 hours or so, or have an eating window of 10 to 12 hours. So practically what that is is you start at 8:00 in the morning with breakfast and then you finish by 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. in the evening. That is your time-restricted feeding window. Plus a whole food plant-based diet, which is whole foods, i.e. no refined sugars, no refined carbohydrates, it's high fibre, it's colourful, it's got good quality fats in like nuts and seeds. That's the core of your diet and plus/minus animal products. So it's absolutely up to you if you want to include animal products in your diet or not. And I say that because some people have intolerances, some people have aversion to grains, some people have a number of other issues that would limit a whole food plant-based diet for a number of reasons. And to get adequate nutrition into people, and this is from personal experience, not my personal experience, but from patient experience that I've I've come across a number of different times, sometimes animal products, as unpopular as it is to say this, are necessary for the completion of nutrition for certain individuals. And you'd be surprised at how many people that actually is relevant to as well. So that's that's the formula for for healthy eating. Time-restricted feeding plus whole food plant-based, plus or minus animal products. So if you don't want to have animal products, I think it's totally fine. If you do want to have a small amount and use them as luxury items, I think it's totally fine. I'm moving more towards a whole food plant-based diet myself, more so for ethical reasons and the fact that I have a puppy and a whole bunch of questions are being conjured up in my head about the ethics of of of slaughter and all the rest of it. So, but that that's not that that's more of a a personal bias rather than a a scientific explanation. So yeah, those are those are the four lifestyles for four formulas for for lifestyle that I feel everyone should know. It's happiness, it's change, it's productivity and and nutrition. Obviously, there are a whole bunch of other things that would be useful for people like improving sleep or the quality of exercise and and all the rest of it. So I'm sure this won't be the first the last um uh selection of of formulas that I will end up talking about. I think another concept that I think is very useful for people is one of salutogenesis. So this is where you create an environment and healthy habits will follow or health will flourish. And it's related to the concept of rewilding where in an environment, you essentially allow things to come to a natural order. Now, obviously, this this has to be done with a reason, you know, I use medical interventions all the time, whether it be antibiotics, whether it be a surgical intervention, etc, etc. But sometimes allowing your body to look after itself, if you put it in the right environment, is perhaps one of the best things that we could do as medical practitioners. What does that look like? Optimizing diet, optimizing sleep, optimizing movement, as well as uh psychological wellbeing in the form of sense of purpose and wellbeing, as well as things like meditation to quiet the mind and the distractions that we have in the modern world. And if we were to essentially put all those pieces of the puzzle together, that's where the innate self-healing mechanisms can kick in. And I know that sounds a bit woo-woo, but that's generally what we have in the form of our immune system, our inflammation regulation system, a whole bunch of other mechanisms that we have that I've been privy to myself, you know, when I overcame my own problems. It's a lot easier said than done. And I think that's where the challenge lies. It's not more doctors and nurses, it's not um uh better, more targeted medications. It's actually creating environments where healthy habits and healthy food and uh healthy lifestyles are the default rather than a premium that we have to opt into. And I think that sort of sense of lateral thinking is something that we need to really entertain in a post-pandemic world, um more so rather than the reactive approach of, let's target things, let's kill things, let's um etc, etc. Hopefully you can get my train of thought there. But salutogenesis, I think is a as a sidebar is a very interesting topic um to to entertain. And I think we need to really appreciate that a lot more in the future. This kind of goes on to my second thing that I wanted to talk about, health problems. So coming up with a strategy for approaching health problems and health issues. I'm constantly DM'd and I don't reply to DMs about medical issues, etc, etc. So I'm constantly asked about how to deal with um symptoms, whether it be skin problems, acne, um whether it's to do with a a gut problem, what do I eat for etc, etc, etc. And if you've read the the last chapter of my second book, Eat to Beat Illness, you'll understand that you have to ask the right questions when dealing with symptoms. And that question is why? What is causing the issue? What is the root cause of my problems rather than this is my problem/symptom, how do I treat the that problem/symptom? You've got to look for the root cause because the root cause might be completely different in different scenarios. So bloating can be caused by something as sinister as a cancer or it can be caused by something like an intolerance. It could be um something that wasn't cooked properly, a whole bunch of different reasons as to why someone might be experiencing bloating, even stress, etc. Um so you've got to look at the root cause because if you just go for the symptom, you're missing potentially a very sinister cause, but also a whole plethora of other issues by just taking fennel seeds or peppermint or um a probiotic because you've heard that's very good for bloating. Hopefully you can get my my thought process here. Ask the right questions, think about the root cause. And also, as another sidebar, our propensity toward being sick and overweight is a product of our inability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. So we have to really consciously evolve in the current environment rather than naturally. So we have to put ourselves into the right environment ourselves, putting our sleep uh habits in in process, eating a whole food, largely plant-based diet, for example, um as well as uh stress and mindfulness mindfulness techniques because if we go back to hunter-gatherer days, everything would have been like that anyway. We would have been in communities, we would have been walking large distances across planes, we would have been silent to make sure that we're not uh prey to predators that are around us all the time. So that's our meditation. We would have only eaten real whole foods um that have been minimally processed and we would have been sleeping uh according to uh the natural rhythms of sunlight and then waking up and had all those essential features of lifestyle medicine that we're consciously having to put into our lives unnaturally today because that's exactly how our bodies have evolved. So hopefully that gives you uh some sense as to how we we deal with health problems. Third thing is this concept of locus of control. So we cannot um take massive uh create massive changes to our climate. We can't uh I mean, we could have predicted pandemics, etc, but in the eye of a pandemic, the there's not much you can do, especially when you're being forced to stay at home and um there's a lot of uncertainty financially, etc. But there are two things that we do have absolute control over. And these serve as a catalyst for everything later in life. And that's our attitude and our actions. Our attitude and our actions. So our attitude to the situation is completely within our control, whether we choose to be happy or sad or uh bereaved, anxious, it is within our control. And I know that's really unpopular because a lot of people will say, you know, well, I I suffer from mental health issues and I have this, I don't have control. I completely reason with that. However, our attitude, it's not something that we can just flick a switch on. It's something that we have to consciously practice every single day. And in the absence of chronic illness, this is certainly something that we do have control over. And I would highly, highly recommend that we all exercise our ability to change our attitude. And the actions also sort of perpetuate our attitude as well. So things that we can do every single day as minute as they can be, whether it be waking up in the morning, whether it be uh when you choose to eat, whether it be what you choose to look at on your phone, for example, we all have a suite of actions that can impact our attitude. And the more we understand how much of those things are within the locus of our control, the better they can serve as catalysts for a healthier lifestyle going forward. And on the subject of that, the fourth thing in terms of um habits I feel that everyone could start today, these are things that I've definitely been using over the last few years, um that I I feel have had the best impact um for amount of effort put into it. So that the biggest amount of impact for the least amount of effort. The first thing is action boarding. So I spoke about action boarding with um uh Dr. Tara Swart on the podcast uh a few episodes back. Um it was all about the science of visualization, the science of manifestation, the um the cognitive processes that are kicked in when you start planning. We've already talked about planning um in the behaviour change uh formula for lifestyle. But when you actually physically create a a visual cue board of things that you want to happen in your life, you'll be amazed at how many different things can occur. Um so on my action board, I've got a whole bunch of different things according to the business and the lifestyle that I want to lead. Um and what we're doing right now is creating the head space for healthy eating, essentially an app, a digital platform where you can choose recipes according to your health goals, whether that be looking after your heart, looking after your uh uh your brain, mental health, etc, etc. We we look at all the research, we look at all the different ingredients, looking at empirical data and as well as dietary patterns to make sure that you're eating according to what the evidence says currently. Um and then creating a suite of uh recipes that are very easy to choose and easy to make and then you can cook Doctor's Kitchen meals every day, every week. Now, I've got a whole action board about what that looks like, um with a number of different characters on that I emulate or I look up to. Um I even have uh an image of um some of the physical outlets that I want to occur, what the app looks like, what the feeling is, all these different things and that gives me a more crystallized vision of where we're going. And the same thing can be done for a whole bunch of other um projects or uh elements that you want in your life as well. So I think action boarding is really, really important. I I literally put it on an A3 sheet, but you can do it on a smaller piece of paper, but something that you look at every single day. And if you did want to talk listen to to more about that, then I'll listen to that episode uh with Dr. Tara as well. It's uh it was brilliant. The other thing, um so that's the first first thing is action boarding. The the other thing is is waking up early. And it's this whole uh concept of making time. I know I've just talked about uh sleep and how important sleep is, but I wake up super early uh these days because I make time for the things that I want to do. Um I'm waking up at 5:00 a.m. pretty much most days so I can fit in uh meditation and and exercise. It doesn't need to be as extreme as that, but if you were to give yourself time such that you can do a a yoga flow or a meditation or a gratitude journal or just general expressive writing, you can do that with um an extra 30 minutes. So setting your alarm for 30 minutes earlier in the day and giving yourself permission to do something with that 30 minutes according to what you want to do. It's a very, very simple um ask and I think a lot of people could action it as well. Obviously, if you don't want to or you know, you feel like you're getting up early enough anyway, that's totally fine or you're lacking on sleep, totally understand that. But um it is a very, very interesting life hack that I'm currently using and my productivity levels have gone through the roof as well. Gratitude is the third thing. I've already talked about this. Gratitude daily is honestly the anecdote to hedonic adaptation as well as uh a very, very simple life hack for happiness and one that conjures up a deep appreciation for the simplest of things like I've just been on a walk today in the park and throughout every moment of that walk, I was just in deep appreciation. And it is a form of meditation and British monks do talk about this quite a bit and a number of different um faiths, but even if you're not from a faith, I think it's a it's a very, very important tool um for inner peace and uh inner silence as well. The fourth thing is uh deep breathing before sleep. So I'm currently suffering from hay fever. I don't know if you can tell, but um uh deep breathing before sleep um puts my mind in a much better place before putting my head on the pillow. And that deep breathing has been demonstrated to um change the rhythms in your brain that trigger relaxation, that reduce um the sympathetic and increase the parasympathetic uh nervous system, which puts you in a bit more of a um rest and relax mode. Um and that can it doesn't need to be long. It can just be two or three minutes of just breathing in through the nose, holding for four seconds, out through the mouth, holding for four seconds, etc, etc for three minutes and just trying that and and I measure my sleep with my uh aura ring. And uh it's uh it's quite incredible how that simple action can change the latency period, so the amount of time it takes for you to fall to asleep. Um so anecdotally, looking at my own experience of it, it's um it's it's a very uh interesting tool that I would recommend people people look at. Um and the other thing, so the the fifth thing I think is a habit that um would be very useful for for people is reducing choice. Now, you might think in a in an abundant world, more choice is fantastic, you know, we can go to a supermarket and you have 20 different types of coffee and um a number of different uh types of apple, um organic, bio-organic, um uh big bags and all the different types you can imagine. Um but after reading a book called The Paradox of Choice by Professor Barry Schwartz, and if you want to look at his Ted talk, he's done a Ted talk on the subject as well, more choice means more indecision and less decisive action. And it's it's quite perplexing that we live in a world with complete abundance, multiple choices, even when you go online, there are a number of different choices that you can buy from whatever your online store might be. Yet we are becoming unhappier. And so that there is this paradox by where you have a lot more choices in your day, the indecision actually leads to dissatisfaction. And what I've learned over the last few years is actually to reduce the amount of choices in your life in general, but particularly in the morning, because in the morning, or over the course of the day, I should say, we have a finite number of decisions that we can make consciously, and then we're going to autopilot. So if you wake up and you look at your phone, or you try and do your grocery shopping, or you you try and ask a number of different questions to your partner or you're going to your email straight away, your capacity for decision making is stretched for the rest of the day because there is a finite number of decisions you can make. And so what I've uh personally instigated is reducing the amount of decisions uh in that first couple of hours of the morning. So it can it's as simple as clothing, it's as simple as personal hygiene, it's as simple as um uh exercise and what you choose to do, um the directions you choose to follow, you need to learn to love the small things and reduce the the number of choices you have to make in the morning. Um the only thing that I don't use this for is food. I think food you want as abundance and you want choice and you want variety, etc, etc. But with everything else, um you want to try and reduce the amount of options that you have. And that paradoxically will lead to um a happier situation. Um so clothing, I I I'm pretty minimalist with my the clothing choices I have. I try not to make those decisions in the morning. Um everything else is pretty much routine where you don't have to make choices about what face cream you're going to wear or what sunblock or you know, the types of toothpaste, etc. You know, everything is routine and and minimalist as much as possible. And so when you do need to make those decisions, you're doing it in a much more conscious capacity. Um and that that is very interesting. A very interesting book as well, Paradox of Choice. So I highly, highly recommend that. Uh and just to finish off, I there's a there's a few things that I've learned over the the past few years from other people as well. Um and a number of different quotes. So Samin Nosrat, who is a famous New York Times bestselling uh cook who has a Netflix show, Salt Fat Acid Heat. What makes you a better cook is practice. It's very as simple as that. I mean, I started cooking when I was 17, so I had a bit of a head start. But practicing, practicing, practicing is what I did throughout med school. And applying that practice and that love of food to healthy eating is something that has has put me in good stead. But you won't be a great cook from day one. Better cooks require practice. So get those reps in. Second, don't miss your 20s, 30s or 40s preparing for the rest of your life. I can't remember who said that. I've got it in my phone somewhere, but it's always that constant reminder of living in the present and living in the now, um rather than constant preparation. I'm not saying throw away your pension or anything, but you know, that that constant, oh, I'll do it tomorrow or this is what I'm going to do in the future. Live in the moment and be happy in this moment and appreciate this moment because you don't want to let life pass you by. Third thing, a little skepticism, a little criticism, a little spice in the soup of progress, it should be welcomed in the recipe of success and in the spirit of moving forward. That's by a guy called Lex Fridman. He's a big uh AI guy. He lectures at, I believe, MIT. Um and it's basically all about the scientific discipline and how we should welcome uh criticism in the um progress of um of of science and and of of our human nature. But I think it can also be applied to our personalities as well and actually ourselves. So, you know, if you ever do get criticism from other people, try and convert that straight away into positive energy um and welcome it in the spirit of moving forward. Uh and the other thing, particularly on social media, is being that optimistic vessel in a sea of pessimism. Um I think we all owe it to ourselves to be that optimistic vessel and to focus and surround our lives with with positive messages, um rather than uh the the very easy negative bias that we can fall into in the sea of pessimism that you see on social media. Not to put your fingers in the ear and decline to hear about anything negative online. I think um certainly over the last year, we we all know that we need to be a lot more um we need to be a lot better listeners and a lot more consciously aware of what's going on in the world. However, um you do have to actively be an optimistic vessel because we do have an innate negative bias and this is something I talk about in a future podcast actually. Those are my ramblings um from 100 episodes of doing the podcast. Um the four formulas for lifestyle I feel are really impactful for me and hopefully they'll be impactful for other people as well. Um as well as uh a whole bunch of other uh musings that I've come across over the last few years that I feel are relevant and I tend to you know, chat about them with with friends of mine as well. So hopefully you found some of those useful. And with the next 100 episodes, of which I hope there'll be another 100 episodes, you know, we constantly try and add as much value as we can on the podcast. You know, introducing not only nutrition and and medicine and and other lifestyle and the science of that, which is why I hope people come to the podcast, but also to broaden our appeal to look and think laterally um around economics and the wider aspects of of lifestyle and what leads to healthier lives. Um and hopefully the pod can act as a beacon for other people, um and to to simply broaden our horizons around uh what it means to be truly well. But yeah, I I want to thank you for for listening uh to me and for the continued support for the podcast. And if you find the podcast useful, please do share it with other people. Um give us a review. I'd love to hear some more comments and we will always try and reflect what people want um on the newsletter and the podcast uh commentary as well. So, thank you so much and uh I will see you here next time.
