Podcast Transcription: The Hidden Truth About Obesity: What Every Man Over 40 Must Know

Ted Ryce: My dad once asked me, why is there such an issue in the United States with obesity? Why are we so fat? It wasn't like this before, and he was right. The obesity problem in America is relatively new, and I also remember not having a good answer for him. I was confused. And today in this episode, I want to help you get clear on what is driving obesity and what you can do to fight the bulge, the Battle of the bulge in your own life. 

So what is up my friend? Welcome back to the Legendary Life Podcast. I'm your host, Ted Ryce. Coach to executives and entrepreneurs and other high performing professionals and podcast host. So let's dive right in US obesity. It's at 40.3% as of the latest statistics in two, uh, in 2023. While I'm in Brazil right now and I've lived all over the world, the obesity rate here in Brazil is 20.8%. 

America's rate is literally double Brazil's. It's double Brazils. You think they don't have sugar here? You'd think they don't have processed foods here. We're gonna get into that, but the, what I'm teasing at is the answer is a little more complicated. So today I'll explain why it happened, what's different between cultures and what we can do about it. 

So the first thing I want to talk about is the explosion of obesity. And what I mean is obesity tripled in America over the last 60 years, tripled, and there were some key inflection points. The late 1970s to the late 1980s, that was when the big spike happened. And in the 1980s, maybe you remember, I mean, my parents, they were eating snack wells. 

That was the low fat craze where, you know, people were eating, trying to get rid of fat. They, they felt fat. That the narrative that of the time, much like the low carb narrative today, it's like this hyper focus on fat and getting rid of fat. And I remember my cli uh, my clients, they're not my clients, my parents, they were always. 

Never really on a diet, diet. I think my dad tried Atkins, but they were always eating diet foods, like the snack walls. I remember I, because I remember eating some of the snack walls and, and thinking, oh, these are like, how is this healthy? This is disgusting. It doesn't taste as good. It's processed crap and Right. 

But they, they were all about it and they still struggle with their weight, so. What happened, not just in my house, but in the United States in general, is an explosion of processed food, fast food expansion, portion sizes. If you look at the portion sizes from the 1950s or 1960s, you can just Google it, portion size, uh, changes in portion size in the United States, and you'll see. 

Cappuccinos got bigger, right? People were ordering what? Vinci Vinte. Starbucks size Frappuccinos. Hamburgers are bigger, fries are bigger. The size of what? What we order? Order of fries and order of a hamburger. Everything's bigger than before. I remember being in Orlando not too long ago and going to a sushi restaurant, and I remember trying to put the piece of sushi in my mouth after having lived in Southeast Asia and Brazil. 

Brazil has some amazing sushi, by the way. It has the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan, and so therefore some great, some great sushi and great. Japanese and also Korean food story for another time, but I remember trying to fit the piece of sushi in my mouth and just thinking, this is disgusting. 

This thing is so big, I can barely get it into my mouth, and I don't have a small mouth, right? I'm not a giant man. I'm five foot eleven, a hundred and eighty five to 190 pounds, and I can barely get this thing in my mouth. Not only that on the food size, but food side rather. But sedentary lifestyle has started taking over. 

I don't know about you, but I'm sitting down to work right now. We're sitting down doing knowledge work, working in front of computers. We're spending more times, more time in front of screens. Our kids are watching YouTube on their tablets instead of watching cartoons in front of the TV like we used to, and they're like glued to their tablets. 

I, I at least remember moving around watching cartoons and, you know, doing different things. While still watching, but kids today, they're glued to their phones, glued to their tablets. People just don't move that much. And by the way, just to contrast this with Brazil, because that's where I've been for the past, uh, I've spent over three years in Brazil and I kind of moved here in January. 

So obesity is growing, but it's still, again, about half the US rate. So it's not just. It's not just processed foods because they have a ton of processed food here. They have a ton of sugar here. Look up what a briga is. They have so many sweets in Brazil. They have so many different shops that specialize in sweetss called Doce. 

So it's not just that, but it's also cultural food, uh, traditions. Also more daily activity. Brazilians move a lot more. Um, they're up and about. I recently went to a Mother's Day celebration just a few weeks ago and. My business partner. My business partner is Brazilian by the way, and her grandmother is 91 years old and she was up, she was moving around. 

I also, a few weeks later, went to her grandmother's house and she cooked for me. Like people are up and doing things. Of course, there's probably some genetic, let's say, benefits there. 'cause she's not the most healthy woman, but I feel like she has more energy than me. This 90-year-old, 91-year-old woman. 

So. So this cultural food traditions, it's really important. Also, one other thing is that when I go out and hang out with Brazilians, there's more talking, there's more standing, there's dancing versus in the United States where people sit, they eat, they drink, and when people drink in the United States, they drink to get shitfaced. 

They drink to get drunk in Brazil. Certainly people do that too, but it's a bit different. There's a focus on dancing. People dance, they sing. It's more about the overall experience instead of just getting blasted. So, so that's part one. Now the, the second thing I want to talk about is something called a gene environment mismatch. 

Now that sounds complicated, but it's really not. Have you ever wondered why sugar tastes so good to most people? For example, what tastes better? Even if you don't love ice cream like I do? What tastes better? Broccoli or ice cream? Why do we all feel that way? Right? Why do we all feel that way? Well, our brains. 

Have a reward system and when you eat that ice cream, that combination of sugar and fat and the processing, it makes your reward center go crazy. And spikes dopamine, and it kind of programs you. It doesn't kind of program you, it programs you to say, you know what? This is some good stuff. Let's get some more of this. 

And it's not just with ice cream, it's with foods in general that are what we call hyper palatable. In other words, it's not just carbs or it's not just fat. It's combination. Of fat and carbs together. For example, an almond croissant versus white bread. White bread, okay. Yeah, it's okay, but who's going crazy for white bread? 

No one. What about almond croissants? Well, I'm crazy for almond croissants. What are almond croissants? Oh, that's a carb, right? Are you kidding me? Do you know how much butter is in? Is is used to make an almond croissant? Not to mention that that almond paste filling that is made from almonds. It's a combination. 

In fact, just me explaining. Those details. For some of you, it's gonna make your mouth water and to put ideas of food in your head. So why is it that we respond that way? And the answer is, humans evolve for scarcity. So cravings preference for calorie dense foods. The ability to store fat. It's a survival advantage. 

However, I don't know about you, but I remember, remember when everybody was talking about food shortages never happened, right? We have so much food in the United States and in modernized countries. We don't have a food shortage problem. In fact, it's the opposite. I remember people trying to pin obesity on socioeconomics. 

In other words, poor people are obese, rich people are fit. Certainly there's some, there's some truth to that, but obesity goes across the board as far as socioeconomic levels. It crosses, it doesn't matter your education or your, uh, or, or how much money you have. There's plenty of people who are obese. It it, that isn't the answer. 

Not to mention the fact that if you go to Cambodia. Where I spent some time people, some people there are literally food insecure. They don't have enough to eat. So my point in mentioning that is we even, even the poorest people in the United States can still afford enough food, become obese. All right, so. 

We are not designed for this type of abundance, and if you are doing well, well sometimes you don't even wanna go to the store. So you'll just call DoorDash or you'll just, uh, order some Uber Eats, get takeout. And I want you to also consider this. I saw a reel recently. If you don't know what a reel is, 'cause you're not on Instagram, it's a video, like a, a short video and it was a hunter gatherer tribe and they were cooking a monkey and it looked totally disgusting. 

'cause it wasn't like, it wasn't like the monkey was properly. Feel dressed and, and, and sliced in a way that to cook it, like for example, when you go to the butcher shop, you don't see it like cow heads and parts of the cow there. Well, well you do depending on the, uh, butcher shop, but most of us, what we see is ribeye steaks. 

Sirloin steaks and all the other cuts. But these guys, they were like cooking a monkey and it wasn't it, and it, the, the monkey still looked like a monkey. And then they took it out. They were like. I don't know what you would call the cooking. They, they, they had a kind of a pod. It, it was like kind of stewed a little bit and they were just biting the monkey and they were passing it around, biting the, the skin and the, the muscle off the monkey's head. 

It was totally disgusting and sorry for giving you that visual if I've grossed you out. But I'd want you to get through your thick, modern, uh, digital. Digitally overwhelmed brain that things didn't used to be like this. We were, we used to be the people like eating the monkey, right? The hunter gatherer tribe, eating the monkey or the Inuit hunting walrus and whale. 

But things were different. I'm a city guy, okay? I grew up in Miami, so forgive me if I'm not, um, you know, giving you these amazing, uh, examples from primal. Hunter gatherer cultures, but can think about that or, or think about. Think about this. Imagine catching some slimy fish from a river. Then like cooking it over a fire with no seasoning and with some like carbohydrates or whatever else people you could find to eat. 

And then that's dinner. Think of that versus uh, sesame teriyaki salmon with stir fried veggies or ordering the, whenever I'm at my cousin's house in Texas, we go and we eat steaks. We go to this place, it's called HEB, for those of you who are in Texas, it's very famous and highly regarded, some great food there, and we, we get the Wagu ribs, right? 

The world that we, our, our ancestors lived in a very different world than we do right now, is my point. And you can kind of see that in Brazil, Brazilians eat more home-cooked meals. They have one thing that, uh, I really love here. You can go and buy food by the kilo. In other words, it's like a buffet. It's not what they have, you know, pay, they have the buffets as well, but you can go and pay by the kilo and they have all this food set out. 

And so I paid about $7 the other day for a full plate of food. And, and I, there's nothing like that, especially at that price in the United States. Right. There's nothing like that. However, packaged and processed foods are catching up quick. So the next thing I want to talk about is genetics. Now I want to tell you something. 

I never used to believe that obesity. Had a lot to do with genetics. I always thought that was a cop out. My mind has changed. The research shows that some people genetically have louder what's called food noise or more cravings, and it's really important because after. After a lot of research and listening to guys like Stefan, DNA, Peter Atia had Stefan DNA on his show discussing the heritability of obesity. 

If you haven't listened to that episode and you're interested in this, look for Stephan d Nna. I've had Stepan on my show multiple times and Peter, uh, Atiya because obesity is, there's a strong genetic component to it. So it is, yes, it's environment. Ultimately, if you take that person with obesity genes and put them on a deserted island and they've gotta eat roaches for protein and climb trees to get coconuts and break open the coconuts, uh, to you to survive, they're gonna lose weight fast. 

But we don't live in that environment. And so some of us, this environment, it's driving our brains crazy. And I want to kind of bust the lazy, lose loser myth. In other words, that if you see someone who's very overweight, let's say someone who's maybe my high at around five 11 and I weigh 180 5, and let's say they weigh 250 or 260 pounds, that's extreme obesity. 

You would say, or at least the narrative from the past is like that person is lazy and they're a loser and they lack discipline and they have no self-respect or self-control. Not only did the research on genetics shift my perspective on this. I've worked with so many clients who are obese, and these are people who are not lazy and they're, they ain't losers, they're multimillionaires, serial entrepreneurs, doctors, high level attorneys who are at the, the pinnacle of their career. 

It is not a lazy, it, it's not a laziness issue. It's not a, oh, you need to work harder issue. Well, there is, I don't want to get too much into that because I think there is some, for those of you who do struggle with this, you, you're going to have to work harder and you need to work, have better strategies. 

And that's why coaching is so powerful, is because that's exactly what I help with. Right. Um, but I'll also tell you this, just kind of going on what I, uh, I just said the heaviest clients that I've worked with. Often work way harder than the leaner ones. I'm gonna say that again, that the heaviest clients often work harder than the leaner ones. 

So it's really important, uh, that we understand this because, because it's the truth. It's the truth, and it's the truth that I didn't initially believe. But it, it's important to understand that. So besides genetics, there's misinformation and diet, miss. So I remember when starvation mode was a thing that is not real people, I hope you still don't believe in that. 

That is not a thing that is marketing made up. Because the weight loss industry thrives on misinformation. It thrives on you being confused. That's one of the reasons why I do this podcast. I want you to get clear on what is driving the issue. So starvation mode is not real. There are no holocaust, uh, people in the Holocaust or the various Starvations that mass starvations that happen, or like, yeah, everybody died except me. 

'cause yeah, I went into starvation mode. I was like eating no food. But yeah, I survived. Everyone else died though because of starvation mode. Does. It's not, does, that's not, it doesn't exist. Okay? It's total nonsense, and I get it, and I'm not, I'm not trying to be condescending here. I'm, I'm laughing at it. I used to believe this stuff too. 

Another thing that I used to believe that I don't anymore is carb. That the insulin, oh, I can't even remember. Carbs make you fat. The carbs make you fat. Myth. So it's the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis that is not real. Okay? You can eat nothing but carbohydrates and you lose fat, and people do it all the time. 

Look up the potato hack. Look up the Master's cleanse, which is basically drinking sugar water. And losing a bunch of fat. So, so that's not a thing. And the idea, like what's happening with the Make America healthy again, I'm not gonna get into politics, but I will tell you this, you can take out all the food additives you want. 

You can switch seed oils for, uh, beef talo all you want, and you will still be fat if you're eating the same amount of calories. Nothing will change for you. Your health won't even get measurably Im improved either. The food additives, the hormones, the clean eating obsession, they're distractions. You know, wanna know what is the biggest, uh, and I'll be talking about these in an upcoming episode, the biggest breakthrough in fat loss or weight loss GLP one agonists like Charro and Ozempic. 

And what do these things do They. Affect a part of your brain that controls hunger and cravings and uh, you know, even behaviors like gambling and it quiets it down. That is it. So you stop eating and you lose weight. A lot of it, it's the most powerful thing yet, as far as a single solution, of course, there's a lot of downfalls to that, and we'll talk about that in the upcoming episode. 

I'm not against them. I'm not for them. I just think they're a tool and they're a powerful tool, but they need to be used properly. But if you're believing any of this stuff and you think your, your metabolism's too slow or you're too old, or you're too poisoned by the environment, or you're eating too many carbs and none of that's real, you're eating more calories than you burn. 

Simple as that. And again. There's a lot of people who not only their businesses thrive off of misinformation. There's a lot of true believers who are like basically cult members. I know 'cause I used to be in the low carb cult for 10 years. I used to preach this stuff. Everything that you hear that they're saying now and, and I don't believe it anymore. 

And what, why, because. I got fat while doing low carb, uh, low carb diet. And so, um, and it wasn't until I went on my journey of reading the research and then applying the research that changed everything for me. So, um, so another thing that I want to talk about is the politics. Now health is being politicized, which, if you know me, I don't, I don't talk much about politics. 

It's not my jam, it's not my thing. But where. My thing is helping you with your health, but it where it kind of gets blurred now, where in the past it wasn't like this or some of the movements, the political movements, like health at every size, look, you can improve your health. At any size. For example, if you're 300 pounds and five foot 10, you can start walking or going to the gym or eating more salads that's a healthier habit, but excess fat isn't healthy. In fact, so many people now, they're like, Hey, I, I, I don't care about my weight. I just want to, I just want to be healthy. I don't care about losing weight. I just want to be healthy. Well, guess what? One of the healthiest things you can do is lose weight. 

Do not fall for this narrative. Okay. The number one thing you that you can do is start an exercise habit. Beyond that, get rid of excess fat. Oh, but Ted, I eat the healthy diet and the super foods and the acai and the, the athletic greens, and it doesn't matter. 

You are extremely unhealthy. The more fat you have, the more unhealthy you are. Period. If you're, if you're a man, shoot for 20% body fat or under, if you're a woman, 25% body fat or under fat phobia. I remember I just saw a guy the other day, and this, this, again, this is an example of the politicization and I feel so bad for people who are confused about this, especially the youth, the youth. 

That watch this stuff and maybe it starts to make them think. But this guy was saying, oh, if you are, and he was very obese and he was saying, he was saying, if you wanna lose fat because you're in pain, or you have a medical condition and you wanna lose fat to Rever, you know, get rid of the medical condition. 

That's fat phobic. And I'm like, oh my gosh. If that's fat phobic, maybe fatphobia is a positive thing then because look, it's denialism. That's kind of like saying, imagine if someone was a CO was smoking crack and saying something like that. You're just crack phobic. It's like, no, it's really bad for your health. 

Doing cocaine destroys your blood vessels. Destroys you and fat. Having too much fat on your body also destroys you. Of course food isn't crack cocaine, sugar isn't as addictive as cocaine or anything like that. Okay. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm just saying like if this were anything else, we wouldn't have an issue with it, but it's been. 

Politicize and that's all I'll say. Also, there's been a normalization, and this is a little bit beyond the politics or separate, almost separate from the politics, but even very conservative right-leaning people will say, oh, well I'm just, I just have a lot of muscle. That BI thing that doesn't really represent me. 

It's like, dude. You have a slab of fat over your abs, you are fat, okay? That is not muscle. You're not big bone that doesn't exist. Your perception is off and again, there's been a shit, I used to be like this too when I was 210 pounds and, and chubby at my chubs. I thought I was like a beautiful beast. Some people even said, oh, you look still look good, man. 

But I was like, now looking back, I'm like, man, I'm fat. My abs disappeared, right? You could call me captain. My, a friend of mine called me Captain back fat. He was, no, it wasn't wrong. So listen, don't let, don't get clear on what is healthy, what isn't, and you can do that by data. If you have a belly, you are not healthy. 

I don't give a crap what the politics say or that there is someone, your, your best friend is a lot fatter than you. It doesn't matter. You are not healthy. And I've even had people tell me that, look, look, oh, so-and-so is like, that's what fat is. I'm not fat. It's like, no, you are fat. Okay, you're obese. And that's all there is to it, right? 

Or if you want to use more inclusive language, you can say, I'm a person with obesity. I don't care what terms you want to use, but you have the thing. Okay. Like, whatever makes, look, I'm, I'm not a political person. I am, uh, very into data and helping people with their health and 100% most people are not healthy. 

And they're in, they're like not clear about it. They're like almost delusional about it. Right. And so get clear because there's, there's hard data on this. You can get a DEXA scan. You can even just do your BMI. If you want to cry about BMI not representing you, then go get a DEXA scan, right? And shut up. 

Because it'll tell you that you're fat, that you're 25% fat or whatever it is, if you're a guy. And, uh, so, so look, it is what it is. It's the thing, uh, again, aside from exercise, getting lean is the, one of the most, it is the second most important thing you can do for yourself. Okay, so in conclusion here, obesity is a gene environment mismatch. 

A lot of people are misinformed about it, uh, about what causes obesity, the mechanisms, people's lifestyles are out of control with food and alcohol and. In the US there's this strong, nobody talks about it, but it's, we have a culture of of just eating too much, right? The portion sizes are outta control, and America is just that perfect storm. 

It's the environment combined with portions, combined with the sedentary life, and all of a sudden, again, going back to Brazil, they have all the things that America has here, but obesity. The US is double Brazil's rate. Just to use one example, and I'm even being nice using Brazil because the obesity rate is high here. 

When I was living in Thailand, it was in Asia. It's a different story. It's way lower. So the core truth is this calories in and calories out. Still rules, but the context explains why so many people struggle with this. Look, don't wait for the environment to change. Build your own systems. Movement, sleep, stress management, food strategy. 

That's how you protect yourself from what is now being called the obesogenic environment we live in. So, and if you want. To have a conversation and help with this from someone who's an expert and has a ton of successful clients who've lost weight and keep it has kept it off for years. Go to legendary live podcast.com/apply. 

Book a call with me and let's talk about your situation. Again, this call isn't for everyone. I only work with executives, entrepreneurs, and high performers. So if you are not, if you're not a, an executive entrepreneur or a professional, like an attorney, accountant, consultant, doctor, then this isn't for you. 

If you are one of those high performing professionals, executives, or entrepreneurs, and you have a crazy lifestyle and you don't want to give it up, you wanna find a way to make your lifestyle work or make health and fitness work with your lifestyle, let's have a conversation. Love you guys. Have a great one. 

Speak to you next time.