Never Diet Again with Max Lowery

How Society is Keeping You Fat, Tired and Unhappy (and How to Break Free)

• Max Lowery

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Ever feel like losing weight is harder than it should be? You’re not imagining it. The modern world is working against you—keeping you stuck in sugar-burning mode, chronically stressed, sleep-deprived, and constantly distracted by screens.

In this episode, Max Lowery and Shane Copeland break down:


🔥 Why the modern environment makes weight loss feel impossible
🔥 How stress, poor sleep, and screen time sabotage your metabolism
🔥 The truth about cravings, emotional eating, and why willpower isn’t the answer
🔥 Simple, actionable steps to reset your metabolism and make fat loss effortless

If you’ve ever thought, I know what I need to do, but I’m just not doing it—this episode will change how you see weight loss forever.

 

Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:   https://www.neverdietagain.uk/register-podcast

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/max.lowery/

Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://calendly.com/maxlowerycoaching/food-freedom-breakthrough-call

Max:

The modern world is keeping you fat, exhausted and addicted to food and, the worst part, it's not your fault. You've been told that losing weight is as simple as eating less and moving more, that if you just had more willpower you'd see results. This is a lie. Right now, your body is likely stuck in sugar-burning mode, craving food constantly and making weight loss impossible. And it's not just about the food. Stress, sleep deprivation and screen time are keeping you hungry, tired and frustrated. But here's the good news Once you understand what's really happening, you can break free and get the results that you want.

Max:

In this video, I'm going to expose the hidden ways in which our modern environment is sabotaging your weight loss efforts and exactly what to do about it. If you're someone that feels like they know what they need to do to lose weight, but they aren't doing it, make sure you listen to this episode. How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight? Eat the foods that you love and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowery. I'm an author, personal trainer and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and understanding so that you never diet again.

Max:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Never Diet Again podcast. Today we are talking about something quite controversial but really, really important, and that is how essentially the modern world, western society, is keeping us fat, unhappy and tired, ultimately, and it's making weight loss almost impossible. I'm Max Lowry, weight loss coach, been helping women over 40 lose weight and keep it off for the last 10 years, and I'm joined by Shane, who is the head coach of the Live360 program, and the Live360 program is how we help our clients. How are you doing, shane? Very well, max, excited to talk about this subject.

Shane:

Yeah, this is one I have a lot of opinions on, so very excited to get into this one today.

Max:

Yeah and look. The reason this is relevant is because what we believe and what we've seen is that the modern environment is negatively impacting people's lives in so many different ways. Obviously, we're really focused on weight loss and becoming the best version of yourself, but mental health, financial health relationships, family everything is being impacted by what's going on in the Western world at the moment. So we wanted to talk about what you can do. Well, firstly, what's happening, bring awareness to what the potential problems are, and then talk about exactly how we help our clients make weight loss effortless, becoming the best version of themselves, effortless and just improving mental health and improving their quality of life as a whole, and I think the issue is that. So obviously, I know you guys are interested in the weight loss aspect, but essentially, what you're going to learn on this episode is how the modern world essentially impacts our metabolism and gets us to be dependent on sugar, and that causes a lot of problems, and we'll go into that Essentially metabolic inflexibility, which we've talked about quite a lot in the past.

Max:

It leads to craving food all the time, feeling out of control with food, it leads to your brain needing food to process certain emotions and it leads to, potentially, mental health issues as well, because I think, when it comes to weight loss, the lie that people are told is all you need to do is eat less and move more, and that all you need to do is have more willpower and more motivation. Essentially, you just need to try harder. And just a caveat yes, you do need to eat less and move more. To lose weight, you do need to achieve a calorie deficit. However, it's not good advice because it isn't addressing the reasons why you're overeating in the first place.

Max:

So our clients are mostly women over the age of 40 who have tried every single diet out there. They've put a lot of willpower, motivation and effort into losing weight. They've eaten less and they've moved more, but the weight always comes back on and they always end up blaming ourselves. And we're here to tell you that potentially, there's a societal and environmental reason why that might be happening, but essentially, many people are living in an environment that promotes weight gain, food addiction and metabolic dysfunction. You, you know, your body isn't exactly broken, it's just reacting to a broken environment. People call it the obesogenic environment.

Shane:

I believe yeah, I think coming back to the eat less, move more topic, I know you've given a similar analogy to this in the past. It's it's almost like telling someone who is in debt they just just need to earn more money. And I think the way that a lot of which yeah, it's true, but it's useless advice and I think the way that a lot of people will approach weight loss through diets is as we'll get into in a second they're already in this position where everything feels really, really hard and it's almost the equivalent of trying to get yourself out of debt when you already work a 12-hour shift each day by working 15 hours a day instead of just, you know, getting a higher paying job.

Max:

Basically, yeah, a hundred percent. I think that's a great analogy. Everyone knows they need to spend less and earn more, but when, as Shane says, you're already overworked, you've got three young children, you're ill, you're a single parent, whatever it is, it's going to make that very hard. It's not practical, useful advice and it doesn't take anything about that individual into consideration. And it's exactly the same with weight loss. Everyone I mean the expression that I hear five times a day, every day, and I'm not even exaggerating but basically every single woman that I speak to says I know what I need to be doing, I'm just not doing it. Everyone knows they need to eat less and move more, but the real question is why aren't they doing it? And there's a few answers to that, and I think we'll save that for another podcast, because I think that's a whole podcast episode in itself. But one of those reasons why they're not doing it is the environment. So let's talk specifically about that.

Max:

So we help our clients become more metabolically flexible, which means that they are effortlessly able to shift between different fuel sources in their bodies, whether it's the sugar that they eat in food, whether it's stored carbohydrate, which is called glycogen, or whether it's body fat. We have the capacity to shift between these different fuel sources and this is really powerful because we wouldn't have got to this stage in human evolution if that wasn't a reality. Stored fat is stored energy. That's why it's there and we have a capacity to tap into that stored energy. The issue is most people are metabolically inflexible, which means they find it very difficult to shift between those different fuel sources and essentially the reason they find that difficult is because of the modern environment. So you've got to think of it. As hunter gatherers. We didn't have access to food all day. Every day we potentially went through periods of feasting and famine, and when we're in a piece of famine, where there was food scarcity, we would be tapping into our stored energy reserves, and our bodies don't see using or losing weight or using that fat as a good thing. It's kind of a last resort, so it's always going to prioritize other fuel sources as it can Fast forward thousands of years.

Max:

People in the Western world, we've got Deliveroo, we've got Uber Eats, we've got convenience stores and corner shops and supermarkets open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can literally get I'm not sure which one either Uber Eats or Deliveroo to go to the supermarket for you and get some sweets if you want. I mean, we don't have that where I live in France, but apparently that's a thing, and so essentially, no one is ever experiencing real hunger, no one is ever actually depleting their stored carbohydrates and stopping eating so that they're tapping into their fats. We've got no use. There's no need for us to tap into our stored reserves. So why is this a problem? Why is not being able to tap into our stored fat a problem?

Max:

Well, basically what it means is we're going to be dependent on a constant stream of foods to function throughout the day.

Max:

If we don't have the capacity to tap into fuel, if we don't have the capacity to tap into stored reserves, then we are going to need little and often to top up our fuel source, which is the sugar that you're eating and when I say sugar, even if you're eating whole foods cooked from scratch, it still gets broken down into simple sugars after digestion and that's what we are fueling ourselves with.

Max:

So we essentially become dependent on this constant stream of food, which makes calorie control much harder. It's also going to mean that if we go through a few hours without eating, potentially we're going to have a crash. We're going to feel hangry, we're going to feel lethargic, irritable, moody, and we can't function, and that is not an empowering place to be at all. But unfortunately, I think that's become normalized. You know, being hangry has become normalized, whereas I think in the past it wasn't such a thing. So in the short term it's going to mean weight loss is harder because you need a constant stream of food to function. You're often going to be reaching for sugar and carbohydrates as well. You're basically going to be craving and thinking about food all the time because you're going to be afraid of what happens if your blood sugar levels drop, and it's going to make long-term weight loss much, much harder.

Shane:

It's also just a very impractical way to live having to eat five, six times a day, otherwise you crash. It's so much yeah, I mean use the word empowering like it's just so much easier to navigate the day when you only have to eat two to three times and you're fine.

Max:

Yeah, it's incredible and it really is empowering, like once you become more metabolically flexible, like right now for me, it's quarter past 10 and I won't be eating till 12 o'clock and you don't have to fast to get the benefits from this, but I do. But I'm like the most clear when I'm not digesting food and it's a really empowering place to know that you can function optimally without a constant stream of food. So in the short term, there are loads of issues and it's going to make long-term weight loss much, much harder. In the long term it's it's going to make long-term weight loss much, much harder. In the long term, it's potentially even worse. So long-term, being metabolically inflexible can lead to type 2 diabetes, metabolic disease, inflammation, heart disease, basically every lifestyle related disease. The risk of that is going to go up, plus brain fog, and it's just going to have potential mental health impacts as well. So there are short-term and long-term consequences of this.

Max:

But again I want to say it's not your fault. I'm not here to judge anyone for being metabolically inflexible. It's a societal issue. Our society isn't set up to have our bodies functioning optimally and to be metabolically flexible. So we'll give you some advice at the end of the episode. But it's really important you know how to set your life up in a way that makes this much, much easier, because when you are metabolically flexible, you can expect to feel less hungry, you can expect to have more stable energy levels, and you can expect to have more stable energy levels and you can expect to find weight loss much, much easier. You'll lose weight and you'll keep it off. It's just. It's much easier to control your calorie intake if you aren't needing to eat every hour on the hour.

Shane:

Yeah, I think, as we'll go into later in the call it's, there's like a process to become more metabolically flexible. It's not complicated, but you know there's a bit of a transition period and I think this is where at least one of the places the belief comes from that you have to be hungry all the time to lose weight is. People go from this state into like severely restrictive diets which are unpleasant and difficult for anyone. But when you're coming at that from a place of metabolic inflexibility, it just feels 10 times harder and then you start to equate weight loss with suffering.

Max:

Basically, yeah, and whilst you have that belief that in order to lose weight, you have to restrict and deprive yourself, it's going to be almost impossible to find the motivation to do anything about it. And this is one of the reasons why people say I know what I need to do, but I'm not doing it. It's one of the reasons why they're not doing it is because they think they know what they need to do, which is restrict and deprive themselves, and it has to be really hard. So, obviously, the more often they've done that, the more they've tried that, the more they've lost weight and put it back on. Each time that happens, they're less and less likely to do it. They're less and less likely to have the motivation to do it. So, yeah, it's a huge problem. If losing weight doesn't have to be a struggle. Losing weight doesn't have to be punishing yourself. Losing weight doesn't have to be hard. All of our clients are enjoying themselves, they are empowered and they are free. It's usually three to four weeks in, isn't it, shane? Where they're like I'm losing this weight and it doesn't feel like I'm on a diet yeah, 20%, and it almost feels too good to be true. So, yeah, it doesn't have to be like that when you get the right support, accountability, when you address the fundamental issues, actually it can be quite effortless and automatic. So that is the first way in which society can make weight loss and life and quality of life much harder is by impacting metabolic flexibility and getting you stuck in that sugar burning state.

Max:

The next is essentially how the modern environment keeps us stressed and sleep deprived, like chronically sleep deprived.

Max:

We are meant to live in sync with our body clocks and circadian rhythm, and your circadian rhythm is dictated by the sun rising and the sun setting, essentially so when throughout the day, based on what's going on with the wavelength of the sun on your eyes, there are different processes that are going to be optimized and prioritized throughout the day. So in the morning, melatonin the sleep hormone secretion decreases, and then the evening it increases, getting us ready for sleep. The issue is now we have electricity, now we have LED lighting, now we have screens, now we have caffeine that we're not in sync with our internal body clocks and plus we are inside all day, so we're not actually getting any sunlight and so people are not sleeping very well. They're also working longer and longer hours, which means they're having less leisure time. So they're increasing leisure time and decreasing sleep time.

Max:

So this kind of perfect storm environment of not being in line with our body clocks, not sleeping enough, being stressed from work, being stressed from our children, being stressed from having all these notifications means that we're in this constantly stressed state and that stress state can turn people to food. It can lead to anxiety, it can lead to depression, it can lead to inflammation in the body, it can lead to illness and there's a whole host of issues with it.

Shane:

I have some first-hand experience actually making this transition because way back in the day I used to work in landscaping, so I was outdoors all the time and it's no coincidence my sleep was incredible during that period. Then I transitioned into working in a gym and same sort of thing in as what you were describing like indoors most of the day, sleep deprived because I was doing late classes and early classes and the difference is hard to describe the the quality of things like energy levels and motivation and creativity and just overall mood when you are regularly getting outdoors, compared to being inside all day. Sleep deprived, just chronically. Yeah, as you said, it's like chronically stressed.

Max:

Yeah, a hundred percent, I think. Like in the US, I've seen statistics that most people spend more than 90% of their day indoors. And you know, really, if you wanted to do a test on a monkey or an animal and you wanted to kind of make it feel anxious and give it some mental health problems, you probably lock it in a in a small room all day and made it look at a screen. You know, like we wouldn't do it to our dogs, why are we doing it to ourselves? Like everyone knows that their dog needs to go outside and walk twice a day, but most people don't do that and this kind of like. Yeah, we'll go into this more in the in in the next point, but this is a really important one.

Max:

But this essential chronic chronic stress and chronic sleep deprivation is going to make everything in life harder. If your goal is to lose weight and you're not sleeping properly, you're fighting. You're essentially trying to climb a mountain with a massive ball and chain. You're trying to reach the summit of the mountain, but you're just handicapping yourself from the very beginning. It is so much harder. Everyone knows what it feels like when they don't get a good night's sleep. Motivation decreases, they don't want to do their workouts, they don't want to do the exercise, they don't want to leave the house. Hunger levels increase, and particularly for sugar and carbohydrates. So if you are trying to eat less, if you're trying to get control of your emotional eating, but you are craving food because you haven't slept properly, it's going to be almost impossible to regulate those things. And then, instead of looking at the root cause of oh, I'm not sleeping properly, people blame themselves, like what's wrong with me? Where's my willpower? Where's my motivation? Why am I craving these foods all the time? And it becomes this constant cycle of guilt. But yeah, being lack of sleep, being stressed all the time, is going to increase cravings, it's going to make you feel like you are out of control with food and it's going to make weight loss almost impossible. Not to mention the mental health impacts, the long-term health impacts of lack of sleep. You know, matthew Walker has a great expression which is quite blunt and to the point the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. There's short-term consequences, there's long-term consequences, and we'll give you some tips and advice on how you can improve this at the end of the podcast.

Max:

So the next way that the modern environment really impacts mental health, happiness and makes weight loss harder. We've kind of alluded to it before, but it's essentially the sedentary lifestyle and staying inside all the time. So you know the average person. Let's kind of think about what the average person does. The average person wakes up, sits down to have their breakfast, then maybe walks to the car or the train station, sits in the car or the train for, let's say, an average of five minutes, gets into the office, sits down all day for a minimum of eight hours. Maybe goes out at lunch to get some food, but often people just kind of eat at their desks. Then again sits in the car or the train to get back, gets home, sits down to watch TV, sits down to eat, sits down to watch more TV, lies down to go to bed and let's say maybe this person is exercising three times a week. So that's three hours of activity.

Max:

In how many hours of inactivity? Sitting down? And it's not just the sitting down and lack of activity, it's the fact that you are indoors 95% of the time. And, like I said earlier, if you wanted to make your dog depressed, you would leave it in a small room with no sunlight, with no entertainment. It's exactly the same with humans.

Max:

And look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm a mental health professional at all, but I speak to countless women on a day-to-day basis, like in person, on on zoom, one-on-one so really understanding their problems and hearing everything about their problems. And the amount of women and men that I've heard who are on antidepressants, who are on all sorts of medication, and then I find out what their lifestyle is like and they get 1000 steps in. They don't leave the house, they're drinking coffee all day, every day. They're not sleeping properly, they're not eating proper food, they're spending God knows how many hours on their screens. It's just like you know, we are so far removed from how we are meant to be as human beings. The modern environment has just is toxic. Ultimately, it's a toxic environment which is having a huge got, a small anecdotal data set Maybe. In the last 10 years I've spoken to well over a thousand different people, so it's a relatively small data set, but people are not doing the basics consistently and then wondering why they're unhappy.

Max:

Really quick one for me, guys. I don't run ads on this podcast and I do aim to give you as many high value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never die again. The way to do that is to rate, review and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me. But, more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else.

Shane:

It's become a bit of a meme on social media. The last, I don't know, a few years or so, you know, you see like the Instagram videos of a couple and one of them sat inside and they look really depressed and then the other's like, should we just go for a walk? And they go out for a walk and the guy's like all happy again and his partner's like did you just need to go for a walk? And he's like yeah, price needs good. And it sounds it's almost like condescending when you're dealing with like chronic stress or you are really like sad or depressed and people are saying like get out for more walks and it would make.

Shane:

I'm saying it would solve everything, but it would make a difference. It seems it sounds so simple, but the returns are massive. It's one of my favorite points in the program is, you know, we get all clients to work on their steps, first and foremost, and pretty reliably. Around that four to six week mark, people are like blown away. Not only am I getting like twice as many steps as I thought it like, I absolutely love it. It's now an essential part of my day and I can't ever see myself going back.

Max:

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that look, I'm not here to downplay anyone's mental health struggles. I have suffered with mental health in the past. I've opened up on one of the podcast episodes with Ed of Mindfulness Coach, if you want to hear more about that. I'm not here to say that. You know, if you do these things automatically you're going to be fixed, if at all. However, I think most people aren't doing these basic things consistently before taking medication and going down more extreme routes. That would like me personally. That's the first thing that I would try and address first, and if I still was struggling and suffering, then I would certainly be looking at getting help in other ways. And then you've also got to ask the question, and I've had discussions with friends who do suffer from depression. A sign of depression is not going and doing those things, so it's like the depression makes it harder to do those things. Yeah, it's really difficult to know. Is depression a genetic, hormonal imbalance or is it the fact that your lifestyle is completely out of sync with how you're meant to be living? Is it a combination of both? Probably it's a bit of a chicken or the egg argument, but I do think and like what you just said, shane.

Max:

What happens with our clients is we tell them about the steps, we tell them how important it is not just for weight loss but for mental health, and you'll feel so much better, and they kind of just like okay, we'll do it, we've invested, we trust you, but it is you like. Every single person says it. Around the four to five week mark of I feel so much better getting these steps in, like I'm less stressed, I'm less moody, I'm more focused, more productive, every aspect of their lives improves. And when that happens, guess what? It becomes part of who they are. They become someone who goes out of the way to get the steps in because they feel so much worse when they don't so really powerful. Just do those basic things and we'll summarize at the end.

Max:

And then I say the final thing which has really impacted weight loss, physical health, mental health, is screen time. This is something I personally struggle with. My business is on screens. Ultimately, the way that we reach more people and spread the message is with social media. So it's something I'm constantly trying to stay in control of and it's very, very hard. It's also something we incorporate with our clients a lot. We're constantly kind of checking on them and you're probably wondering, like, why is screen time a problem? It's a problem for a number of reasons. Let's just look at kind of.

Max:

The most practical reason is that most people feel like they don't have enough time to do the things they need to do to be the person they want to be Whether it's weight loss, work, children, families, social life. The average person in the UK is spending a minimum of three and a half hours on their phone. So that's three and a half hours every single day where you're not doing the things you could be doing to make you feel the best version of yourself. If you kind of add that up, so I put this for me. So if I was to spend I'm 34, almost 35. If I was to spend four hours on my phone every day between now and the time that I die, it would be a total of nine years on my phone. Nine years, which is just insane. That's punchy, yeah. So on a just a really practical level, I'm sure most people would find it difficult to argue with this If you're telling yourself you don't have the time to do the things you need to do and you're spending two, three hours on your phone every single day.

Max:

That's like a day. That's like 24 hours in a week, almost potentially, if that's the maths, maybe not quite. Then, yeah, what are you talking about? It's not true. You do have the time, everyone does have the time, but unfortunately it feels like we don't have the time because we're spending all this time on screens and because we've got these, this device in our pocket which is constantly telling us to do things respond to this notification, respond to this email, check your Instagram and again, it's not your fault. These phones are designed to hijack off psychology and our physiology, literally. I mean, who? I don't know about you, shane, but how many times have you gone to check your phone to like, maybe, look at something on a map? Or, you know, to respond to an email, and you're going straight on Instagram, although you've deleted Instagram, oh, you thought there's very reason.

Shane:

Yeah, absolutely yeah. You go on your phone for one thing. 10 minutes later you've forgotten what you went there for initially and you've just down some rabbit hole.

Max:

Yeah. So we've got like the practical issues, but then we've got like the actual psychological and physiological issues. So essentially, these phones work on dopamine, our dopamine response, our reward response, and we are basically always looking for this quick, cheap dopamine from whatever's happening on social media or on our phones. And that means that it's much more difficult to complete tasks in real life that are slower, that take more time, that don't have such a big dopamine spike, and I know personally. So what does that mean? It means that we're more likely to turn to food and more likely to be stressed. We're less likely to be productive and do things that take time in the rest of our life.

Max:

If I look at my phone in the morning and I scroll through social media, my productivity, my focus, is ruined for the whole day. You essentially deplete your dopamine first thing in the morning and it means that you don't get the dopamine reward the rest of the day for doing tasks at work. So if I look at my phone, get all this cheap dopamine, I then go and really have a productive day at work. I won't actually get the reward of the dopamine for being productive at work, which means potentially you're less likely to do it the next day and it becomes this vicious cycle of lack of focus, lack of productivity.

Max:

I just feel completely scattered, I feel like I can't have conversations, it impacts my sleep and then, of course, you've got all the real hard mental health issues of comparison self-esteem, anxiety, the drastic increases in suicide and anxiety and depression in teenagers. And this correlates with smartphone use from the age of so, from 2008, 2009,. Countries like Norway and Australia, I believe, are banning social media for under 16s. I think it's becoming more and more clear how detrimental screen time, smartphones, social media is for mental health and I would argue that if you are just a consumer, ie you are someone that isn't running a business and creating, then potentially social media has a net negative impact on your life. You know, if I didn't kind of depend on social media to spread the message and run a business and help more people, then I would, you know, I would really question whether I would be on it or not, because I think it it it doesn't do any favors at all.

Shane:

I'm quite grateful you manage all this side of things, max, so I don't have to use Instagram anymore. But yeah, this is another one of those things. We'll have clients do this and they come back and it doesn't. I think people are aware that screen time can be an issue, but again, it's one of those kinds of abstract ideas. When you've actually experienced it, it's like holy shit, like I can't believe how much better I feel when I'm not compulsively checking this thing. Yeah, I think what you know.

Shane:

We had clients post screenshots the other day and I think on iPhones it also will show you the amount of times you pick up your phone to check it. You know, people are like well into the like, into the hundreds of times each day they just pick up and compulsively check their phone. But yeah, it is one of those things. It's incredibly, you know, know, but you and I both struggle with this. It is, they are designed to be that addictive and to make you use them compulsively and it really is hard to move away from this habit. So another one to not be hard on yourself for struggling with, but definitely one worth exploring for sure yeah, I do think it's like eating more protein or drinking more water.

Max:

Everyone kind of knows that they should reduce their screen time, but no one ever actually does it. But when they do, they feel the benefits. I mean, what's life been like for you since you've quit Instagram?

Shane:

Oh my God, I don't want to. I know it's the popular thing to bash on social media nowadays, but it truly does feel, and this is a bit of an exaggeration. It's a big, big difference. I would say. Excessive screen time, and especially things like social media, because they're just so stimulating just removes the pleasure from any other activity in my day, as you've kind of alluded to, with work, but also with things like food or sitting down in front of the fire in the evening. If I'm just able to mask any form of discomfort during the day, whether that's boredom or hunger or anxiety, with my phone, then nothing else feels good in comparison. I'm never feeling anything uncomfortable and so nothing feels comfortable, and the way I would describe it is life just feels like it's flatlined when I'm using my phone all the time.

Max:

Yeah, it's powerful. I mean I regularly go and do these digital detox cabins. There's a great company called Unplugged. I've also used ReCabins just outside London, which I highly recommend both of them. I've used both of them. I don't have any affiliation with them, and it's three days we usually do and you lock your phone in a box and they give you like a dumb phone and they give you a map and they make it really easy to function without a phone. They give you like a cassette player and the idea is you just like, yeah, you just live without your phone. You go and they give you a map of like pubs and whatever it is nearby so you can get around.

Max:

And each time I do, I just feel so calm, Like it's just that's the only way that I can describe it is. I just feel I sleep, like deep sleep. You're living in sync with the circadian rhythm, like I said earlier. You know, going to bed roughly when it gets dark, waking up when the sun rises, and it's a deep, uninterrupted, restful sleep and just it just feels like you're in this little bubble and you've got no idea what's going on in the outside world and that's just like a really calming place to be. It's. It's nothing come. I've never, there's no other time in my life where I feel that calm and and and like the least stressed I've I've ever been, and I do it with my wife, Lila, and you know we have real conversations. Neither of us are distracted. We talk about all sorts of different things, Like it brings us closer together and we're quite good generally, Like we don't have phones at the dinner table, we sit and you know we we don't watch TV and eat dinner and all that kind of stuff.

Max:

I really do recommend anyone who feels like he wants to force themselves to feel the impact that their phone is having on them Go and do one of these digital detox cabins. It's a great little mini trip, a little weekend adventure. It's not too expensive and you will really potentially reassess your relationship with your phone after that. A great book if you wanted to go into more detail with this is Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I actually read this book in one of these digital detox cabins. It was just like you know, it was like hitting, hitting, hitting me in so many different levels.

Max:

So those are the four main areas in which we feel the modern environment is impacting your life. There are obviously many more, but these are the kind of the big ones that we see. So it's the fact that you are being stuck in sugar burning mode, metabolically inflexible because of the food environment. You're living in a stressed and sleep deprived state. You're sedentary, You're not leaving the house, spending 95% of your time indoors, and then you're also spending three, four, five, six hours a day looking at screens. I mean, that's just kind of like smartphone time. If you're actually like talking about laptops and computers because of work, you're probably spending 12 hours looking at a screen. Let's be honest, and that's me included. So no judgment, but we just need to be aware of how this might impact our lives.

Max:

And I think the issue is the go-to fixes for people, and we've alluded to this the whole way through. So if people want to lose weight, instead of addressing the root cause of the problem, which is they are sugar burners, they're metabolically inflexible, they are dependent on food to regulate emotions, they're sleep deprived, they're just going and doing restrictive diets which make everything worse, Honestly, make everything worse, make everything harder. And if you don't succeed, it's your fault, it's your willpower, it's your motivation. You know there's something wrong with you when, in actual fact, you're not addressing the root cause of the problem. The other thing that they might do is go and take Ozempic weight loss drugs. We've gone into whole episodes of this. Again, you're not addressing the root cause of the problem. Your environment is still a complete mess. But, yes, maybe you're feeling less hungry because you're taking some medication.

Max:

Then, of course, people are usually turning to you know antidepressants and all this kind of stuff, and look, we're not mental health experts. But, like I said earlier, you're not addressing the root cause of the problem. So, you know, I'm friends with a network of coaches and Joseph I met. He helps people taper off antidepressants and youants and hard prescription drugs because they can ruin your life ultimately, and he has a whole service and they can be really difficult to taper off. So just make sure that you're at least doing these fundamental things we're about to share with you, first before going down that route. And then the way people are trying to fix this is just by using more willpower, more motivation and more discipline, and there's a place for those things. But if that's what you're depending on, if that's the only thing that you're doing, you're essentially fighting against this environment using your will and unfortunately, life is always going to happen. Life is going to get in the way and it's not going to work. And guess what? Again, when you fail, you blame yourself. Yeah.

Shane:

People are essentially just already in an overwhelmed and depleted state, and they're being told they just need to work harder.

Max:

Yeah, exactly. So how do we address this? What is our tips and advice? So, when it comes to resetting your metabolism to burn fat instead of sugar, eat more at mealtimes. Eat until you're full. Get structure with your meals. Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fit up on protein and fiber at each meal. Once you're doing those things, stop fucking snacking. Honestly, snacking is you are sabotaging yourself. If you're snacking and I mean every bite, lick and taste counts as a snack Stop lying to yourself. Take a look in the mirror. Lots of our clients come onto the program thinking they are not snackers and once we help them bring more awareness to their daily habits, they realize they are snackers and they're eating four or 500, 600 calories a day in snacks, which they're not even counting, and then wonder why they're not losing weight.

Max:

Um, get, be as active as you can in a way that you enjoy. You know I'm not talking about hit workouts. I'm not necessarily talking about going and smashing your body to bits in a group class. Just move more, walk, get as many steps in as you can. If you can walk instead of drive or take the train or take the bus or the taxi. Walk, you know, if you live in a city. Ironically, it's easier to get the steps in, like I get 20,000 steps in when I'm in London, like or more without, without even trying, because I'd rather walk than take the train. The train and there's also the e-bikes as well, which I absolutely love in a lot of these big cities now. Use the e-bikes you get there quicker, they're often cheaper and you see the whole city whilst you're doing it. So those would be the ways that you could improve your metabolic flexibility If you want to decrease stress and improve your sleep.

Max:

Number one go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every single day. That is probably the most powerful thing that you can do to improve your sleep. That routine, that regularity, will synchronize your body clock. It means that your melatonin will start to increase at the same time every day and it means that you'll be in a light sleep phase when you wake up in the morning. The second thing that you can do for sleep is to reduce screen time, dim the lights and, ideally, like completely eliminate screen time after you know, at least an hour before bed. There's a great tip I heard someone else talk about, which is the 3-2-1 method. I might have to look this up 3-2-1 method, which is three hours before bed. Stop eating. Two hours before bed. Stop drinking water. One hour before bed, stop looking at your phone, and that is a great way to improve your sleep quality.

Max:

If you want to reduce stress, then get outside more. Have a list of three to five things, and I should reword this. You can't necessarily reduce stress, but what you can do is improve your stress tolerance. You can't stop the stress of work. You can't stop your children stressing you out. Unless you get rid of them. That's probably not going to happen. So you can't stop those things. The only thing that you can do is improve your stress tolerance. So improve your stress tolerance by sleeping properly. Improve your stress tolerance by getting outside as much as you can. Improve your stress tolerance by reducing your screen time, and there's going to be loads of other things that are personal to each individual. Could be journaling, could be breath work, could be meditation. Have a list of three to five things that you can do that will improve your stress tolerance and help you deal with the stresses of life.

Max:

Have real conversations with people you know. Try not to use WhatsApp messages to communicate all the time. I'm definitely guilty of this. Like my wife and I have lived in different places at different times. We're doing it right now. She's in Paris right now and it doesn't work well when we're just speaking on WhatsApp. It's much better when we're having face-to-face conversations on FaceTime. So, instead of WhatsAppping your friend, call them. Instead of you know meeting them on like talking to them on FaceTime organize to meet them in real life. Just basic things. Human connection is really really powerful. And WhatsApp and sharing memes and reels you're not actually communicating. It's not a replacement for real conversations and seeing people in real life. I've certainly missed a lot, but I would say those are the basic things.

Max:

So, sleep properly, get some structure with your food, eat real food, get outside as much as you can, move your body as much as you can. You know just those four things. Do those things consistently and you will feel so much better, potentially lose weight, reduce cravings, improve mental health, boost happiness, boost mood, boost productivity. So to recap, if you're struggling with your weight, it's not your fault. Our environment has made this much, much harder.

Max:

Dieting and just using willpower motivation to get yourself out of this is not going to work. You need to address the root cause of the problem, which is potentially the fact you're metabolically inflexible, the fact that you depend on food to process your emotions and that you spend 90% of your time indoors. If you want our help, book a conversation by using the link below. If you want to go into more detail about how we help our clients, then check out the Fat Loss Masterclass we have in the link below. That is probably the best way to really get an understanding of how we can help you and exactly why you're craving and feel out of control with food. Thanks again for joining, shane. We will see you sometime next week. Cheers Max.