Diets Don’t Work—Top Doctors Explain Why ( Part 2)

And the mitochondria, those fireplaces in our house, or the mitochondria in the cell, our power stations, they weigh 5 to 10% of our weight. This goes on 20— this energy production goes on 24/7. That means that we can see, we can hear, we can think, we can move, our kidneys work, our liver works, everything works because of those mitochondria. And so mitochondria are a very important thing for us to understand.

My mission 15 years ago was to free people from this perpetual cycle of diet fail, diet fail. And so, uh, it's the definition of madness really, but, um, it's really, really important that people understand the facts. And that's why, um, I wanted to, you know, talk to you because those— these are just mind-blowing facts.

That's another— as well as that, Sandra, that's a great myth. Everyone thinks that fat makes you fat. It's carbs that make you fat. And the only possible way of getting thin is to eat lots and lots and lots of fats. It's just a really interesting thing because that's the only way you straighten out the relationship in your cells.

Weight isn't gained or lost in isolation. It's what you are and what you do, what you eat and how you interact and how you sleep, your circadian rhythm. So I think the other is very important.

Hi there, I'm Sandra Roycroft-Davis, a Harley Street weight loss specialist, Sunday Times bestselling author, and award-winning creator of the SlimPod programme, which works in the same way as weight loss medication but naturally and sustainably. I created SlimPod after overcoming my own struggles with food and self-esteem, and I'm now really proud to say that I've helped over 350,000 people change their habits and break free from dieting for good. In this podcast, you'll hear inspiring conversations with Slimpodders and experts to help you feel empowered, supported, and in control around food again. And if you enjoyed this, please give it a like, hit subscribe, or share it with somebody. Every action helps more people find the video and it could really help somebody who needs to see it. Let's get into it.

Incredible. I mean, it's mind-blowing. Can we now move on to the cell? Because in my intro, I was talking about that and that's the fat cell. Or, you know, the whole thing about this cell was what gripped me when I started reading the book. So go for it, tell us, let's meet the cell.

I'm going to use the same visual metaphors that I used with my medical colleagues 3 days ago in Switzerland, and so I hope you enjoy the visual metaphor, but I'm going to think of the house— I'm going to think of the cell as a house. Okay, so it's a, it's a beautiful summer's day. There's a house in the countryside on a lane, two stories with a basement underneath, and that's what we're going to imagine, and that's going to be our cell. And the village you can think of as an organ with all the cells coming together. We've got 31 trillion of them. And then you think of all the houses in the country as the human body. We're going to take one cell, and, um, let's imagine that we're looking at this house and we go in through the front door. This is the bit that no one needs to remember, okay? In any medical terms, you don't need to remember. It's the principles that are important. On the top floor of the house is a blueprint store. Okay, and in the basement of the house are hundreds of happy smiling elves manufacturing things. Okay, so there are lifts, lots of lifts powered by electricity that take the porters to the blueprint store where they copy the blueprints, take them down to the basement, and then the elves make new things. So our cells are constantly replicating. Making new mitochondria, they're making new skin cells. Skin cells slough off after a few days. Mitochondria in our cells only last 2 to 4 weeks, then we have to manufacture a new one. So the manufacturing zone in the cell, the basement of the house, all the happy elves beavering away, making stuff, new doors, new windows, whatever, whatever's required, even new houses. So that manufacturing zone takes a lot of energy. So there's a lot of energy being used down there making new stuff. And what actually happens is as the porters go up and down with the blueprints, the elves are able to make perfectly new stuff, perfectly new mitochondria. Okay. Now, what we know— this is the bit that we do need to remember, okay? How do our cells make all that energy, which we're going to call electricity? Okay. For better or for worse, imagine on the ground floor that you've got a huge fireplace that's raised about 4 feet off the ground like you used to get in the old country mansions. It's a huge inglenook fireplace, 4 feet off the ground, and either side of the fireplace are two fuels: coal on the right, and on the left, a stack of wood. Now, in our cells, we're going to think of this fireplace, but instead of on the right coal, we're going to have fat. Okay, fat is going to fuel that furnace, and on the left, we're going to have carbs. And the elves are taking them in in wheelbarrows all day long. Okay, so as, um, the elves are wheelbarrowing the carbs up the left side, the fats up the right side, there's a ramp, a wooden ramp that takes, um, the, the, the fuels into the fire. If that drawbridge on the right side which takes the fats in becomes damaged the ramp that goes in on the right side. Thank you. If you damage that ramp, you can't get the fat into the fire to be burned. And that's one of the key components to gaining weight because you're just— you can't shift that, you can't burn that fat. And so the other component of the furnace that's really important is And again, this just requires a little bit of imagination. Imagine the bottom of the furnace on the left, thousands of discharged AA batteries entering on a conveyor belt. And it's the fire in the furnace that recharges them and they appear out on the right-hand side. In real life, these batteries discharged are called ADP or adenosine diphosphate, and recharge batteries, fully recharged batteries are called adenosine triphosphate or ATP, which people will have heard of. Medical terms just don't matter. What's important is in ourselves, we switch from being predominantly carb burners to predominantly fat burners depending on the situation that we find ourselves in at the time. So for example, if you're sitting on the sofa or going for a gentle walk, you're 80% carb burning, 80% fat burning. 20% carb burning. If you run up the stairs, it switches, so you become 80% carb burn, 20% fat burn. And so this is actually a really important part of having healthy cells, because that ability to switch from carb to fat burn and fat burn to carb burn is called metabolic flexibility. And healthy cells are metabolically flexible cells. And if you look at a very fit athlete, you'll see that over the day they burn about 80% fat and about 20% carbs. And the reason that, that we actually gain weight and can't— and find it really hard to lose weight— is when those fat drawbridges, when those fat ramps for the wheelbarrows are actually backing up because they can't get into the furnace. And we talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But those are the important components of the cell. Obviously, the top floor where the blueprints are is our nucleus with the— with our genes. The bottom manufacturing zone is the endoplasmic reticulum. That's where proteins are manufactured. And then in the— on the ground floor, we have the big furnace where we're burning fats and carbs.

Amazing. It's—

that's the picture.

I do love that picture. Um, so just to, uh, explain a little bit about mitochondria, because that, that also fascinated me.

Well, the mitochondrion is in effect the furnace. That's the furnace. But mitochondria have a fascinating history because we separated from the bonobos and the chimps about 5 million years ago. But we're going back 1.2 billion years when a bacterium entered a cell. And the history is fascinating. The bacterium entered a single cell.

There were only—

and there were only single cells around.

Everything was just one cell.

And it was— they were floating around on the primordial breeze., and they agreed a division of labor. And the cell said, look, I'll go and look for the food and you make the energy. And that bacterium— we know this from fossil studies— but that bacterium later was in 1880, Carl Benda called it the mitochondrion. And so the mitochondria, singular mitochondrion, singular mitochondria, plural. Because of its history, it came with a double membrane. Now that's where the fats and the carbs are burned. That's our furnace. That's our furnace in the house. And the double membrane is the ramp to get the stuff in there. And there is a transfer protein called CPT1. The name is not important, but if CPT1 is damaged, the fats can't get in. And that's my metaphor with the fire. If you've got damaged CPT1 transfer protein, it's like, it's like a drawbridge going up on a moat. You just can't get across it. And so the fats don't get burned. And there's this great sort of great statistic that I think is incredible, that the number of ATP batteries we produce each day weigh the same as us. 70-kilogram man produces 70 kilograms of batteries a day, recharges 20— 70 kilograms of batteries a day. And the mitochondria, those fireplaces in our house, or the mitochondria in the cell, our power stations, they weigh 5 to 10% of our weight. And this goes on 20— this energy production goes on 24/7. That means that we can see, we can hear, we can think, we can move, our kidneys work, our liver works, everything works because of those mitochondria. And so mitochondria are a very important thing for us to understand.

We've had somebody tell us that they've done our Health Buddy program and she said, whenever I go shopping for food, I look at the food and I think of my little mitochondria and I think, is this going to help or hinder it? Am I going to be able to flip that metabolic switch carbs to fat if I eat this. So she actually sees mitochondrion in her food now. That, that's how much her belief system has changed. And because she understands the mitochondrion now, the powerhouse, how it can either burn fats or carbs, you want it to be able to switch seamlessly between the two. And that's what she thinks about now when she goes shopping.

It's, it's great because, you know, so many— I mean, we have thousands of people going through our program, the Simpaw program, each month, and, um, and have done for 15 years. Um, and the thing that happens in— because we have a 10-day free trial first of all, and then they, you know, then it's like it's 12 weeks. But the thing that people believe before, because they've been conditioned to believe this when they first start— and this is not everybody, I can't tar everybody with the same brush, but it is so many. They're skeptical of my process. They soon, you know, that soon goes out the window when, when they understand it more. But the big thing is their belief, born from years and years of dieting, that all they have to do is follow this particular diet and then jump on the scales. And while I am forever trying to to, um, destroy that belief, I think, uh, and, and, um, change that belief. And that is, that is what we try to do and actually explain, that losing weight sustainably— and that's the key to it, the sustainably word— um, is a process that your body has to go through. And this is why I was so excited about your book, because when you see the process that our bodies have to go through in order to release fat and, and, and stay healthy, um, it's, it's mind-blowing.

It might just be worth, um, chatting for a moment about, about the fat in the cell. Do that if that's something that you think would be useful.

Yeah, go for it.

Um, it's, it's kind of, um, the where and how of fats, really. And fats— carbs in cells are stored by the fireplace, by the mitochondrion, ready to be burned. But fats are different. And what I describe is fat globule is like a fridge, a huge fridge with a guard on the front. We call the guard PERI because the actual process is called PERI-lipin phosphorylation. But PERI sits on the, on the door and that front door of the fridge is locked. Where it stores the fat. And dietary fats and dietary carbs can go in the back of the fridge and fill it whilst it's still locked. So it's like a one-way valve. So it's— as the carbs are converted into fats and the fats enter the back, that's another— as well as that, Sandra, that's a great myth. Everyone thinks that fat makes you fat. It's carbs that make you fat. And the only possible way of getting thin is to eat lots and lots and lots of fats. It's just a really interesting thing because that's the only way you straighten out the relationship in your cells. And there's a— I love it— is a temporal relationship, which means there's a time-related relationship. So firstly, your cells become sick, your mitochondria, all of the things that we're going to talk about in a moment, start to fail., and then you put on weight. And the corollary to that is true. Once you concentrate on making your cells healthy, your insulin resistance reduced, your insulin sensitivity increased— that's the flip side of the same coin— and your mitochondria healthy, then weight loss naturally follows, you know. And, and don't rush it, it will happen.

Concentrate on making these cells healthy and Can I just add that to do these changes in your cells, you have to reactivate genes that have been dormant for as long as your cells have been ill, which could be 20 years, 10 years, who knows how long somebody's had cellular problems, but it can be a lot longer and precede diseases. So when you have a metabolism that only burns carbs, so that big furnace, you've only got the elves going up with the carbs and the fat part doesn't work, to regenerate that you've got to send messages up to the attic, get the blueprints down and go down to the elves in the basement and manufacture a whole string. You've got to manufacture ramps, enzymes. So this all takes some time. So it can be done. It can be done in everybody. But it isn't a one-day thing, you know, do it for 3 days, get on the scales and think, "Oh, I'm a different being." Well, this is, this is what happens so often, you know.

People say, oh, I haven't lost half a stone in 10 days. Um, and I said, well, you're on the wrong program, uh, because that isn't going to happen. Uh, because, you know, we work very differently in that we're priming people to want to eat healthy food. Uh, but then it's— there's no diet. We, we don't produce a diet. We just, um, that they get the information. Um, and but this is different level of information now, which is fabulous. If you can just explain maybe 3 key tips on how to— how people can actually release the, you know, the fat, just very, very succinctly, 3, how they can turn things around if they're watching this and think, right, okay, how do I lose weight then?

Yeah, I think the first thing is just, you know, have that view of your fat in the fridge, locked in there, traveling. It can't get into the furnace because the ramp's broken and the furnace isn't burning the fats properly. So what you've got to do is everything that actually just turns that around. So what it might, might be useful, um, The top 3: never snack, never graze. If you want to eat a meal, if you want to eat 1,500 calories in a day, for example, eat it all at once or eat it in 2 meals and don't snack. The second thing is a zero tolerance on sugar in food and drinks. Zero tolerance. And probably my third one would be to do a short period, 4 to 8 weeks of fat adaptation. Adapt your cells, adapt your cells to, to restart the burning of those fats. Let your cells Rebuild the, the ramps, open the fridges, and you can do that by fat adapting, what we call fat adaptation. And to do that, you concentrate, you make your plate into all of those complex greens that Monique was talking about, and then fish or meat or other sources of protein and fats on, on the other side of the plate. So you've got sort of a third of each, and so that's what I think that, that never snack, never eat sugar. There's no reason to eat it. And, and then try and get your cells fat adapted.

Could I add in number 4?

4?

Which is just other. And you can get all the diet right, but don't forget it's lifestyle and environment as well for weight loss. There are some people and, you know, they'll have been on the low carb, high fat and they'll be doing everything, no snacking, but they get— they're sleeping 4 hours a night, they're eating their one meal, they're eating late, they're totally stressed, they don't drink enough water. So other is okay, it's maybe only one part of the jigsaw, we've put it down to number 4, but it is you'll find that people struggle and they say, well, I'm doing everything that I thought I needed to do. Well, it's everything. Weight isn't gained or lost in isolation. It's what you are and what you do, what you eat and how you interact and how you sleep, your circadian rhythm. So I think the other is very important.

Yeah, and I think that what we— if just from memory, I think, Sandra, that in the Health Buddy course and in the book, I think we've got two dozen causes. And, and then once you know those two dozen causes—

obesity and disease—

and wait, yes, absolutely, two dozen drivers of insulin resistance and mitochondrial dysfunction which drive obesity and diseases, over 200 diseases by the way, both mental and physical. And Once you know those, you can then, you can turn each one around one at a time.

Amazing.

We've had people who had successful journeys and they've written to us. I can think of this couple in Australia and they both lost a huge amount of weight and they were absolutely delighted. They followed the entire program as we had written it and they said, well, look, my diabetes is better, my hypertension is gone, I've got off the tablets, everything's brilliant. But what we were not expecting is to regain our joie de vivre. And we have become what we were when we met. We are just a different outlook on life. We just feel good. And you feel good because your gut bugs are making you serotonin. You're not abusing your dopamine pathway. So, uh, the mitochondria in your brain are happy because your brain is only part of your body. People think mental disease is on a different island. It's exactly the same. And so with mood disorders and tiredness, I mean, you're not tired anymore because your mitochondria are healthy and they can produce energy. Whereas before, actually, they may have been burning carbs, but they were burning them in a pretty haphazard fashion and difficult to access, which is why people who gain weight find that they become lethargic and tired all the time.

Brain fog.

Brain fog.

All that goes. Yeah, because your brain's only the same as the rest of you. I don't know why anybody puts it— okay, it's on the top of your neck, but absolutely amazing.

I mean, so yes, um, if people— I mean, I've just given a tiny taster of— we've only discussed a taster of this, um, of what's in your book. Um, and so if anybody wants more information, Beyond Weight Loss Jabs is the, um, the thing to go to. Um, and and that and my book together will set you up for life. So look, thank you so much. Uh, I, I'm definitely going to do another one of these because I'm incredibly aware that we didn't cover everything, um, that we were going to cover today. But, uh, I just— what we have covered, it is, you know, really, really important, and it sets sets the scene. And so, uh, we will definitely do another one. Uh, it's just—

we'd love to.

There's so much here. And, uh, and just as I said at the very beginning, knowledge is power, and there is so much knowledge here that people need to put in place.

Totally.

Well, we've thoroughly enjoyed this. Well, I have anyway. Great. And we'd love to do another one. Love to share more.

Thank you, Sadra, for helping us, just like you, to get this message out there to people who are hungry to learn.

Yeah, that is based in science. And, and really, I think the biggest thing is I just— I— my mission 15 years ago was to free people from this perpetual cycle of diet fail, diet fail. And, and unless— because people get hypnotized by that and, uh, and just do the same thing, you know, over and over again. And, and why would you expect different results. And so it's the definition of madness, really. But it's really, really important that people understand the facts. And that's why I wanted to, you know, talk to you, because those— these are just mind-blowing facts.

Oh, thank you.

Glad you enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure. And we'll certainly come back anytime that you invite us.

Thanks so much for watching. I hope this episode has given you a spark of hope or a new way to think about your journey with your weight. If it did, please give it a like, hit subscribe, and share it with somebody who needs to hear this. And if you're ready to lose weight for good, try the SlimPod Programme. It's helped thousands of people change their lives, and it can help you too. You'll find all the links below, and I'd love to support you on your journey.