Dr Silvia Tara: Everyone needs a healthy level of fat. So the conversation needs to shift from get rid of fat at all costs, fat is bad to we need to maintain a healthy level of fat and healthy fat, right? A healthy distribution. So you want fat in healthy deposits and you want a nice normal amount of it. That doesn't mean obesity is okay either because that has a whole bunch of other health consequences. So actually too little fat or too much fat is not healthy.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition, and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests while we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life. Today I'm talking with Dr Silvia Tara all about the internal and external forces that govern fat. How we gain fat, how we lose fat, why your body refuses to let go of fat and how you navigate the confusing diet and fitness world that is constantly telling you it's all about calorie balance. Now it's not that I don't believe in calories, obviously they exist as a form of energy, but it's certainly not the most important factor when it comes to weight control for a lot of people. And for too long, people who have failed on diets find themselves on this downward spiral of negative emotions and feel that they don't have anything other to blame than poor willpower. But today, we're going to explain why that's not necessarily the case. Dr Silvia Tara has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego and an MBA from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She's a biochemist, she was driven to get to the bottom of fat's mysteries and the reasons why it vexes us because of her own struggles with weight and dieting, and her book, The Secret Life of Fat, frames our conversation today and we largely speak about how gender, genes, bugs, and even viruses can determine whether one person absorbs 120 calories and another can absorb 80 calories from the same bowl of cereal labelled as 100. It sounds impossible, but it's true. We discuss the complex biology of fat, how it resists loss and what to do to remove stubborn fat. And stick around to the end of the podcast where I summarise the main tips that can help you live a healthier life that balances an appreciation for why fat shouldn't necessarily be demonised totally and how to live more metabolically healthier. Now the topic of weight loss might make some people feel uncomfortable. So we do our best to make our conversations compassionate and approachable, but please exercise caution if you feel you might be triggered by these topics. Also, check out The Doctor's Kitchen Eat Read Watch newsletter. You can find it at thedoctorskitchen.com. I give you a delicious recipe every single week, plus something to read, watch or listen to that will help you lead a healthier, happier life. On to the podcast. Before we actually get into it, I work as a doctor, still clinically. Obviously I'm interested in nutritional medicine and everything else in that arena. But I'm really interested in how people come to study and be passionate about the nutrition area. And your background is fascinating because you're a scientist, you know, trained as a biochemist, you've PhD, but you've also got an MBA from Wharton, you used to work for McKinsey and Company. Tell us a bit about you as a person and your history in your career.
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, so I mean, I guess my family was always kind of academically oriented, if you will, right? Kind of high achievers. My dad had gone to Harvard, he was a chemist as well. And so he was a PhD in chemistry too. And I guess I was just interested in it. I always loved the science of it. I thought I would be a doctor for a while till I realised how much training the decade of residency time was needed. I thought, no, we got to get to work. So I was always interested in it from the very beginning. And I was interested then in the business side of it too, which is why the MBA and McKinsey. And I've always worked with biotechnology, I've worked in drug development, diagnostics as well. And so, but at the same time, I had my own battles with fat, right? And I gained very easily and I went on a number of diets and they didn't work the way they did for other people. Sometimes I'd even gain weight on a diet. They had me eating much more than I usually eat. And there was that philosophy for a while, if you remember, about you have to eat more to burn calories, otherwise you slow your metabolism, and it just didn't work. And I was about to go on another diet, try another form of dieting. I thought, why am I constantly following someone else's advice? I said, there's something amiss with my body. It's gaining weight fast, it's losing it very slowly. I have to figure out what this is. And I remember when I was starting my PhD program, someone told me that unless you have a burning question, don't go into research, right? Because you won't like it. And maybe that's one of the reasons I didn't, I didn't go into research as a career because I didn't have a burning question. But I think when it came to my own body and what's going on and why can't I lose weight, I had this burning, burning question of what is going on. And so it propelled me for five years then to research fat. You know, what is fat? How do we lose it? What were all the components involved in gaining and losing fat? And I started learning things that were just really shocking, right? When I got into the real biology of fat. And it's it's that fat isn't just fat. It's not what we all think of it as. We think of it as blubber, it's unsightly, we need to get rid of it at all costs. It's a detriment to our health. It has such a negative reputation. But if you actually study fat, it's critical. It's not even just storing calories, it's doing so much more than just storing calories, right? It's secreting hormones that it primarily makes. It's the only source of some of these hormones. And it's just vital to our overall health. So, you know, in some ways, I had a whole new respect for fat. Like, oh my goodness, how have I been treating my fat, right? Just the way we talk about how we treat our hearts or our lungs or, you know, how we work out. It was it was kind of like, I've been abusing it because I've been like sometimes eating too much, too little, losing weight, going back and forth, and my fat's been there this whole time trying to stay steady and help me. At the same time, I learned about a lot of wily tricks that fat has, right? And and I wrote about all of those, all these different ways you can gain fat that no one ever talks about or knows about. So for me, it was just a personal mission. And I used all of my scientific training, right, for this mission to really uncover it and then and then write about it in a way that I hope is accessible to people, right? It's digestible. It's not like a scientific text, but it's told through stories that people can get through.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think the story element is really important and you do that really well in your book actually by looking at people like Randy and I think Kathy is one of them and you know, and relating the science behind their journeys. And I agree with you. I think fat needs almost like a rebrand. And I love talking about science and medicine through the lens of business sometimes because I actually also did a master's in business and entrepreneurship during my medical degree that not a lot of people actually know about. I never really talk about it that much. And I think it's fascinating to have that lens of sales and marketing and entrepreneurship with science because I think we need to be able to, you know, get used to those different tools, especially when it comes to communicating science to the wider audience, which you've done so well. And the other thing I wanted to say actually on the first bit of your book is you talk a little bit about your own story that I think a lot of people can relate to in the way of abstinence. And I think you said that you were age 12 when you went on your first diet. Is that right?
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, I I gained weight very easily and I gained before then, but I think around puberty is when it really became more significant, right? It was more visible. And so, yeah, that was my first diet and you know, I yo-yoed right after that. I remember losing about 10 pounds. And you know, I was never like grotesquely obese, but I always had like 15 pounds. And I think after kids and all that, then it was more like 30, right? It was more. But yeah, around 10 pounds when I was 12 and it just set me on this path of like gaining, losing, gaining, losing. So I've been dieting for a really long time. And then I think the older I got, the more some of those tricks didn't work anymore. So much business around, you know, like the diet industry, it's all about selling you a dogma, selling you a philosophy. And the louder it's gotten, the more that business has gotten bigger, there's loud voices coming at you and they make you feel stupid if you're not following this diet, right? Certainly you are doing something wrong. And it's just really not like that, right? It's very individual. And so it sends you on this confusing message of, oh, I'm supposed to be doing this, I'm supposed to be doing that. And the whole time it's either working or it's not, or you're gaining. And so, yeah, so I mean, I went up and down a lot and and and went on a number of different diets. My old tricks weren't working and it sent me to this plateau where it just felt like nothing was working. So that's how I got there.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, why don't we talk about the different types of fat first actually? Because I know I've got a few things that I definitely want to talk to you about, four things in particular. But why don't we start off by talking about the different types of fat and how they relate to each other?
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, and this is an important one too because there's different types of fat, they have different functions in your body. And I feel like we're just at the tip of really understanding fat. And the more research gets done on fat, the more we're going to learn about what what it's actually doing. But you know, there's that white fat, that white, you know, fat that you're the kind you want to lose when you want to lose weight, right? It's right underneath your skin, it's in your buttock area, your legs, right? Maybe underneath your, you know, in your abdomen right there near your skin. But then there's also brown fat, and this is fascinating because brown fat is around your clavicle areas, around your spine, right in your heart area when you're young. And it actually burns calories to produce heat, right? So it's it's heat generating material. And then there's beige fat that's been discovered more recently. And that's fat that can turn brown when you exercise. So you have a capacity to create more brown fat that would then burn calories. And then there's visceral fat as well. And that's the fat underneath the stomach wall. I think people are more aware of this now. That's the fat that tends to get very inflamed, correlated with diabetes and correlated with heart disease. And so you can have fat, right? You can actually be a bit overweight and be healthy if your fat's in the right place. If it's not in your visceral area, if it's in your legs and your arms, you're better off than if it's underneath your stomach wall and your gut. And so there's the different types of fat and you know, they they do different things as well. So it's important to know about that.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, the beige fat is something that I've only just come across recently and how that relates to brown fat. So there is a way in which you can change your lifestyle to generate more brown fat. Is that is that correct from from beige?
Dr Silvia Tara: That is, that is. So so exercise is supposed to be something that turns that beige fat brown, right? Through that through the enzymes in the in the brown fat. And I know some people do this. Actually, my husband started doing this after I read about it and wrote about it is that exposure to cold, right? will activate brown fat as well. And I know we had a pool and he started swimming in, you know, in a cold pool every morning. He's always a thin guy, but he actually got really skinny doing this and he was eating like a horse, right? So this works. If you can stand it, this can actually help you. I know when I've tried it, it made me hungry all day and so I had a counter effect and so I I didn't plus I hate cold water in the morning. What a terrible way to wake up. But it works. And so yeah, you you can and I you know, it's really just early stages of all that research. There might be more ways. I know with mice they've tried injecting brown fat into white fat. That has also worked. There's also, you know, very lots of interesting studies in mice, you know, has limited applicability to us sometimes. But yeah, the different types of fat and how you use it. And there's also something just about body mass. There's one article I read recently where your body wants to maintain a certain mass. So when you get to a certain, you know, amount of fat, it's trying to stay that way. And there's this one experiment where they put like a weight, they sew it into the abdomen of a mouse. And those mice lose weight faster, not just from carrying that around, but because their their body thinks that they've got this mass and they want to get back to homeostasis and they want to get back to the original weight. So, and this is another important thing to know is once you have that amount of fat, you can lose it. You can. I my book is not to discourage anybody, even though I write about all the different ways we get fat. It just takes longer, right? There's different tricks you have to use depending on what stage you're in, depending on how stubborn your fat is. We all have a different fat blueprint. That's how I I write about it and I have a course on that now. And you have to understand your own fat blueprint, right? The genetics that go into it, your hormone level, your age, right? Your gender plays in a lot as well. And once you understand that, you can get a sense of how stubborn your fat is, how tough of a fight it's going to be, and how hard you have to go at the dieting effort, right? There are some people that can, you know, all they have to do is cut out carbs, maybe exercise a bit, they can lose their weight. But then there's other people where we're now talking about intermittent fasting or full day fasting, right? And exercise as well, you know, down the road. So know what you're in for because I think that'll help people get on a diet and stay on a diet and not be frustrated that that diet's not working for me. Therefore, I'm going to stop. There's nothing I can do about this. There's absolutely something you can do about it. It might be a harder effort for some versus others.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, and I think and this is something that I think hopefully people will gather after listening to this and also after reading the book that the predominant dichotomous thinking in the fitness industry really does need to be recognised and adjusted to appreciate just how varied the mechanisms are behind weight gain and weight loss. We've, you know, been fed this dietary dogma of calories in, calories out. And I think what you've done quite nicely is discuss all the multiple ways in which that's just not true and how you can try and personalise it for for you as well. And you you also have a curious sort of section on the health of sumo wrestlers that I found particularly interesting. I had no idea that I mean, I knew they ate a lot of calories, like 8,000 calories, but I didn't know they used to nap after eating to try and increase weight gain, but also the types of fat that they have as a result of their intense exercise regime. Can you speak about that for a bit?
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, and that gets into the different types of fat we have, right? So sumo wrestlers, we all know they're they're obese, right? They're massively obese. But the thing is they they exercise a lot too, right? They have six hours or so of intense exercise every day. And so there's a hormone that fat releases called adiponectin, right? And and it's interesting and fat is the primary producer of adiponectin. And what adiponectin does is it guides fat in your bloodstream, right? to the healthy deposits of fat. So it'll put it in your arms, it'll put it in your legs, your buttocks, right underneath your skin on your abdomen there. It'll keep it away from your visceral area, right? So it's almost like it's telling fat where to go. It's like saying, fat, come to me, come to where you belong. And when we exercise, it's actually produces more adiponectin, our fat cells will secrete more of it. So sumo wrestlers exercise for six hours a day. And so they have high levels of adiponectin. And so what that does is it causes the fat to go into the healthier deposits of fat. So they have it on their legs, their buttocks, their arms, their their belly. They don't have it in the visceral section. So their CT scans, you know, underneath the stomach wall, there's not a lot of fat. And so they're metabolically healthy, believe it or not, right? They don't have high levels of heart disease and diabetes, you know, things like that. But interestingly, when they retire and they're no longer exercising all the time, they get metabolically unhealthy fast because they no longer have that adiponectin, they start to get, you know, visceral fat and they just start to get unhealthy. So it's it's very interesting. You can be fat and fit, right? I mean, it's best not to be overweight, but if you're going to have some extra pounds, as long as you have it in the right deposits of your fat, you can be you can be okay, right? metabolically. And you know, the thing is though, it's exercise. It's not a light amount of exercise. It's, you know, like really about six, seven hours a week of exercise, right? Some aerobics, some intense weightlifting. So it's not an easy thing to do either, but it's possible if you're really struggling with those, you know, extra 15 pounds or so.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, the vast majority of listeners to this podcast, we have hundreds of thousands of listeners every week, but the vast majority of them are female. So, and this is something I certainly see clinically, but certainly I hear it from a lot more women. And whether that's because women as in a sweeping generalisation are a bit more conscious about the way they look or their weight in particular, or whether it's because some of the things that you discussed in your book, I'm not too sure, but is is fat more likely to be a problem for women?
Dr Silvia Tara: Your entire female audience is now screaming, yes. Yeah, and you know, I always noticed it too. And so I did a whole chapter in the book about male versus female and how females gain weight versus men. So women are always fatter, even from probably before birth, right? When they measure girl babies, you know, surprisingly, they're fatter than boy babies, almost like right after birth. So they they pack weight on more. And there's all kinds of reasons thought to be about this. And one is that there's something called nutrient partitioning, which is kind of like a forced savings program, if you will. It's where, you know, if you eat a certain amount, say 100 calories, some of it will go into your fat almost no matter what, right? Your body partitions a certain amount into fat versus other tissues. Women partition a bit more into fat versus men. But then there's all kinds of other reasons. Some are obvious. I mean, one is that, you know, men have more muscle mass, more bone mass, more of those tissues that burn calories versus women. You know, women also, you know, they compensate a lot more for for fat. So their bodies react differently as well. When they when they exercise, say for like, you know, good, they burn off five, 600 calories or so, so good amount of exercise, they actually produce more ghrelin from their stomach. And ghrelin is a hormone that causes hunger. So women are hungrier after exercise and they tend to compensate more. When they they study them and they let them go to a buffet, men and women after that kind of exercise, women will put more on their plates, right? They'll want to eat for longer after exercising. So that's an important thing for women to know. You know, either exercise late at night and just go to bed or really watch your eating after you exercise. And and obviously, it's it's the hormones, right? Testosterone is this fantastic fat burning hormone. I know people who do hormone therapy, right? And some women who take some testosterone, they burn fat quickly. They can get through this. It's not always advisable. You need to talk to your physician to understand the risk of that. But also, like like transgenders. So so women going to men, right? starting to take more testosterone, blocking estrogen, they lose weight rapidly. Testosterone is a very good fat burner. And so that's an interesting one. And then, you know, also with age, you know, you think we lose testosterone and we lose estrogen with age and that that factors in as well. And so there's there's a whole, you know, a whole number of reasons why. And even the fat distribution will change as well. Like with women and men. So we have receptors on our fat for estrogen, testosterone, growth hormone. And as our hormones change with age, so do the receptors, the receptor distribution, right? And so you'll start to get fat in other places that you didn't have before. But there's just a lot of differences between, you know, men and women in particular. So so women are somewhat designed to be a little bit heavier. And they they gain, they actually utilise fat more. So after exercise, we talked about that just to to follow up, they'll actually utilise their fat more. They'll burn more fat during exercise, but they'll pack it on at two to three times the rate that men do as well. So although our bodies, you know, use fat, they'll burn it, they also really want to keep it and they want to nature wants to make sure you have it. So it's an extra battle that women have. It's due to hormones, it's due to the tissue distribution, it's due to nutrient partitioning, it's due to our reaction, our body's reaction to losing weight where nature doesn't really want that to happen. And a number of reasons. I mean, one is that it's also a producer of estrogen, our fat. And so menopausal women, that's when you start to gain, you know, the fat becomes very stubborn around menopause. And one one hypothesis is that your body is now relying on your fat for estrogen when your ovaries, right, slow down, when they stop producing so much of it. And also leptin, right? Estrogen and leptin are very important for reproduction. If women go, you know, below a certain weight, they start they stop menstruating, right? And there's these interesting studies about malnourishment in certain developing countries. And the girls menstruate later or they don't menstruate regularly, right? So there's nutrition and fat is linked to reproduction. And so we have a different battle. And especially in the menopause time, right? That's when it's really tricky. That's when your old tricks stop working. And that's where you have to get a lot more clever about your fat.
Dr Rupy: On the subject of gender reassignment, does that work the other way as well? So for men transitioning into women?
Dr Silvia Tara: Yes, it does. They'll gain weight, right? Because they'll have testosterone blockers now and they'll start taking more estrogen. And I write about one in the book. It was very interesting because not only did I I interviewed some and like not only they gain weight, but they also get more emotional, right? They also get more self-critical. Like so the behaviors are linked to our hormones as well. And so, it's an interesting one and there's certain health, you know, of course, consequences related to that, but it's something to to be very watchful of, you know, for transgender and and for anybody. But the the female gender is designed to have a bit more fat for a number of reasons. And when we try to take it off, nature doesn't like it and it wants to compensate. It'll make you hungrier, it'll, you know, pack it on faster than it will. So for women, it's a longer haul. And I think that's one thing we can observe anecdotally. And I know I I've worked with a number of weight trainers, you know, fit, um, weight loss coaches. And they always say this, like men can can take this off really quick. Like within a month, they can be at their target weight, whereas for women, it's longer. It's a more emotional journey. There's more tied emotionally to food than there is for men. Women also have more dichotomous thinking. So if I didn't, if I didn't, you know, do perfectly today, I failed and I might as well just go off my diet now. So there's a lot more emotional coaching for women in these weight loss programs. And so so women, you know, to to get through this, really, one is know that it's not easy. It's actually really hard. So when people are telling you it's supposed to be easy, especially if you have these male weight loss coaches that I've had from time to time, they are not in your battle, right? They they are not experiencing what you are. For for women, depending on, you know, your age, your hormone, your dieting history, if you've yo-yo dieted a lot, this is going to be very difficult, right? Pat yourself on the back if you even lose half a pound a week, right? It can be that slow sometimes. And that's not failure, right? That's still a win. It's going to take you much longer and you'll you can't go off. You can't have as many cheat moments as other people can. So even just going off one day a week, right, can can really slow down weight loss and even stop it. So know where you are on the spectrum of weight loss, right? What is your hardship going to be? And I actually have a course now that people can download where I try to help people diagnose, right? How hard is your fat going to be to lose? And then once you know what you're in for, knowledge is really power. Really arm yourself, right? with with what with the knowledge about fat and the knowledge of what you're, you know, heading for. Prepping yourself will help you stay on it and help you through the endurance. And then figure out like what times you need to fast. I find fasting is really good for very stubborn fat if you're really having trouble with it. And it doesn't have to be torturous. It doesn't have to be a three-day fast. It can be an intermittent fast, right? Where for part of the day, you stop eating, right? I know for me what has worked, and you have to experiment with this, is stopping eating after about 3 o'clock, right? So it's like a 16 to 18 hour fasting day. Yes, it's hard to get through night. It is. But what I I do also learn is that your diet has to fit your personality. And so there's some diets that are very restrictive, you know, right? There's like, I don't know what, 20 ingredients you can ever eat in your life. It takes a lot of food prep time. You always have to be ready with this special food. Right? And they can work. Those diets can work. For me, it's not my personality, it's not my lifestyle. So you have to find a diet that works for your lifestyle because you'll be on this for a long time if you have stubborn fat. This could take a year, right? And longer. And once you find it, you have to stay on. So you have to you have to like it enough. What I find with intermittent fasting is that I have more food latitude in the times I do eat, right? So if there's something I'm really wanting, right? If I really wanted a piece of chocolate or, you know, half a cookie, whatever it is, I can have it and the world doesn't end. I still lose weight as long as I don't eat at night. So for my personality, right? For my level of stubborn fat, that was just something that worked really well. And you know, your fat is looking for ways to come back. And so, you know, somewhere in here, we're probably also to talk about the way fat comes back because that's that's really critical because it also highlights the fact that you can't stop dieting necessarily. You might have to stay on this a really long time, forever possibly.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, on the subject of microbes, you mentioned the differences in the microbiota there and the impact on fat ingestion as well as how that's partitioned. There was an elegant study, I believe, from Washington University where they looked at germ-free mice and then mice that had bacteria. And they found this this sort of, I think it's kind of counterintuitive. Whenever I come across the study, it always makes me rethink my knowledge of of the microbiota and how the bacteria mice were causing fat storage and maybe I am probably bastardizing it all. So maybe you could describe exactly what happened in this in this study and what we could take away from how bacteria cause fat storage and how we partition it.
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, it's interesting. So they had germ-free mice, right? So they had some mice grow up in this bacteria-free environment, so a very sterile environment. So they didn't really have a lot of bacteria in their gut. And they compared that to the mice that do, right? They grow up in the normal environment and they have bacteria. But the the germ-free mice, they don't absorb as many calories out of their gut. So so the bacteria in our gut, in our intestines, it's actually helping us break down foods and absorb foods, right? And then convert those to fat ultimately or to whatever our body needs. And so germ-free, they could eat more and they were thinner. And yet they had a lower metabolism, whereas the the mice that uh, you know, were were in the normal typical environment, they had to eat 30% less to be at that same weight. Um, and actually they weren't even at the same weight. They ate 30% less, but they were 50% they had 50% more fat. So the bacteria had such an effect. It actually helps us break down our food and digest it. It helps us break down polysaccharides and turn it into to glucose basically. And they didn't even have a higher metabolism, the ones that that grew up in the normal kind of bacteria environment that we all that we all have. And so it's doing a lot. And there's different schools of bacteria. So so some bacteria actually does this much more efficiently. It breaks down starches and turns it into glucose. And and there's others that let more pass as waste. And one thing learned is that the more kind of fibrous food we eat, we tilt towards the bacteria distribution that actually lets more pass. So I say in a way, fat loss begets fat loss because if you're eating more fibrous foods like lettuce and salads and fruits, for one, you're getting fewer calories and more water, right? So it's more filling, but you're getting less fewer calories. Um, you know, at the same time, you're tilting your microbiome to be one that's allowing more of that to pass and absorb less calories from your food. So you're you're getting less calories and you're absorbing even fewer calories of that meal. Whereas people who eat more starchy foods, right? Um, potato chips, cookies, things like that, their microbiome tilts towards one that actually extracts calories much more readily out of the food. So that bowl of Cheerios that you're getting that says 100 calories, like a bowl of cereal, you know, some people are going to get 120 calories out of that and some people are going to get 80. It depends on what your your distribution looks like. And so one way to shape that is to eat, you know, a lot more kind of natural fibrous foods, right? Leafy vegetables, things like that that'll tilt that microbiome, help you tilt towards one that is extracting less calories out of your food.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think one of the takeaways that I want to dissuade people from thinking because that was certainly my initial takeaway is, oh, if you have microbes in your gut, that's bad because that's extracting more of the calories and that's putting fat on, whereas we just need to get rid of the calories so it all passes out of you. That's not the thinking that you want to have because you need to have the microbes in order to extract the nutrients that you need to support your body's normal processes. But what distribution of bacteria and the distribution of the populations of different microbes is super, super important. So one that is more in favor of bacteroides versus femicutes and you can adjust that using the different patterns of of eating. And I guess the the last factor that, I mean, there are a number of different topics that you discuss, but one of the things that interested me was the genetic component. And I you you use some examples of indigenous Americans, but I I believe there are a number of different stories of indigenous populations from across the world, whether you're looking at rural India or whether you're looking at Aboriginals in Australia, where those native populations come into contact with industrialized food and have a unique issue with obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease amongst a whole bunch of other sweet of metabolic problems. What is going on there and and what do we know about genetics and and how that changes our approach to putting on weight and and specifically fat?
Dr Silvia Tara: That's a good one. I think that's going to be a big area of discovery, you know, in the next few decades. But, you know, there's there's genotypes, right? So depending on your ancestry and the behaviors of your ancestry, we've all inherited a certain genotype of what worked for that line of humans. And so some of the, you know, nomadic humans, the fasting humans, ones that experienced famine, right, throughout history, they've developed this this genotype that's called the thrifty genotype. Their bodies are very good at extracting calories, at at hoarding calories into fat tissue. They they produce fat quite readily. And it's it's to help them get through periods of famine. So like I said, nature, you know, it's very careful. It knows how to preserve itself and what it needs for propagation, right, of a different species. And so this is what really helped them get through periods of famine throughout history is that their thrifty genotype that allowed them to take in, you know, maybe minimal amounts of food, use some, but save a lot for fat for for the future when it was needed. And so it's interesting is when those societies come into contact with like fast, easy calories, they gain a lot of weight. And the the population I wrote about were the Pima Indians that came through America, right? They were somewhat nomadic. They they settled in Arizona and they settled in Mexico. And when they have their own lifestyle, which was kind of farming and hunting and active and very natural foods, they they did okay. They weren't obese. But then when Caucasians started moving into the area at the turn of the century, you know, 1900 or so, they got other foods, right? They got flour, they got bacon, and then there was started to be government sustenance programs where they got even more of these types of foods, right? These industrialized foods and and they got obese quickly. And it became an area of study for the government of what is going on here. And the theory they came to is that, you know, there's certain groups of people that have this very thrifty genotype. They're kind of designed, right, to have more fat. And although I, you know, I looked at the Pimas, I I think that's probably all over the place. And I know people talk about the the girth of America all the time and, you know, we have a a whole polyglot of different cultures here, right? People with different ancestry who come here. And food here, it's it's, you know, readily available. It's highly processed sometimes, very industrialized. And so certain populations can get away with this. Like the Pima Indians, when they compared them to the Caucasians who were living right next to them, the Caucasians weren't getting really fat off this food, only the Pima Indians were. So it's another thing to be conscious of and, you know, another thing to to not measure yourself against someone else. And I think that's the big takeaway from from the book too is like we're all really individual, right? So depending on your ancestry, your genetics, right? Your again, your gender, um, how much you've yo-yo dieted because that will affect how much you can eat also, right? You can't compare yourself to, well, my friend's eat this way. I should be able to eat this way. There's no should, right? in dieting. There's no like, I should be able to have this. I should not have to exercise this much or, you know, there's no should. It's just what is, you know, what is that mathematical equation you're working with and how do you deal with it, that mathematical function. And so I you know, I think the less we start to think of what, you know, like what should we be able to expect, right? Not everyone can expect the same thing. And that's why it's important to prep yourself with what is your fat blueprint, what can you expect for yourself, right? Not for your neighbor, your friend or family member. And then use that to arm yourself to prepare for what that journey is going to look like. And again, you have to want that, right? So if you don't really care about, you know, you have an extra 50 pounds, you don't care, you're probably not going to do well on this journey, right? You have to really want that thing because it will be hard work and you can't compare yourself to everyone else. It's your personal journey that you have to figure out. And I'm hoping all the contents in the book, the contents in the course, they help people figure that out for themselves and help them monitor their own kind of weight loss and tailor it to themselves.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've discussed like four main things today, you know, gender, genes, bugs, viruses. These are all reasons why you can't have that black and white thinking about diet and and weight and and its effect on fat. My last question for you is, I guess, if you're writing the book or you're writing another book in like five years time, what are the things that you think we should be watching out for? What are the things on the horizon of of the science of fat that could come to fruition that you're you're particularly interested in or excited about?
Dr Silvia Tara: Yeah, I think it's more about learning what's in our food, believe it or not. Like, I don't know that we know what we're eating anymore, right? So when you look at ingredients, we have like highly processed food, highly industrialized farming techniques now, right? So so what are you really eating? That's really important because I don't think we're eating what we think we're eating. I know when I I have to do business travel and I have to eat out of an airport, I I easily gain a half a pound or a pound, right, from that. And I thought I was just having a chicken sandwich, which normally in my own household would not cause me to gain half a pound. So so what is it that we're eating is going to be really important? How are these industrialized foods being processed truly and and what can we do to have kind of sustainable corporate, you know, food supply and at the same time have people be healthy? Educating yourself is going to be really important because corporate interests aren't always aligned, right, with your personal health needs. And so you have to know what you're putting into your body. Another area of interest I I've developed is just the emotions around eating, right? And so I've talked about it a little bit in this talk, but you know, you have to want something and what causes somebody to want something. And then when they go down that journey to get that something, what causes them to lose that journey and give up, right? So our lives are very stressful. And it's seen like throughout history that when there's stressful times like the pandemic or a depression or a recession, people tend to gain weight. It's like they lose willpower and and candy sales go up, believe it or not. And I think we saw that with pandemic, right? The alcohol sales went up, people gained weight and no one's immune to that really. And and so what is it about how we think about things that makes us feel sorry for ourselves, right? Or makes us feel like we can't cope anymore and therefore I'm going to give up and I'm just going to I'm going to relax. And what is it about that food that makes it feel like that was worth it, right? So so there's a whole psychology around why we eat, why we lose endurance, and and what what will help us stay on a journey. And so this has been an area of fascination of mine and I'm I'm starting to read more about it and research this a bit more because at the end, there's always forces that can cause you to eat. Our bodies are designed to eat, you know, our bodies are designed to put on fat, you know, so for our own safety. And corporations are designed to sell you things and make money, right? So, so in the end, we're always going to have an onslaught of forces that that are going to make us fatter in this case. And and so how do you navigate that, strengthen yourself, empower yourself and stay on the journey to want to be fit and be able to stay fit, to stay on that regimen that you've picked for yourself. And that way, no matter what other onslaught comes on, what other pandemic, what other recession, whatever, you're you're armed, you know, to to get through that, right? Like a big, you know, ship sailing through the ocean, no matter what wave hits you, you can handle it because there'll be no shortage in the future of all those those different factors as well that come into to make you want to eat or want to gain weight.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think balancing those those interests that you have as well as the knowledge of what corporate interests are as well, I think is going to be key to to people's health journeys. And your work is fantastic. I love the book and it's certainly made me pause a lot and and want to do a bit more research in certain areas. So thank you very much. And I think this is going to be really, really useful for tons of people out there.
Dr Silvia Tara: Great. Thank you. It's great to be here.
