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With your diet during pregnancy you're programming your baby's DNA and this is going to have an

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impact on your baby's development and on their future risk of disease and there's a lot of

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pregnant moms who are eating a diet that's not giving them the nutrients their baby needs.

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This is not the mom's fault. This is the fault of our food system. This is the fault of society

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and nobody's telling moms about this and I wanted to create this guide to help parents navigate

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that food system and see easy things they can do to help their baby's development and I know this

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because as a biochemist when I became pregnant I just went deep, deep into the research and there

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are some main things that I learned. For example, 90% of moms are not getting enough

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calling during pregnancy and calling is super important. It forms your baby's brain in the wound.

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So this is the amount of eggs that I ate per week during the nine months of pregnancy because

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this is the simplest way to give enough calling to our baby and then your baby needs no fructose

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during pregnancy. So sugar from dessert from chocolate from muffins from cupcakes your baby needs

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none of this because if you have very high glucose levels during pregnancy, scientists have found

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that your baby's DNA will have epigenetic switches that are programming them towards having a higher

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vulnerability to develop diabetes obesity and psychiatric disorder. Next, this is basically the

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amount of protein that I need to eat every single day in the third trimester of pregnancy.

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Day. Yeah because the studies show low protein diets lead to smaller babies and potentially this

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epigenetic programming of staying smaller throughout life and it's findings like that that led me to

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create a plan and simple hacks for pregnant moms and we can talk about them. And then what does the

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research say about breastfeeding exercise? Kathy and also do you recommend that mothers take certain

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supplements? So this is what people need to know. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things

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I wanted to say the first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show

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week after week means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never

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had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like

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we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people

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that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to

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you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the

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future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're going to continue to

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keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you.

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Jesse in show space, the glucose goddess. For people that don't know who you are, what have you

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spent the best part of the last decade committing your life to and why? My work started in the glucose

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space, meaning the blood sugar space. I was showing people how blood sugar impacts all of us on a

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daily basis, the spikes and dips after we eat daily to information, faster aging, cravings,

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fatigue. And it's been the basis of my work because glucose matters for everybody. And it is

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the core of a healthy body and mind. And so that's where I started because it's so important.

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We last spoke almost two years ago now. What have you learned in those last two years that has evolved

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your own thinking or has developed your own thinking in any way? If we reflect on the last

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conversations we had around glucose spikes and sugar and the health consequences and diets,

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is there anything you've learned in those two years that is interesting and new?

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Oh absolutely. I think most of the impact of glucose on mood and on relationships,

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for example, there's this fascinating study that took married couples and they gave the husband

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and the wives a little voodoo doll representing their spouse. And the researchers told the participants

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to put a little pin in the voodoo doll every time their spouse annoyed them. At the end of the

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two weeks, the researchers counted the number of pins in the voodoo dolls and they also measured

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the participants glucose levels. They found that the people who had the most glucose lows

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had put the most pins in the voodoo doll representing their spouse. So it's just an association

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but it's interesting. And scientists then found that when you have very unsteady glucose levels,

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it impacts this neurotransmitter in your brain called tyrosine that manages your mood.

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So it seems that with unsteady glucose levels, your mood is less stable, which could then correlate

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to you being more annoyed at your spouse. So I think studies like this have really burned my mind.

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What's going on when we go through a glucose crash per se?

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So glucose is your body's energy. So your brain is constantly monitoring how much glucose

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we have in our bloodstream. And steady glucose is great. When your glucose levels crash,

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this indicates biologically that you're out of fuel. And this is a powerful signal to your body

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in your brain to say alert, alert, we need food, we need more glucose. And so it creates all these

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downstream consequences on your mood. You become angry. All you think about is food. You're in a

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bad mood. You're like, I need to eat something. You look for a banana. You look for a cookie.

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It can also activate the craving center in your brain that says Stephen, go find some chocolate.

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And science has shown this. Low glucose levels create a cascade of consequences on how we feel

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and what we seek. Now, what's interesting is that back in the day when we had low glucose levels,

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I'm talking like hunter gather times, they wouldn't arrive so quickly because we didn't have

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these big spikes that then led to these big drastic drops. It was more, we ate to no more balanced

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way with less sugar, obviously. So when our glucose became, though, it was a bit more gradual.

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Today, because we have access to all this sugar, we can spike our glucose very quickly and as a

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result, it then crashes very quickly. So the effects are pretty much immediate and they're very

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intense. All of a sudden you go from feeling okay to your brain being in alert mode, we need to

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find more fuel. So we've dysregulated our glucose levels to the point where it's impacting us in a

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very unnatural way. Is that in part because we modify our food, even fruit. When I looked back

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through the history of fruit, apples, bananas, etc. looked extremely different before they were

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modified to be juicier and sweeter, etc. Completely. It's like dogs. So all the dog breeds today,

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from shawawa to golden retrievers, they all come from wolves. Humans have been breeding wolves

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together to create these different species of dogs. They all had that ancestor of the gray wolf.

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So humans are very good at breeding natural things to serve their purposes and when it comes to

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fruit, it's the same thing. So as you say, if you compare like an ancestral banana or an ancestral

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apple to a modern one, they look completely different and you should pull up these photos, they're

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fascinating. An ancestral banana, tiny, full of fiber, full of seeds, not very sweet. And then

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modern banana, full of sugar, low in fiber, really easy to eat. So that's the first thing people need

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to know about fruit. Fruit is not natural. Fruit is the product of human engineering. However, a

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piece of whole fruit also contains fiber and water. So even though it's been bred to have a lot of

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sugar, the fiber and the water reduce how quickly the sugar arrives in our bloodstream, making it

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more or less okay for us. But the problem comes when we denature that piece of fruit, meaning if we

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remove the fiber. For example, if we take an orange and make an orange juice, what are we actually

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talking about here? Actually, oranges are not even the natural fruit. They were invented thousands

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of years ago by breeding, by crossing other species of fruit. To make an orange juice, you throw

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away part of the orange. You throw away the solid part, which is the fiber. So you're left with

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the sugar of a very sugary fruit, water and no fiber. As a result, you're getting a very unnatural

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amount of sugar in your bloodstream with no fiber to protect the spike. So a big, big glucose

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spike. And people often say, oh well, you know, fruit has vitamins in it. So therefore, orange juice

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must be better for you than Coca-Cola. That's actually a total myth. If you compare a glass of orange

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juice to a glass of Coca-Cola, it's the same amount of sugar, about 25 grams. And the sugar in

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the kind of coke and the sugar in the glass of orange juice, they're exactly the same. They're glucose

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and fructose molecules. And your body absorbs them in the exact same way. Your body does not make a

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difference between sugar from an orange and sugar from a sugar beet that's now in a kind of Coca-Cola.

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I hope that orange juice disappears from school lunches, from hospital meals, the World Health

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Organization recommends 25 grams of sugar per day or less. So with just one glass of orange juice

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in the morning that you squeeze at home that you think is good for you, you're already at the maximum

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limit of sugar recommendation. And most people drink this glass of orange juice thinking it's good for

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them. Most people with diabetes drink this glass of orange juice, thinking it's helping them with

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their condition. And that's really where I want to act. I want to help people understand what they

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actually need to do to feel better. So they don't fall victim to marketing. We talked there about glucose

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crashes and what that causes in terms of behavior. I was wondering if also causes other compulsive

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behaviors. Does it make me more likely to want to doom scroll on the internet if I have been

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eating lots of sugar? Well, that's a great question. Why does sugar feel good? Because it releases

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dopamine in our brain. Dopamine is the pleasure molecule. It makes us feel good. So if I have

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what it drinks is glass of orange juice, which would have to pay me a lot of money for me to drink

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this. But my brain would let out so many dopamine molecules. And I would feel this wave of pleasure.

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Now the problem is people confuse that with energy. It's not energy. It's dopamine. And dopamine

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is the same exact molecule that gets released when you're scrolling on Instagram. You look for the

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next post. You look for the next video every time you get something new and interesting. Bum,

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a dopamine signal as well in your brain. So if you're constantly triggering dopamine in your brain,

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you're going to constantly crash. You're going to have dopamine spikes, dopamine crashes,

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and become more and more addicted to it. So I don't know about studies showing glucose spikes,

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and for example, doom scrolling. But if you look at just the biology of it, they're triggering

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the same center in your brain. So for sure, I can imagine that if you are on a dopamine

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binging or dopamine addiction cycle, both an orange juice and a glucose spike and doom scrolling

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can go ahead and end. I was just looking at some research here and it says, yes,

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you're significantly more likely to doom scroll during a glucose crash. And it explains that

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that's because of something called the energy crisis in the prefrontal cortex, where you're

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prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for wheel parent decision making,

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and saying no to things like doom scrolling. In the case where glucose drops, this area is first

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to dim the lights to save energy for vital functions. The result is you lose your executive

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function, making it nearly impossible to resist. The hit of dopamine that social media provides,

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but it also says the second reason is this dopamine trap. And the third is generally your emotional

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regulation goes out of the window. I think this in part, because I notice in myself that when I

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am on a higher glucose diet, I'm more likely to get involved in like compulsive behaviors that I

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otherwise don't like. Like doom scrolling on the internet. Yeah, less will power, less control.

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Yeah, I have less will be more addicted. Yeah, yeah, like I have less control over my life.

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And the first thing that people notice is that when they are on a glucose roller coaster,

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they feel addicted to sugar. Like it's no longer a choice to go after that cookie. It feels like a

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compulsive behavior. Like I need sugar right now because that glucose crash is triggering a

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biological mechanism that is nearly impossible to override. So when you tell somebody, just eat less

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sugar. That's that's BS. You can't just eat less sugar. You have to go fix the underlying

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cause, which is usually the glucose crash. You can override that feeling of craving that comes from

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deep inside your brain when you have a glucose crash. You need to fix the spike, reduce the spike,

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and then naturally the spike also reduces and you feel fewer cravings. There's a theory called

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the protein leverage hypothesis. And this theory says that your body will keep you hungry and keep

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you seeking food until you've given it enough protein. So if in the morning you have, I don't know,

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some oats and toast and jam, very little protein, your body is going to be like, okay, we

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didn't get any protein. We need to get more protein. So you stay more and more hungry at 10 a.m.

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you're hungry again. If you have a cookie, again, no protein, your body will keep you hungry. If

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all of a sudden you have 40 grams of protein, then that craving dissipates and that feeling of

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seeking out food sort of calms down because your body got what he actually needed, which was protein.

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People send you lots of messages. You have a enormous online following. If I was to peer into

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those DMs you get, what would be the essence of what people are saying to you? They're asking me

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about specific foods. They're saying our lentils, okay, can I eat three eggs a day? What kind of

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vinegar should I use? And often it's people trying to navigate the marketing messages. They're

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seeing them the packaging of things. They'll be like, this can of tea that says zero grams of sugar

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is a good for me. They're trying to decode what these food products actually contain and whether

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they're actually good for them. And is there any real standout marketing messages that are

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not deceptive? Yeah. No added sugars. That is so deceptive because this class of orange juice

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has no added sugars in it because the sugar was there at the beginning. It came from the orange

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from the original ingredient. So on the count of orange juice you can say no added sugar, even though

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it contains 25 grams of sugar, which is the maximum limit the WHO recommends for your daily

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sugar intake. So that's a really, really bad one. Another one would be something that says gluten-free

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or vegan. It's not because it's gluten-free reading vegan that it's good for you, but we're being

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tricked. Food manufacturers do everything they can to make you buy their products.

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I think I'm in the season of life where I'm thinking a lot about fertility, both my fertility,

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my fiancee's fertility and how my diet, the things I eat has an impact on that. What is it we

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need to know about? If we're trying to conceive, if we want to have a family,

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is it really the case that I need to start thinking about my own fertility in the lead-up

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to putting that sperm into that egg? Yes. Both the males and the females need to be thinking about

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fertility and nutrition plays a big role and health plays a big role in the quality of your sperm,

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for example. So a good idea would be to reduce, before you want to have a kid, if you're the man,

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you know, reduce alcohol, exercise more, eat better so that your sperm on high quality. So the sperm

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turnover is about three months. So if you do like a three month sort of intense, my sperm

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are getting in shape kind of situation, it's a good idea. For women, it's different so our eggs

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are present from before we're born, but the quality of our diet of our nutrient reserves is going

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to impact our ability to have kids also and is going to impact what our baby gets in the first

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trimester of pregnancy. You've just given birth? Eight months ago, yeah. Feels like just last week,

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but yeah, eight months ago. And I guess that's somewhat linked to why you've written this new book,

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which is titled nine months that count forever, how your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future.

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You could have written about anything, just seeing people would have bought the book,

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because people are so fascinated by you and the work that you do. Why of all the subjects you

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could have written about was this the subject that meant the most to you to commit a long period

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because it is a subject where there's such a big gap Stephen between what science knows and what

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parents are told. It felt like there was a just canyon between information in the studies that's

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been there for decades and what I as a pregnant woman went through and what advice I was given,

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what's available out there to pregnant moms. So even though I was pregnant and I was hired,

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I felt I need to write this book because people need to know the power that they have.

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So today, science knows that you're not just an oven when you're pregnant. Have you heard this thing

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being a bun in the oven? It's an American expression. I think I've had it once or twice, yeah.

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Okay, so often if you're pregnant, people will say, oh, you have a bun in the oven, that's so cute.

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It's like an expression. And I feel like this is where all of our problems started because it implies

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so many misleading things. It implies that when you're pregnant, you are an oven, meaning you're just

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there to provide heat and time. And people often say just relax, you know, let nature do its thing.

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So it implies that you're passive, that you have no agency, no power, you're just a vessel of heat

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and time. That's the first problem. The second problem is that it implies that just like a chocolate

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cake that you put in the oven, it implies that your baby, the moment the sperm meets the egg,

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your baby is set in stone. Like if you're making a cake, when you make the brownie and you put it

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in the oven, the oven is not going to change the brownie into banana bread. The oven is just

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cooking the brownie. Well, actually, it's very different with pregnancy. Your baby is not set in

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stone at conception. What happens during the nine months of pregnancy is co-creating your baby's

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plan. And depending on what you eat, a different baby will come out. So we've been lying to pregnant

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moms, telling them they have no agency, they have no power, they should just relax and let nature

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do its thing. So that's why I wrote this book because the science is fascinating.

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So where are pregnant women being let down in this regard? Is it that there's just not enough

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information out there? Is there's not been enough research out there? Is it bad advice currently

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on the internet? This is the fault of our food system. This is the fault of society. This is the

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fault of the food industry that we're just talking about, the marketing messages. For everybody

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today in developed countries, we are being fed processed unhealthy foods that are hurting us.

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Whether we get diabetes or heart disease, there is a link to food. And today, even pregnant moms

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are being let down by the food system and are eating a diet without knowing it. That's not giving

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them the nutrients their baby needs. So the moment I became pregnant the first time, I started

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researching. I went to Google Scholar and I just opened about a thousand tabs on my computer,

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which is usually what I do when I'm researching a new topic. And I looked at the big review studies,

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the meta-analyses of how nutrition during pregnancy impacts our baby's development. I read probably

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2000 scientific papers. And I just went deep, deep into the research. And out of it, I saw these

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four big themes coming out of these four nutrients that most moms are not getting enough of in

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their diet or too much of in their diet. And I wanted to create this guide to help parents navigate

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that food system and see easy things they can do in the mom's diet to help their baby's development.

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So while your baby's DNA is set, the moment the sperm meets the egg, with your diet during pregnancy,

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you're programming that DNA. Have you heard of epigenetics? Yes. Okay. So epigenetics are like

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these little dimmer switches that sit on your DNA and that say, activate this gene or silence this

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gene. And so during pregnancy, you're putting these little switches on your baby's DNA. And this

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is going to have an impact on your baby's development and on his future risk of disease.

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I'll give you a very simple example. If you have very high glucose levels during pregnancy,

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scientists have found that your baby's DNA will have epigenetic switches that are programming him

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towards having a higher vulnerability to develop diabetes himself in his lifetime.

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So if you have high glucose levels, your baby will be programmed to be more likely to then have

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high glucose levels himself throughout his life as a kid, a teenager, and an adult. That's

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epigenetic programming. And depending on your diet as the mom, you can program your kids differently.

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But nobody tells moms about this. And that's what I'm trying to change.

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What do I need to know is someone that is very little about pregnancy to really understand the

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like basics of what's going on? What timeframe matters? What happens when? So females have a

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uterus, which is an organ. And the uterus is where the baby develops. And the uterus grows as

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pregnancy progresses. And then when you give birth, the baby comes out of the uterus and the uterus

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stays in the mom. So that's important. When conception happens, so you have the sperm meets the

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egg. That little packet of cells will implant in one of the walls of the uterus and start growing.

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And pregnancy is divided into three trimesters. It's about nine months. So once one to three is the

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first trimester, four, five, six is the second trimester, seven, eight, nine is the third trimester.

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And what we're going to talk about today is about nutrition and how your baby's getting the

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building blocks that he needs to develop in your womb as the female. Because your baby needs to

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grow from a single cell to 40 trillion cells by the time he's born, right? He grows from like

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nothing to a three or four kilos. And that has to come from somewhere. It doesn't just come out of

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thin air. All those building blocks, all that matter is coming from you from what you're eating.

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What you eat becomes your baby. So your baby is what you eat. In the first trimester,

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your baby's getting food from this sort of milk that your uterus creates. So it's uterine secretions.

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And then from the second trimester onwards, something incredible happens. When's the second trimester

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that starts? It starts at four months. And so for the second and third trimesters,

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there's another organ that you create inside your uterus. It's called the placenta. And the placenta's

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job is to bring your baby's bloodstream and your bloodstream as the mom in really close contact.

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And all of a sudden, symbiosis is established. And your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream

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are then going to exchange nutrients and waste. So your baby's going to get all his nutrition

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directly from your bloodstream. And Stephen, here's a main myth that people believe. They believe

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that your baby will just get what he needs from you during pregnancy. That's something mom's

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are told. Don't worry, your baby will get what he needs from you. This is a lie. Depending on

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what you eat, your baby will have different access to important nutrients. So your baby doesn't get

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what he needs. He gets what's there and what you give him. So let's take a simple example.

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One of the nutrients that is really important is called colon. Have you heard about colon

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before? It's not in eggs. Yes, exactly. It's in the egg yolk. So colon is super important.

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It forms your baby's brain in the womb. So your baby's brain has these cells that are forming

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called neurons, which are the ones that process information. And colon is important to creating

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those neurons. And colon creates the parts of your baby's brain that have to do with memory,

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learning, and attention. So that egg that you're holding contains about 125 milligrams of

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colon. And it's an incredible, incredible substance. The thing is, if you don't eat enough colon,

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your baby's brain is not going to get enough colon. And this can have an impact on the development

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of your child. So much so that the American Association of Pediatrics says failure to provide

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colon during this time can result in lifelong brain deficits in the baby. Today, 90% of moms

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are not getting enough colon during pregnancy. 90% of moms are not getting enough colon during

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pregnancy. Why? Because nobody is telling them about it. And because today we don't eat very

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nutritious, nutritious foods anymore that contain a lot of colon. They're present in eggs. So four eggs

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a day gives you all the colon that you need. But colon is also present in organ meats like liver.

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Nobody eats liver anymore. Most of the foods that we eat today, cupcakes, dried fruits,

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burgers, chips, they don't contain a lot of colon. We need to be eating eggs. This is the simplest

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way to give enough colon to our baby. And scientists do these animal studies where they

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deprive moms from colon and they look at the impact on the brain. And they see that brain development

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in the baby stops earlier than it should. And those babies are born with fewer neurons.

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The amount of colon in your diet during pregnancy is going to be impacting your child's brain

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development. And nobody's telling moms about this. It's really messed up. So how many eggs a day do I

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need to eat while I'm pregnant to get enough colon? Four is the golden number. So here I think we have

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28 eggs. So every day during pregnancy, I ate four eggs. So this is the amount of eggs that I ate per

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week during the nine months of pregnancy. That's a lot of eggs. But as I was doing this,

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I knew I was giving my baby all the colon that he needed, which is about 450 milligrams per day.

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And this is not very expensive. 28 eggs is about $7. So for $1 a day, you're getting all the

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colon that your baby needs to form his brain. Mothers are often told to avoid liver while they're

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pregnant. Why is that? You're saying that that's not the correct advice. So liver contains a lot

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of vitamin A, quite high levels of vitamin A. And there's some older studies that show that liver

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and high vitamin A can cause issues to the baby. That's why liver is not usually recommended during

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pregnancy. I would say check with your doctor. Different countries have different thresholds

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of how much liver is allowed. And honestly, I don't like liver. So I prefer to have eggs. But liver

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is super, super high in colon. It's quite impressive. You can also take colon supplements,

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but eggs are the cheapest, easiest source. And for example, in the supplement world, so scientists

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have done this study at Cornell. They gave one group of moms the bare minimum amount of

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colon that is recommended. So 450 milligrams in supplements. And then they wondered, well, if a baby's

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brain needs colon, what happens if he has a lot of colon available? Does his brain form even better?

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So they gave the other group of mom double the bare minimum recommended amount. And then they

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brought the kids in during their first year of age for some tests. And the main test that was used

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is you basically plopped the baby on his mom's lap in front of a computer screen and you flash

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images on that screen and you measure how quickly the baby reacts to the new images. So how quickly

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he moves his eyes. And the reason they do this is because this test is correlated to adult IQ,

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meaning the faster a baby reacts to images in the first year of age, the higher his adult IQ.

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That's the association. And so they were wondering, could we see a difference in the baby's

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reaction time depending on the mom's colon level in the room? And they found that the babies who were

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born to the high colon moms had 10% faster reaction time to this test. People talk a lot about

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breastfeeding as well, whether it's good, bad, indifferent, whether you can breastfeed too much,

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etc. Obviously there's lots of practicalities that make breastfeeding quite difficult for a lot

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of mothers, which we probably should acknowledge. But otherwise, what does the research say about

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breastfeeding? So the main difference between breast milk and formula is that breast milk is

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alive. It's alive with information. It's alive with little molecules that are going to continue

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that DNA programming. Formula is inert. It's not alive. It's not doing that programming.

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So yes, breastfeeding has advantages for the mom and for the baby. But formula is nutritionally

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complete. And it's very useful for many moms who are not able or don't want to breastfeed.

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And if you're using formula, you actually have to check because today not all formulas have

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colon in them. So checking the ingredients for colon, also checking the ingredients for omega-3s,

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which is something that will cover in a bit. Look for that. Coling omega-3s in your formula to

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make sure that your baby is getting what he needs in those respects. I was reading about a study

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in the pediatric research journal that says a 2013 Dutch study of 120 children found

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that less breastfeeding was linked to a silencing of the gene for leptin, the hormone that signals fullness.

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So that's a good example of epigenetic programming. So we have this gene that codes for leptin,

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which is approaching. And leptin is one of the molecules that makes you feel full. So you and I both

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have this leptin gene. But depending on our epigenetic programming on that gene, you might be producing

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more of it and I might be producing less of it. So for the same meal, you might feel more full

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and I might feel less full after that same exact meal. And so in the study, they saw that if you're

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not breastfed very long, your leptin gene is deactivated. So you feel less full after eating.

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Now these are small associations, but they show you that there's a difference here and that

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potentially breastfeeding could help your baby be more satiated after eating.

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What about sugar during pregnancy? So sugar is fascinating. When you eat sugar,

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your baby is also receiving that sugar because absentia lets the sugar through.

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And your baby doesn't need any sugar during pregnancy. He needs a little bit of glucose,

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which is different. But sugar, as in the very sweet molecule of fructose that is in chocolate,

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that is in these cupcakes, that is in dried fruit, your baby needs none of it.

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And the most interesting study on sugar in pregnancy actually came from the UK.

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So from 1940 to 1953, I don't know if you know this, but in the UK, there was a government

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mandated sugar ration, meaning for 13 years, the government controlled how much sugar people had

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access to. It was during the war and they were trying to manage resources. So everybody in the UK

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got 10 sugar cubes per day. That's it. And this is down from what people usually ate before

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the sugar ration, which was about 20 sugar cubes per day. So everybody, including pregnant moms,

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for 13 years, had a capped amount of sugar. At the end of the sugar ration after 13 years,

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bam, everybody went back up to eating more sugar. And to scientists in the early 2000s thought,

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well, that's really interesting. This means we have two groups of pregnant moms

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during the sugar ration and right after the sugar ration, who had babies develop in their room,

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either with 40 grams of sugar per day or around 80 grams of sugar per day. And the scientists

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wondered, can this small difference be making an impact on the baby's long-term health?

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So they called up 60,000 people who were born either just before the ration ended or just after.

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And they asked them about their health. They were like, do you have diabetes? Do you have heart

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disease? How are you feeling? What's your weight? And they saw that the babies who were born

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and who were in the mother's room during the sugar ration had 15% lower likelihood of having

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developed type 2 diabetes in their lifetime. So what does this mean? It means that the amount of

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sugar during pregnancy can be slightly increasing or decreasing your baby's vulnerability to getting

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type 2 diabetes later in life. And today, scientists look at the epigenetics of babies who are

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born to moms with very high glucose levels. And they see that the genes that are related to

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diabetes are activated. So we have a full picture now of data. We have epigenetics. We have this

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long-term, interesting study. And we now see that the amount of sugar that we eat during pregnancy

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is subtly programming our baby. So Steve, I don't know if you know this, but when I was 25,

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I was on the cusp of pre-diabetes. I almost had pre-diabetes when I was 25. I had very high

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glucose levels. So I had a vulnerability to diabetes. And as I was being in the studies, I was like,

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oh my god, maybe this has something to do with what my mother was eating when she was pregnant with

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me. Because pregnancy is this window of outsized influence in somebody's health. So I called up my mom.

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I was like, mom, what did you eat when you were pregnant? She's like, oh, it was the 90s, you know,

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I ate a very little protein, very low fat. And in the morning, every morning, I had a big

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glass of orange juice. And I had special case cereal with about a half a cup of tablespoon

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sugar on top. I was like, that's pretty interesting. So I wonder, I will never know. I wonder if maybe

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my vulnerability to diabetes had some roots in the womb. And the science suggests that it does

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have a correlation. Absolutely. So the science suggests that the amount of sugar that you're eating

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during pregnancy is having an impact on your baby's epigenetics. And today, so as I was mentioning,

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the WHO recommends 25 grams of sugar per day. But most moms are eating 80 grams of sugar per day.

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80 grams, which is usually more than what they eat when they're not pregnant. Because of this

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collective myth that you should eat for two, that pregnancy, you're going to gain weight anyway.

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So eat as much sugar as you want. Really, we're failing moms because we're not telling them about

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the incredible opportunity they have by just being a bit mindful of how much sugar they eat

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of being able to help their baby be less vulnerable to diabetes. It's not just diabetes, though,

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is it? No. I was just looking at some of the studies. There's a study here in the JAMA network.

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It says a Danish study found that children born to mothers with diabetes had a 15 percent

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high risk of psychiatric disorders with schizophrenia risk being 55 percent higher, intellectual

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disability 29 percent higher, and a connection to autism ADHD, a 2005 review of 200 studies,

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which is 56 million mother baby pairs found a 25 percent higher risk of autism when

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mothers had diabetes during pregnancy from the Lancet diabetes and endocrinology report.

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And it's important to note that these studies show correlation, not causation, and a 25 percent

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increase in absolute times only raises the prevalence from 1 in 100 to around 1.25 in 100 children.

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So there's some nuance to be had on that. There's some nuance, but that association holds

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very strongly. And as you said, 56 million mom baby pairs. So across the world, we see that when a

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mom has diabetes during pregnancy, her baby has a higher risk of psychiatric disorders. And the

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main theory that could explain this association has to do with the baby's brain. So your baby

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is forming his brain in the room. And today, Steven, you have about 100 billion neurons in your brain,

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and they are the exact same neurons that you had the day you were born. Neurons never get replaced.

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So what does this mean? It means that your neurons that you have for life are formed during pregnancy

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in your mother's uterus. Now, you have these neurons in the baby's brain being formed 250,000

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per minute, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, and neurons everywhere. And next to the neurons,

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you have another type of cell. This cell is called the microglia. And it kind of looks like a

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starfish, and it's patrolling the baby's brain. And its job is to make sure that the neurons are

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forming properly. So what microglia do, they're a cell from the immune system, is they are on the

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lookout for any neurons that are being damaged or not formed properly. And as soon as they find a

383
00:34:07.040 --> 00:34:12.160
neuron, that is not ideal. They go over to it and they eat it and they destroy it. So they're pruning

384
00:34:12.160 --> 00:34:16.720
the brain, and they're looking out for damage and making sure everything develops normally. Now,

385
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:23.600
if the mother has high inflammation levels during pregnancy, and this can be caused by a number

386
00:34:23.600 --> 00:34:28.320
of things. It can be caused by high glucose levels. It can be caused by infection. It can be

387
00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:35.120
caused by chemicals. High inflammation seems to be making these microglia overactive. Now,

388
00:34:35.120 --> 00:34:40.640
all of a sudden, they become a bit deregulated, and they start eating and destroying neurons that

389
00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:47.040
don't need to be destroyed. They start destroying healthy neurons. And as a result, the brain is

390
00:34:47.040 --> 00:34:52.480
forming in a slightly suboptimal fashion. And scientists believe this to be the leading theory behind

391
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:58.320
why we see the association between gestational diabetes, so diabetes of pregnancy, and the higher

392
00:34:58.320 --> 00:35:03.680
risk of psychiatric disorders. They believe it has to do with the inflammation levels going on in

393
00:35:03.680 --> 00:35:08.800
the baby's brain during pregnancy. And so what does this tell us? This tells us that when we're

394
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:14.160
pregnant, we're influencing the amount of inflammation in our baby's body. And this should be

395
00:35:14.160 --> 00:35:20.000
something that we tell women about, because if they can have power over their inflammation levels,

396
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:25.680
for example, by reducing their glucose spikes, they could also give their baby a benefit

397
00:35:25.680 --> 00:35:30.320
to its brain formation. Do you think it's useful for women during pregnancy to where those

398
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:38.080
continuous glucose monitors? I did. I did the whole time. Is that useful? Depends on what you want

399
00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:43.520
to do. I think it's really interesting. It helped me a lot. Maybe just for two weeks could be

400
00:35:43.520 --> 00:35:48.240
cool, so you can kind of see what's going on and learn about your glucose spikes. And I think

401
00:35:48.240 --> 00:35:52.240
one of the issues we see during pregnancy is that your glucose levels are usually tested in the

402
00:35:52.240 --> 00:35:58.560
third trimester with the diabetes test. But by that time, like you've already been going on for

403
00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:01.920
six months with your glucose levels, I think we should be testing glucose levels much much

404
00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:06.720
much earlier. Like in the first trimester, because your glucose levels in the first trimester actually

405
00:36:06.720 --> 00:36:11.040
can predict very well whether you're going to get gestational diabetes or not. So I think we should

406
00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:16.480
maybe put a glucose monitor on all pregnant moms in the first trimester or even pre-pregnancy

407
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:22.000
to help them understand their glucose spikes and show them about these easy tools and habits and

408
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:25.520
hacks that you can put in place to reduce your glucose spikes. I was reading about a study from

409
00:36:25.520 --> 00:36:31.280
diabetes care that said they put these continuous glucose monitors on 700 women and found

410
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.280
that if they did it in the first trimester, they could accurately predict who would develop

411
00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:41.920
gestational diabetes at 24 to 28 weeks. Yeah, and so that's really interesting because a lot of

412
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:46.960
people used to think that gestational diabetes, meaning diabetes during pregnancy is kind of random.

413
00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:50.640
I was like, oh, you get it, but we don't know why it's random. Your body's just doing this.

414
00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:55.280
And now we have evidence that suggests that actually it's correlated to your glucose levels in the

415
00:36:55.280 --> 00:37:00.560
first trimester. Now in the first trimester, your glucose levels are pretty much the same as when

416
00:37:00.560 --> 00:37:06.320
you're not pregnant. As pregnancy progresses, hormones come into play and things start shifting.

417
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:11.680
Glucose spikes get bigger and longer, fasting glucose levels becomes lower. But that first trimester,

418
00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:16.880
your glucose spikes and your glucose levels are similar to pre pregnancy. This means that essentially

419
00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:21.520
your non-pregnant glucose levels can predict whether or not you're going to get gestational diabetes,

420
00:37:21.520 --> 00:37:27.680
which means that gestational diabetes is not random. It actually has roots in what was happening

421
00:37:27.680 --> 00:37:33.360
before pregnancy, meaning that if you had high glucose levels before pregnancy, you're more likely

422
00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:38.800
to get gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes could actually just be a symptom of having

423
00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:42.560
high glucose levels before pregnancy, but just not knowing about it.

424
00:37:42.560 --> 00:37:45.600
You know when we say high glucose levels, is that a very individual thing?

425
00:37:46.240 --> 00:37:48.000
No. It's not an individual thing.

426
00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.560
No, we have very clear cutoffs. So for example, if you're not pregnant, like you and I,

427
00:37:53.120 --> 00:37:57.760
a hundred milligrams per deciliter is the cutoff between healthy and pre-diabetes.

428
00:37:59.200 --> 00:38:02.400
So that's fasting glucose level, your glucose level first thing in the morning.

429
00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:08.640
If you're pregnant, that changes. Anything above 92 milligrams per deciliter is considered

430
00:38:08.640 --> 00:38:15.280
diabetes of pregnancy. So high glucose levels, it's very well segmented. We have these very

431
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:20.080
specific ranges that say normal too high, much too high.

432
00:38:20.080 --> 00:38:24.560
But if me and you both have this teaspoon of this honey that I have here on the desk,

433
00:38:25.440 --> 00:38:27.840
our responses to this honey are going to be completely different, right?

434
00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:31.040
Yeah. The glucose spike rate experience is going to be different.

435
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:36.960
For a bunch of reasons, our microbiome, our genetics, how much muscle mass we have,

436
00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:41.200
how hydrated, how stressed, how tired we are. So maybe you're going to get a spike or like,

437
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:47.280
I don't know, 30 milligrams and maybe I'll get a 45 milligrams spike because I'm tired.

438
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:52.880
Now what does that mean? It doesn't mean that honey is necessarily better for you than it is for

439
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:58.960
me. It just means that my body today is more or less good at managing this influx of glucose.

440
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:05.040
Today. Today, yeah. Today. And it also means something very important, which is that if you and I both

441
00:39:05.040 --> 00:39:10.080
used a glucose hack. So for example, if you and I both had a chicken breast before the honey,

442
00:39:10.080 --> 00:39:16.240
both you and I would have a smaller glucose spike from that same honey. So glucose hacks and

443
00:39:16.240 --> 00:39:21.680
ways to reduce your glucose spikes work in everyone. The exact absolute values after eating

444
00:39:21.680 --> 00:39:28.960
something, these can vary. But one thing that is true for everybody is that you're fasting glucose.

445
00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:35.600
So glucose before you eat anything, that is something we can compare. So if you and I both at 7am

446
00:39:35.600 --> 00:39:40.160
before we eat anything, we had our fasting glucose levels checked. We could compare. We could

447
00:39:40.160 --> 00:39:45.040
say, Oh, Jesse is very close to pre diabetes and Stephen is not very close to pre diabetes.

448
00:39:45.040 --> 00:39:49.280
Those are very easy numbers to compare. The spikes after eating, these can vary.

449
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:54.400
So if I put on a little bit more muscle, that means that I'll tolerate glucose better.

450
00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:59.440
Yeah, because your muscles are an amazing sink where your body is soaking up glucose from your

451
00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:04.720
bloodstream. And that's why we see that even during pregnancy having high muscle mass is protective

452
00:40:04.720 --> 00:40:09.760
against diabetes. So women with higher muscle mass and pregnancy are less likely to have gestational

453
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:15.920
diabetes. Let me give you an example. So we eat this honey. What happens? The honey goes from our

454
00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:21.040
mouth to our stomach to our intestine. And then it goes through our intestinal wall into our blood

455
00:40:21.040 --> 00:40:26.240
stream. So all these glucose molecules are arriving into our bloodstream. Now there's two options.

456
00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:30.560
Either we stay here and we don't move. In that case glucose is going to rise in our bloodstream,

457
00:40:30.560 --> 00:40:35.280
big glucose spike and then crash. Or we say, Okay, let's go outside and go for a walk right after we

458
00:40:35.280 --> 00:40:40.000
eat this honey. We're walking our muscles are contracting, our leg muscles are contracting,

459
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:45.360
our arm muscles are contracting. And these muscles as they're contracting, they're looking for energy.

460
00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:49.440
And the first thing they look is in the bloodstream. They look for glucose in the bloodstream,

461
00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:55.600
which is why if you move after you eat glucose, you will get a smaller glucose spike because some of

462
00:40:55.600 --> 00:41:01.040
that glucose is being used by your muscles for energy. I've heard you tell people that they should

463
00:41:01.040 --> 00:41:05.920
do some stuff with their coughs. Calf raises, yeah. Okay, so put your feet on the ground, Stephen.

464
00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:11.200
Yeah. And just do some calf pushups, calf raises. So you go up onto the ends of your feet and

465
00:41:11.280 --> 00:41:15.600
back down. Okay. So you got it. I'm going, I'm lifting my heels. Exactly. Lift your heels up and

466
00:41:15.600 --> 00:41:20.160
down. So as you do this, there's a muscle on your calf called the soleus muscle. Can you feel

467
00:41:20.160 --> 00:41:26.320
it contract? It's your calf muscle. Yeah. Okay. So this muscle is very good at soaking up glucose

468
00:41:26.320 --> 00:41:31.360
from your bloodstream. So easy hack you can do after you eat something sweet is you just do some

469
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:35.600
calf raises at your desk like this. Nobody can notice five minutes. And that's going to help

470
00:41:35.600 --> 00:41:40.000
reduce the glucose spike of what you just ate. I mean, five, five minutes. Yeah. I mean,

471
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.800
you can do five minutes in the studies they do sometimes hours of this, but even just one minute

472
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:50.560
is better than nothing to reduce your glucose spike. I mean, this is probably while our

473
00:41:50.560 --> 00:41:55.200
cultures go for a walk after dinner, right? Completely. And a lot of the glucose hacks that

474
00:41:55.200 --> 00:42:01.040
I've talked about, they actually mirror a lot of traditions. So for example, the glucose hack

475
00:42:01.040 --> 00:42:06.480
of having your vegetables at the beginning of your meal, this is incredibly powerful pregnancy

476
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:11.280
or not pregnancy because vegetables contain fiber. And when you have them at the beginning of

477
00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:18.560
your meal, they create this protective mesh in your intestine that slows down the glucose

478
00:42:18.560 --> 00:42:24.240
molecules from carbs and makes the glucose molecules arrive more slowly into your bloodstream,

479
00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:28.640
meaning smaller spike. Now eating veggies at the beginning of a meal, that's something that we

480
00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:32.720
call coded day in France, which means raw veggies at the beginning of your meal.

481
00:42:33.600 --> 00:42:38.480
One of the simple exercises you recommend, if I've just eaten something that's high in glucose,

482
00:42:39.200 --> 00:42:43.760
that I can do quickly to help bring down my glucose spike, right? That's ultimately what it's

483
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:48.720
going to do. Bring down the spike. The best thing to do is to move your body. So get up,

484
00:42:48.720 --> 00:42:53.920
find a spot in your apartment that needs to be tidied, find a place you got a vacuum, find some

485
00:42:54.000 --> 00:43:00.080
laundry to do, and do that within 90 minutes after eating. Your muscles are your best ally in

486
00:43:00.080 --> 00:43:05.920
reducing your glucose spikes after you've eaten. So what's going on there? I start eating a cake.

487
00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:09.920
I finish eating the cake. How long have I got to get that cake into my muscles?

488
00:43:11.360 --> 00:43:15.360
That's a great, great input. You have about 90 minutes, so an hour and a half.

489
00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:19.200
Okay. That's when the spike is usually going to be added at its maximum.

490
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:23.520
So if I start squatting, yeah, squats are a great, great tool. I want to get for a big

491
00:43:23.520 --> 00:43:27.280
muscle, right? Yeah, absolutely. So there's some studies showing that if you do, I think it's

492
00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:32.960
five squats or 10 squats every five minutes, that is a very, very powerful way to get your

493
00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:38.640
glucose spike down. Now, you don't always have the space to do some squats, but if you're

494
00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:42.080
alone at home, go for it. That's one of the best ones. So what's going on in my body,

495
00:43:42.080 --> 00:43:47.040
that is my, I start squatting, I'm working my glutes. Yeah, so your glutes are looking for energy,

496
00:43:47.040 --> 00:43:51.360
and the first place they look is in your blood. They're looking for glucose because glucose is

497
00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:56.800
the energy that your muscles are using. Okay. Do you use standing desks? I've really got into it.

498
00:43:56.800 --> 00:44:00.240
Yeah, I do. I have a desk at home that moves up and down. Same.

499
00:44:00.240 --> 00:44:03.760
Yeah, but sometimes if I'm tired, I just feel more tired with the standing desk. So I have to have

500
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:08.000
a bit of energy left over. Do you always use the standing desk? I mean, I kind of oscillate between

501
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:13.200
standing and sitting, but I think especially in the morning, I find it to be really, really good.

502
00:44:13.200 --> 00:44:19.200
You just gave me an idea for a glucose test. I should do the same muffin and afterwards

503
00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:24.000
standing desk for 30 minutes or sitting at the desk for 30 minutes. That's a great test.

504
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:28.720
Well, we need to put some stellar glucose monitors on before, but yes, we can do it. We should do it.

505
00:44:28.720 --> 00:44:33.520
So I will eat a muffin first thing in the morning, then stand for 30 minutes. In the next day,

506
00:44:33.520 --> 00:44:37.280
I will eat a muffin first thing in the morning and then sit for 30 minutes, and I'll send you this

507
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:41.840
bike and we can see. We can see how much glucose is being burned when we're standing in our desk.

508
00:44:43.040 --> 00:44:46.000
Okay, well, we're going to put that the results in the episode. Okay, great.

509
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:53.360
Now, so what you see on the screen, if you're watching, is the results of Jesse standing

510
00:44:54.080 --> 00:45:00.880
after having a muffin. And then these results which you see on the screen are Jesse sitting

511
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:05.360
after having a muffin. And either we'll see that the spikes are very similar,

512
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:10.560
which means that standing doesn't use much more muscle energy than sitting.

513
00:45:10.560 --> 00:45:15.440
Or we will see that standing is using up some of the glucose from my bloodstream,

514
00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:17.760
and therefore the spike is smaller after the muffin.

515
00:45:18.640 --> 00:45:23.120
On that point of exercise, mothers are given conflicting advice about what to do when they're

516
00:45:23.120 --> 00:45:30.080
pregnant. Some people say exercise is not good. Some people say it's great. What's your position

517
00:45:30.080 --> 00:45:33.760
for all the research you've done as to whether mothers should be doing exercise during pregnancy?

518
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:39.920
Exercise is incredibly good for your baby's development. And there's one study done in animals,

519
00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:45.840
because we can't do many studies in humans when it comes to pregnancy for obvious ethical reasons.

520
00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:49.520
But there's this incredible study, which I think is my favorite study in the book.

521
00:45:49.520 --> 00:45:56.560
So scientists took two groups of pregnant rats, and they gave them the exact same housing conditions,

522
00:45:56.560 --> 00:46:03.520
diets, lighting, everything. The only difference is that one group also had these tiny little

523
00:46:03.520 --> 00:46:10.160
treadmills that they had to walk on for 30 minutes a day every day during pregnancy. So same exact

524
00:46:10.160 --> 00:46:14.480
conditions. The only difference is one group of pregnant rats is moving 30 minutes a day on these

525
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:19.840
tiny treadmills. Then they wait for the babies to be born, and they put the babies in these mazes

526
00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:24.960
to kind of measure how quickly they're solving the maze. And they also measure the baby's anxiety

527
00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:31.440
levels. They found that the babies that were born to the moms who were exercising solved the maze

528
00:46:32.160 --> 00:46:41.360
twice as fast, and had fewer anxiety symptoms. So they found this strong association between a mom

529
00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:49.840
exercising during pregnancy and the outcomes of the baby's brain. And the main theory is that when

530
00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:55.200
we exercise, there's this molecule produced in our brain called BDNF, and it's got a complicated

531
00:46:55.200 --> 00:47:00.400
name. But what it does is that it helps neuroplasticity. It helps your neurons create new connections.

532
00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:04.480
And we know that in humans, when we exercise, that's one of the reasons exercise is good for the

533
00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:11.760
brain, because it increases BDNF. And in these pregnant rats, they found not only were the mom's BDNFs

534
00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:19.680
higher, but the baby's BDNF levels inside of the wounds was also higher. And they believe

535
00:47:19.680 --> 00:47:25.600
that is why they saw this impact on the baby's brain development after birth. So what happens in

536
00:47:25.600 --> 00:47:31.600
the womb is really setting up a strong foundation for your baby's brain. It's laying out the

537
00:47:31.600 --> 00:47:37.760
basic architecture, which is why it's so important to do these simple hacks to give your baby's

538
00:47:37.760 --> 00:47:44.080
brain the optimal nutrients that it needs to form properly. What is there's a little metaphor

539
00:47:44.080 --> 00:47:54.320
for those two plant pots? What is the metaphor? Okay, so both of these plants come from identical

540
00:47:54.320 --> 00:48:01.920
seeds. The only difference is what they were planted in. So one of these plants was planted

541
00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:08.640
in basically little rocks and gravel with a tiny bit of soil in it. The other seed was planted

542
00:48:08.640 --> 00:48:15.920
in rich, fertilized soil. What is this showing us? We intuitively understand that when we're planting

543
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.240
a seed, the soil we choose is important, right? We understand that the same seed is not going to

544
00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:26.000
lead to the same tree, depending on where we plant it. And I think for pregnancy, we've lost

545
00:48:26.080 --> 00:48:34.240
intuition because your baby is a seed. You as the mother's body, you are the soil. And the

546
00:48:34.240 --> 00:48:39.840
soil is going to co-create your baby's plan. So when you're pregnant, you have this little baby

547
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:45.840
with his DNA plan. But depending on the nutrients you provide, he's going to grow into a different

548
00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:51.520
tree. He's either going to grow in a super optimal tree that has all the nutrients he needed,

549
00:48:51.520 --> 00:48:55.680
or he's going to have to adapt to what's available and grow into a slightly different tree.

550
00:48:56.560 --> 00:49:01.600
The main difference is that humans are not plants. So humans are very resilient. Your baby will

551
00:49:01.600 --> 00:49:08.320
probably be okay, even if like 90% of us, you don't have enough choline, even if like 75%

552
00:49:08.320 --> 00:49:13.360
of us, you don't have enough omega-3s, even if like 70% of us, you don't have enough protein,

553
00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:18.160
and even if like most of us, you're eating more than the recommended amount of sugar,

554
00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:25.120
your baby will probably be fine, but he will be adapting to a slightly suboptimal nutrient

555
00:49:25.120 --> 00:49:30.560
environment. So that's what this metaphor is all about. You're co-creating the plan of your baby

556
00:49:30.560 --> 00:49:35.360
with your diet, doing pregnancy, and it's shaping him, and he's adapting and calibrating to what

557
00:49:35.360 --> 00:49:44.240
you're giving him. Eat one day. Just making myself a delicious coffee from the freezer.

558
00:49:44.320 --> 00:49:48.480
From the freezer. Have you not had about come to you? No. Oh my gosh. This is going to change your

559
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:54.560
life. A couple of months ago, the founder of this business called Matt sent a big shipment of this

560
00:49:54.560 --> 00:49:58.320
coffee to our office in London. This coffee is like nothing you've ever seen before. What most people

561
00:49:58.320 --> 00:50:02.720
don't know is that the processing of coffee takes out a lot of the taste. So what they do is they

562
00:50:02.720 --> 00:50:09.600
flash freeze it at the optimal moment when it's most tasty, and they send you in the post, the coffee,

563
00:50:09.600 --> 00:50:14.080
in these little frozen ice cubes. Now, Matt sent a big shipment to my office. I moved it to the

564
00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:18.400
kitchen. I said to the team, knock yourselves out, give this a try, and then I saw so many messages

565
00:50:18.400 --> 00:50:23.680
in our Slack channel of people going, oh my god, what the hell is that? It's so delicious. All I have

566
00:50:23.680 --> 00:50:28.480
to do is pop it out in the morning using the little button on the back of this thing. I pour my hot

567
00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:36.640
watering, and I mix it, and that is done. You can get $30 off your first order of comatier coffee

568
00:50:36.640 --> 00:50:41.680
if you go to comatier.com slash Stephen, and it won't be available for long, so get that discount

569
00:50:41.680 --> 00:50:47.520
while you can. I'm not going to be a pregnant mother in my life, but I am going to have a fiance,

570
00:50:47.520 --> 00:50:54.560
hopefully at some point, who is a pregnant mother. So I would really like to know how I can help

571
00:50:54.560 --> 00:50:59.040
as a partner, but also I'm sure she's going to listen to this. So what she can do to make sure

572
00:50:59.040 --> 00:51:03.920
that the soil in which my baby grows is optimal. We've talked about a few of the things so far,

573
00:51:03.920 --> 00:51:08.800
like Colleen and we've also talked about sugar and glucose levels throughout pregnancy

574
00:51:08.800 --> 00:51:14.640
to avoid gestational diabetes. We've talked about exercise as well. What about alcohol?

575
00:51:14.640 --> 00:51:18.320
Not a good idea, because as I explained, your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream

576
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:24.320
are basically connected. So when you drink alcohol during pregnancy, your blood alcohol level

577
00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:33.040
rises, and then your baby's blood alcohol level in your uterus also rises. There's no filter

578
00:51:33.040 --> 00:51:36.960
protecting your baby from alcohol. So when you have a glass of wine, your baby's also having a

579
00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:44.160
glass of wine in the room. And we know that alcohol is not good for our brains, and this also goes

580
00:51:44.160 --> 00:51:50.800
for babies. So you wouldn't put red wine in your baby's bottle after birth and give him red wine

581
00:51:50.800 --> 00:51:54.320
to drink, but that's kind of what's going on when you're drinking alcohol when you're pregnant.

582
00:51:55.040 --> 00:52:00.800
And there's been a lot of stuff online about, oh, alcohol, your pregnancy is fine and small

583
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:06.880
quantities. I think when you understand how alcohol is toxic to the brain biologically, it makes

584
00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:10.720
no sense to sell pregnant moms that a little bit of alcohol is okay. It's best if you can't

585
00:52:10.720 --> 00:52:15.760
avoid alcohol entirely. So complete abstence. Yeah. There was actually a study that came out in

586
00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:20.640
February last year, which was quite recent from the University of Melbourne, where they used high

587
00:52:20.640 --> 00:52:27.040
resolution 3D imaging to reveal that even low doses of alcohol cause facial morphing, consistent

588
00:52:27.120 --> 00:52:33.040
changes in the shape of the eyes and nose 12 months persisting up to age 8. And weaker connections

589
00:52:33.040 --> 00:52:39.760
in the right anterior, singular part of the brain, the region critical for emotional regulation

590
00:52:39.760 --> 00:52:48.000
impulse control, even if the mother drank only occasionally, which is very surprising.

591
00:52:50.240 --> 00:52:54.240
Because I think for a long time, we've always thought that heavy consumption of alcohol

592
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:58.400
was a problem. And we know that, yeah. But even low doses are suboptimal.

593
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:03.440
It kind of goes for all adults, right? We've thought for a long time that one glass of wine per day

594
00:53:03.440 --> 00:53:09.200
was good for the heart. Now we understand that the ideal amount of alcohol is zero. There's no

595
00:53:09.200 --> 00:53:14.720
benefit to alcohol. Now, is that to say that one glass of wine during pregnancy is going to

596
00:53:15.600 --> 00:53:21.440
indelibly impact your baby's brain, probably not. But if you can't avoid it, this is the best time

597
00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:26.160
to avoid it entirely. What about when you're breastfeeding? Well, you have much more leeway then

598
00:53:26.160 --> 00:53:32.240
because the amount of alcohol in your breast milk mirrors the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream.

599
00:53:32.240 --> 00:53:36.400
So for example, if you have a glass of wine two and a half to three hours later,

600
00:53:36.400 --> 00:53:40.880
you have pretty much no more alcohol in your bloodstream, which means your breast milk is also

601
00:53:40.880 --> 00:53:46.240
pretty much devoid of alcohol. So if you time it right, you're going to be able to have a glass

602
00:53:46.400 --> 00:53:49.760
of wine without it actually going into your breast milk. But it's all about timing.

603
00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:56.560
The recommendation is to stay under two cups of coffee per day during pregnancy. It's not a

604
00:53:56.560 --> 00:54:02.320
newer toxin like alcohol, right? But caffeine does go to your baby's bloodstream. And some studies

605
00:54:02.320 --> 00:54:08.080
show that babies are more active in the womb after the mother drinks caffeine. And it has no benefit.

606
00:54:08.080 --> 00:54:13.440
So listen, you do what you can. I reduced a little bit my caffeine intake instead of having like

607
00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:18.320
two fat whites, a head maybe half of that white or a decaf that white when I could,

608
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:22.480
but some days I just really want to coffee. So I had a coffee. Have they ever done any studies on

609
00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:28.400
caffeine and pregnancy? Well, we can't do any studies on caffeine and pregnancy in humans.

610
00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:32.800
It's unethical to test anything in pregnant moms. We have associations and the associations

611
00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:38.080
don't show much difference. Like we don't have studies that show caffeine taking moms leads to this

612
00:54:38.080 --> 00:54:43.120
kind of bad outcome in the kids. It seems pretty neutral at low doses. If you have really high

613
00:54:43.120 --> 00:54:48.400
doses of caffeine, there is an impact on the baby's more associative impact on the baby's

614
00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:52.720
temperament. But for one or two cups a day, there's no impact that we find. And they've done animal

615
00:54:52.720 --> 00:54:57.360
studies? Yeah, they've done animal studies. Low doses also find very high doses. We start to see

616
00:54:57.360 --> 00:55:01.840
changes in the baby's behavior. You talk about this in the book in certain animal studies they show

617
00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:05.680
during pregnancy leads to smaller offspring, altered heart development and delayed brain growth.

618
00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:10.960
But you explain that we don't have direct clinical trial data on the long-term impact of

619
00:55:10.960 --> 00:55:14.720
caffeine during human pregnancy. And also those studies are very high doses of caffeine.

620
00:55:14.720 --> 00:55:18.160
Okay. Yeah. And the world health organization recommends that women who consume more than

621
00:55:18.160 --> 00:55:23.280
300 milligrams of coffee a day, which is roughly three cups, reduce their daily intake during pregnancy.

622
00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:25.840
Yeah. So probably one cup a day is not harming your baby.

623
00:55:27.360 --> 00:55:30.720
Fermented foods in the gut. What about that? Yeah. What should I be thinking about that?

624
00:55:30.720 --> 00:55:35.440
Well, this is very early research, but showing that potentially if a mother has fermented food

625
00:55:35.680 --> 00:55:40.640
during pregnancy, it's also seeding her baby's gut microbiome. But this is very, very early stuff.

626
00:55:40.640 --> 00:55:46.560
But if you can include some key for some sour crowd during pregnancy, it's helpful.

627
00:55:47.200 --> 00:55:49.440
What about bread? Do you think much about bread?

628
00:55:49.440 --> 00:55:52.960
Do I think much about bread? I mean, I'm French. So I think about bread all the time.

629
00:55:54.160 --> 00:55:58.800
In terms of your recommendations on the type of bread one should be eating?

630
00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:04.000
Well, bread is interesting because bread is a carb that contains mostly glucose. And we know that

631
00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:09.120
in the third trimester of pregnancy, your baby actually needs more glucose because he's developing

632
00:56:09.120 --> 00:56:15.920
and he also needs energy. Your baby needs about 70 grams of glucose per day at the very end of

633
00:56:15.920 --> 00:56:21.600
pregnancy. So as a pregnant mom, you should be eating 70 grams of glucose more than you usually do

634
00:56:21.600 --> 00:56:26.080
at the end of pregnancy. For the first and second trimesters, you don't need to be eating much more

635
00:56:26.080 --> 00:56:31.280
glucose. So you could have that via bread. You could have that via rice, for example. So 70 grams

636
00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:37.440
of glucose is about three slices of bread or a cup and a half of rice. In terms of the type of

637
00:56:37.440 --> 00:56:41.760
bread you should be eating, it's always better for your glucose levels to have bread that is full

638
00:56:41.760 --> 00:56:48.640
of seeds. But to be honest, there's not a huge difference between like sprouted grain bread versus

639
00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:54.240
white bread. It's all just glucose. Because there is a, I guess there's a risk that mothers might get

640
00:56:54.240 --> 00:56:59.600
a little bit scared of having sugary foods during pregnancy. And then you've just said the baby

641
00:56:59.600 --> 00:57:05.600
does need glucose. Yeah, so there's a difference. So glucose is present in carbs and starches,

642
00:57:05.600 --> 00:57:12.160
meaning bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats. So starches contain glucose. But starches are

643
00:57:12.160 --> 00:57:20.240
different to sugars. So on this plate, we only have sugars. These are the sweet foods that contain

644
00:57:20.240 --> 00:57:26.400
glucose, but also another molecule that makes them sweet called fructose. Your baby needs no

645
00:57:26.480 --> 00:57:32.880
fructose during pregnancy ever. So your baby does not need any sugar from dessert, from chocolate,

646
00:57:32.880 --> 00:57:37.600
from muffins, from cupcakes. Your baby needs none of this. But your baby does need glucose,

647
00:57:37.600 --> 00:57:41.680
which is healthier to get from starches, like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes.

648
00:57:42.240 --> 00:57:47.840
What about the ketogenic diet while you're pregnant? I don't think there's enough evidence to tell

649
00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:54.800
us whether it's okay or not. It's very early. It's quite rare. And it seems that since your baby does

650
00:57:54.800 --> 00:57:59.920
need glucose during pregnancy, it's just easier to eat glucose and to eat starches when you're

651
00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:05.280
pregnant. And whole fruit is also a good way of getting glucose that you need. Because thanks to

652
00:58:05.280 --> 00:58:10.880
the fiber and the water, the amount of fructose in the fruit is not leading to such a big fructose

653
00:58:10.880 --> 00:58:16.160
spike. There's a study on the G1D foundation that basically says for 99 percent of pregnancy,

654
00:58:16.160 --> 00:58:21.040
the strict ketogenic diet is considered dangerous. Doctors would instead recommend a low glycemic index

655
00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:28.080
diet. And low glycemic diets mean a diet with smaller glucose spikes. And this is really helpful

656
00:58:28.080 --> 00:58:32.160
for people with gestational diabetes to help some manage their spikes and reduce the nutrient

657
00:58:32.160 --> 00:58:36.720
medication. But also for any pregnant mom, it's important to think about your glucose spikes.

658
00:58:36.720 --> 00:58:41.840
Because when you have a glucose spike, your baby has a glucose spike. And glucose spikes are not

659
00:58:41.840 --> 00:58:47.600
good news. It's better to give your baby slow rolling hills of glucose and not these big spikes that

660
00:58:47.600 --> 00:58:51.760
can lead to more inflammation. And as we talked about, more inflammation can impact the baby's

661
00:58:51.760 --> 00:58:57.520
brain development. Do you recommend that mothers take certain supplements? Did you take supplements

662
00:58:57.520 --> 00:59:03.280
throughout your pregnancy? Yeah, I took omega-3s. And the reason is I took omega-3 supplements is

663
00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:09.760
because omega-3s also form the baby's brain. And they come from algae in the ocean and fish.

664
00:59:10.720 --> 00:59:16.720
Now omega-3s, and in particular, one omega-3 called DHA, it helps your baby's neurons

665
00:59:16.720 --> 00:59:22.080
connect with each other. And this is really important. And in animal studies, when scientists

666
00:59:22.080 --> 00:59:28.320
restrict how much DHA a mother has access to, they see measurable impact on the baby's brain. They

667
00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:33.840
see brains that are less efficient. They see babies who find the exit of mazes with much more time.

668
00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:39.360
There's an impact on the brain development. Now, the easiest way to get enough DHA is to eat fish,

669
00:59:39.360 --> 00:59:46.000
or to eat sardines that we have here. So the recommendation is fatty fish twice a week.

670
00:59:47.040 --> 00:59:51.840
I would say fatty fish three times a week if you can. And this is also, it's amazing because

671
00:59:51.840 --> 00:59:56.800
it's very cheap. So these three cans of sardines are your three servings of fish per week.

672
00:59:56.800 --> 01:00:02.640
This gives you all the omega-3s your baby needs, and this costs about in total like $6, $7.

673
01:00:02.640 --> 01:00:09.920
So for $6, $7 per week, and for another $7 of eggs per week, you're getting all the

674
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:14.240
old omega-3s your baby needs. Yeah, you're opening it. You're going to eat it.

675
01:00:19.200 --> 01:00:23.680
Okay, you want to know how I have them? Okay, you're going to eat it? Yeah, go for it.

676
01:00:23.680 --> 01:00:30.240
So I open the can, I put it in a bowl, I put mustard in it, I put sea salt, a little bit of

677
01:00:30.240 --> 01:00:36.960
feta, some herbs, and I make this sort of nice little paste, and then I toast a piece of bread,

678
01:00:36.960 --> 01:00:41.280
and I put it on top of the bread, and I have like a nice little sardine mash on my bread.

679
01:00:41.280 --> 01:00:45.760
It is quite nice. Yeah, and it's really good for you, lots of omega-3s. And so for omega-3s,

680
01:00:45.760 --> 01:00:51.760
I also supplemented with additional omega-3s because I think the recommendation of fatty fish two

681
01:00:51.760 --> 01:00:57.920
three times a day is lacking. Most moms don't have enough omega-3s in their body to give their

682
01:00:57.920 --> 01:01:04.320
baby everything that he needs. So I did this three times a week plus two grams of DHA supplement

683
01:01:04.320 --> 01:01:10.720
per day. What else was in your supplement stack? Then in the third trimester, I took iron because

684
01:01:10.720 --> 01:01:15.360
my iron levels were very low. This often happens during pregnancy even though I was eating a lot of

685
01:01:15.360 --> 01:01:19.680
meats because your baby is pulling a lot of iron from you. And then I had a sort of normal

686
01:01:19.680 --> 01:01:25.360
prenatal supplement, but I made sure I had colline in it. And I made sure it had a type of folic

687
01:01:25.360 --> 01:01:30.640
acid called methylated folate, which is better absorbed. And folate is very important to prevent

688
01:01:30.640 --> 01:01:34.960
miscarriage. You talked about your first pregnancy and you said we'll talk about that later.

689
01:01:37.200 --> 01:01:44.480
You went through miscarriage? Yes, correct. So I got pregnant at first time and I thought

690
01:01:44.480 --> 01:01:50.400
everything would be totally fine. But I found out at the three-month scan that the embryo had stopped

691
01:01:50.400 --> 01:01:56.160
developing. I had what's called a silent miscarriage. So usually when you miscarry,

692
01:01:57.120 --> 01:02:02.800
you start to lose blood. You have cramps. You know something's wrong. I had a silent miscarriage,

693
01:02:02.800 --> 01:02:08.160
which is more rare. Meaning the embryo stopped developing. The embryo was dead. My body did not

694
01:02:08.160 --> 01:02:15.280
expose it. So I found out that I had lost the pregnancy at the scan and the doctor's office.

695
01:02:15.280 --> 01:02:21.680
And I found out that I had been walking around for a month with an embryo that had stopped developing.

696
01:02:21.680 --> 01:02:29.920
And I had no idea. I thought I was still pregnant. What is someone like me that has never experienced

697
01:02:31.360 --> 01:02:38.000
such news? What are the range of emotions and thoughts that occur when you get news like that?

698
01:02:40.400 --> 01:02:47.360
Listen, for me, it was so devastating. It was so, so difficult. I didn't want to believe it.

699
01:02:47.360 --> 01:02:52.480
I was screaming. I remember falling to the floor in my living room and seeing to whatever God

700
01:02:52.480 --> 01:02:58.800
or the University that I wanted my baby back. I was not okay. It was very, very difficult. I

701
01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:07.280
felt a lot of anger. I felt a lot of despair. I felt a sense of injustice. Why me? I felt like I had

702
01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:12.640
done everything right. I was eating the colon. I was taking the right supplements. I was not

703
01:03:12.640 --> 01:03:20.080
like smoking crack. And I still had a miscarriage. And I didn't know this happened. I didn't have

704
01:03:20.080 --> 01:03:24.640
it in my consciousness that it could happen to me. So I felt from very, very high. It was probably

705
01:03:24.640 --> 01:03:29.920
one of the most difficult experiences of my life. Is this more common? One in five pregnancies

706
01:03:29.920 --> 01:03:36.720
and in miscarriage. That's really high. Like way higher than I thought it was. Yeah. And it's usually in

707
01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:46.960
the first trimester. But it can happen later also. Yeah. And I felt so isolated. And I didn't

708
01:03:46.960 --> 01:03:52.480
feel like people around me knew how to handle it. Because it's kind of taboo. And then when I

709
01:03:52.480 --> 01:03:57.840
miscarried, I started talking to people about it. And I found out that so many people around me

710
01:03:57.840 --> 01:04:01.920
had gone through it, but had never told me about it. When was your first pregnancy?

711
01:04:02.400 --> 01:04:15.520
So I got pregnant in February 2024. So the miscarriage was in spring 2024. And then I got pregnant again

712
01:04:17.120 --> 01:04:26.240
in August 2025. No, 2024. And my son was born in May 2025. So I got pregnant quite quickly

713
01:04:26.240 --> 01:04:32.160
afterwards. But it was difficult because I was still carrying the grief of the miscarriage. So I

714
01:04:32.160 --> 01:04:36.720
had a very anxious pregnancy. I was very anxious the whole time that something bad would happen

715
01:04:36.720 --> 01:04:39.920
again, that I would miscarry again and not know about it. It was very difficult.

716
01:04:45.520 --> 01:04:46.720
It's a trial of the heart man.

717
01:04:50.640 --> 01:04:55.280
It's the numbers way higher than I expected. Just much higher than I expected. It's scary.

718
01:04:55.840 --> 01:04:59.680
It's scary to think about. Yeah. And that's why people usually wait until the third month

719
01:04:59.680 --> 01:05:04.640
mark to tell their friends and family that they're pregnant. And for some reason I had no

720
01:05:04.640 --> 01:05:08.720
conception of that. So the moments I got that first pregnancy test, I told everybody.

721
01:05:09.680 --> 01:05:16.240
So it made it quite complicated to have to announce the miscarriage to like 50 people.

722
01:05:17.360 --> 01:05:21.760
But at the same time, I felt less alone than I would have felt if nobody knew I was pregnant

723
01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:26.320
in the first place. But yeah, I was very, very challenging. And it's more common than we think.

724
01:05:26.880 --> 01:05:31.200
And it happens to more people than we know about. Is there anything you wish you knew

725
01:05:32.080 --> 01:05:36.080
earlier in life about? I mean, we've talked about many of the things specifically around diet and

726
01:05:36.080 --> 01:05:41.120
you know, pregnancy. But is there anything else you wish someone had said to you as a woman earlier

727
01:05:43.280 --> 01:05:49.360
that you didn't hear? Yeah. I think I wish my mom had told me about her miscarriages. She had not

728
01:05:49.840 --> 01:05:55.680
until I was carried. Yep. I wish my grandmother had told me. I did not know. I wish people had

729
01:05:55.680 --> 01:06:00.000
told me more about their experiences because that way I would have understood that it happens to

730
01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:03.120
a lot of people. And maybe I would have been more prepared. And maybe it would have made the

731
01:06:03.120 --> 01:06:10.880
experience a little bit less painful instead of feeling so so isolated. Or at least I would have

732
01:06:10.880 --> 01:06:16.960
maybe been a bit more cautious. Because you said one of the feelings and emotions you had was

733
01:06:16.960 --> 01:06:22.640
why did this happen to me? Yes. Why me? Why me? And then I realized it happens to many people.

734
01:06:22.640 --> 01:06:27.680
And it's not necessarily a reason. It's nothing you've done. It can be just a chromosomal abnormality

735
01:06:27.680 --> 01:06:31.760
and the embryo just can't develop anymore. It can be something we don't understand yet.

736
01:06:32.240 --> 01:06:36.800
It's hard, isn't it, getting pregnant? Yeah. It's hard, I think. I don't know what

737
01:06:36.800 --> 01:06:41.760
Laya was living under. But I just assumed that getting pregnant was have sex unprotected.

738
01:06:41.760 --> 01:06:45.680
I know because your whole life, you're told, do all these things to not get pregnant because

739
01:06:45.680 --> 01:06:50.080
it might happen without you expecting it. And then when you try to get pregnant, you realize,

740
01:06:50.080 --> 01:06:55.920
oh, it's not at all as easy as I thought it was. It's a lot. And I was lucky. I got pregnant

741
01:06:55.920 --> 01:07:00.800
after two, three cycles, both times. So that's very, very quick. But for some of my friends,

742
01:07:00.800 --> 01:07:04.880
it's taken them years to conceive. How is becoming a mother changed you?

743
01:07:07.760 --> 01:07:14.960
It's made me happier. I feel like my baseline happiness is higher. I used to have this like

744
01:07:14.960 --> 01:07:22.080
10% kind of melancholy or spleen or sort of like, oh, maybe my life could be better if I did

745
01:07:22.080 --> 01:07:27.360
X-A-Y or questioning, you know, do I need more? How do I find happiness? And that's gone.

746
01:07:27.360 --> 01:07:32.560
Like with my son, that has been filled. And I didn't expect it to be filled. So that's been

747
01:07:32.560 --> 01:07:40.400
amazing. And it's made me very efficient because now when I have 42 minutes, I use those 42 minutes.

748
01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:45.920
Like I cannot imagine how much time I used to have. Like what did I use to do? And I thought I was

749
01:07:45.920 --> 01:07:50.960
busy. Now I'm really busy. It's so funny to look back at my life before and what I used to think

750
01:07:50.960 --> 01:07:55.120
and realize that I was completely wrong. I was so wrong. I thought I was busy and I thought I was

751
01:07:55.120 --> 01:08:06.320
tired. I wasn't, now I am. You feel very busy, right? I feel so busy. And you feel tired.

752
01:08:06.320 --> 01:08:09.840
I do. I do sometimes ask myself, you know, because again, I'm in that season of life. I do

753
01:08:09.840 --> 01:08:14.640
like, where am I going to get the, where's the time that I come from? Yeah. You just prioritize

754
01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:19.600
so many things. You just delegate where you don't do any more. And you find the time because

755
01:08:19.600 --> 01:08:25.200
your baby is the most important thing. And I think I've become better at my work because I'm

756
01:08:25.200 --> 01:08:30.160
more efficient. And I thought I was pretty efficient before. But now I'm like superhuman.

757
01:08:31.360 --> 01:08:34.400
On that point of parenting and pregnancy and everything we've been talking about,

758
01:08:35.360 --> 01:08:40.560
you said that you spoke to your mother about the diet she had and her lifestyle when she was

759
01:08:41.280 --> 01:08:48.240
growing you inside her. If your parents did have a suboptimal lifestyle in diet,

760
01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:54.480
this is a bit of a strange question to ask, but is there something that I can do now as an

761
01:08:54.480 --> 01:09:00.240
adult to reverse that? Totally. Well, first of all, my mom was eating a lot of sugar, but it wasn't

762
01:09:00.400 --> 01:09:05.040
her fault. Like culture around her was telling her fat is bad, low fat foods, like she was just a

763
01:09:05.040 --> 01:09:10.320
product of her time like we all are. So our diet today is just a function of what food marketing

764
01:09:10.320 --> 01:09:15.200
is going on. So again, it's not our fault. We're just kind of swimming in this sea of the food

765
01:09:15.200 --> 01:09:20.240
industry and marketing and we do it the best we can. Pregnancy is important. It has an

766
01:09:20.240 --> 01:09:26.960
outside effect on our vulnerability to disease, but it's not everything. So I told you that 25

767
01:09:26.960 --> 01:09:32.400
I was in the cusp of prediabetes. Well, I implemented the glucose hacks. I found all the science

768
01:09:32.400 --> 01:09:36.960
and I never got prediabetes. So you're probably going to be fine. It's more of the difference between

769
01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:42.960
like, so I have two friends. I have Gabriel and Nicholas and they both work out the same and eat

770
01:09:42.960 --> 01:09:47.440
the same. One of them builds muscle really easily and has a lot of muscle mass. The other one doesn't.

771
01:09:48.080 --> 01:09:52.960
They're not equal. However, it doesn't mean that they both can't build muscle. It might just be a

772
01:09:52.960 --> 01:09:56.880
little bit more difficult for one than for the other. Same thing with diabetes. One person may get

773
01:09:56.880 --> 01:10:03.120
diabetes with the same diet as another person who doesn't get it. Well, when you apply things,

774
01:10:03.120 --> 01:10:07.120
when you change your diet, you can change the course of your life. You can change what diseases

775
01:10:07.120 --> 01:10:13.280
you face, but you might be more or less vulnerable. So we always have agency. We always have power. No

776
01:10:13.280 --> 01:10:20.560
matter our age, no matter where we are in life to take back control. Cravings. Cravings are where

777
01:10:20.560 --> 01:10:24.640
it all begins. You know, you can know everything. Wait, say more about that. What do you mean?

778
01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:28.640
You can have all the information. I'm sure that there's people that listen to this podcast,

779
01:10:29.200 --> 01:10:35.280
including me, who know a lot about this stuff, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have the

780
01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:40.320
control to take action because when your brain starts saying go and eat that thing, go on,

781
01:10:40.320 --> 01:10:44.880
it'll be so tasty. And you know what? You can do your calf raises after it. It'll be fine.

782
01:10:44.880 --> 01:10:48.240
Like that voice in your head that talks you into things that you don't really want to do.

783
01:10:48.240 --> 01:10:51.920
And then 10 minutes later, you feel really guilty that you did it. I'm just wondering if you think

784
01:10:51.920 --> 01:10:58.560
much about the psychology of being in the things I can do upstream to either fend off the cravings

785
01:10:58.560 --> 01:11:02.880
or to have better agency control over the cravings. So let's talk about that voice because that

786
01:11:02.880 --> 01:11:09.200
voice comes in two flavors. For some, the voice is, that cookie looks really, really good.

787
01:11:09.200 --> 01:11:13.120
Chocolate chip or sea salt. That looks tasty. I'm going to probably buy it after the end of this

788
01:11:13.120 --> 01:11:18.640
meeting. That is the voice of pleasure and enjoyment. There's another voice that might be in your

789
01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:21.920
brain, which is like, oh my god, I need sugar right now. What's in the kitchen? I'm going to open

790
01:11:21.920 --> 01:11:25.520
the cupboards, whatever there is. Oh, this weird old cookie. I need to have it right now. I need

791
01:11:25.520 --> 01:11:29.760
sugar. Otherwise, I'm not going to feel good. Those are two very different voices. That second

792
01:11:29.760 --> 01:11:35.280
voice is a voice of control and of almost being like a victim to sugar addiction. I want to help

793
01:11:35.280 --> 01:11:40.400
people go from the sugar addiction voice to the enjoyment voice because I think it's fine to have

794
01:11:40.400 --> 01:11:45.760
cravings or to want to eat something delicious. I just want to make sure people are not controlled

795
01:11:45.760 --> 01:11:50.480
by that voice. Do you see what I mean? I want it to be something you enjoy, not something you are

796
01:11:50.480 --> 01:11:56.560
victim to. So how do we separate these two things out? We need to balance our glucose levels so that

797
01:11:56.560 --> 01:12:01.040
that voice comes from a place of happiness and not a place of a glucose crash that is making you

798
01:12:01.040 --> 01:12:05.920
feel controlled by a biological impulse that is stronger than you. So protein in the morning,

799
01:12:05.920 --> 01:12:11.120
a savory breakfast, super, super important, then veggie starter before you lunch in your dinner

800
01:12:11.120 --> 01:12:16.720
when you can. Avoiding sugar on an empty stomach to not kick off a rollercoaster of blood sugar

801
01:12:17.360 --> 01:12:22.160
ups and downs that's going to make you crave more and more of this sweet stuff. But the voice that

802
01:12:22.160 --> 01:12:25.840
you just mentioned, which is like, oh, that looks really good. I'm going to do some calf raises

803
01:12:25.840 --> 01:12:29.360
afterwards. I think that's fine. To me, that doesn't sound like you're being controlled by it.

804
01:12:29.360 --> 01:12:33.760
It sounds like you kind of want to eat delicious stuff. But I regret it 10 minutes after. Why?

805
01:12:34.320 --> 01:12:40.960
Because I think, you know, especially if it's at like 10 p.m. Yeah, because then it messes

806
01:12:40.960 --> 01:12:45.760
up your sleep. It messes up my next day. Yeah. And what the hell did I do that? I knew I shouldn't

807
01:12:45.760 --> 01:12:49.600
eat it. Yeah. But the craving was too strong. And listen, sometimes that's a situation we're in.

808
01:12:49.600 --> 01:12:54.240
I do that too sometimes. Sometimes it is 11 p.m. I'm exhausted. I know my son's probably going to wake

809
01:12:54.240 --> 01:12:59.280
up at 4 a.m. But I want that cookie. And I just I just have it. Maybe I have some vinegar or some

810
01:12:59.280 --> 01:13:03.360
anti-spec before. But it's okay to give into these things. I don't think we have to feel guilty

811
01:13:03.360 --> 01:13:07.280
about them. Like that's just life. Sometimes we can't do the glucose hacks and sometimes we're tired

812
01:13:07.280 --> 01:13:11.520
and the cookie looks good. So eat the cookie. But it annoys me because I then feel shit the next day.

813
01:13:13.520 --> 01:13:18.960
Was it worth it? Absolutely not. Objectively. Absolutely not. So maybe if you had had that cookie

814
01:13:19.840 --> 01:13:23.760
after some almonds or after the cookie, you could do some laundry and move around a little bit

815
01:13:23.760 --> 01:13:28.720
to reduce the spike. Maybe you could help with your deep sleep during that night. But sometimes you

816
01:13:28.720 --> 01:13:33.520
can't. I think it's well, the subject of sleep in glucose is one we don't talk about enough

817
01:13:33.520 --> 01:13:38.480
because some people really struggle with their sleep. And I've just noticed that when I'm in a heavy

818
01:13:38.480 --> 01:13:44.480
travel period and I'm flying and waking up early at 4 a.m. flight to LA, fly Miami, go to Qatar,

819
01:13:44.480 --> 01:13:53.040
wherever. My ability to control cravings is significantly reduced. And weirdly I noticed that when

820
01:13:53.040 --> 01:13:59.920
I wake up at say I had dinner at 9 p.m. the night before, if I'm waking up at like 3 or 4 a.m.,

821
01:13:59.920 --> 01:14:06.240
I wake up really hungry. Interesting. Have you worn a glucose monitor to see if you're not crashing

822
01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:10.880
in the middle of the night? No. But I've always been so curious as to why that is because I know

823
01:14:10.880 --> 01:14:15.280
that if I'd slept for four hours more, I would have been like today where the first thing I've eaten

824
01:14:15.280 --> 01:14:20.640
today and it's what 2 p.m. is that sardine because I just wasn't hungry this morning. But if I'd

825
01:14:20.640 --> 01:14:25.120
woken up early, I mean, I've looked a little bit into my question. I have a question. Do you think

826
01:14:25.120 --> 01:14:30.000
it's the time you wake up that is causing you to be more or less hungry or it's the dinner you

827
01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:34.400
had the night before that is causing a crash that is causing you to wake up? Like what's the chicken

828
01:14:34.400 --> 01:14:38.960
once the egg? Because it sounds to me like maybe at 3 a.m. if you're having a glucose crash because

829
01:14:38.960 --> 01:14:44.800
you had a big carb heavy dinner, then it's your body waking you up and making you feel very hungry.

830
01:14:44.800 --> 01:14:48.480
For me, it's kind of similar. Like in the morning, if I feel extremely hungry, it's usually because

831
01:14:48.480 --> 01:14:54.160
I went to bed and I had just had a bunch of carbs before bed. Well, thanks to the ability to do

832
01:14:54.160 --> 01:14:59.840
very quick research. I now know the answer or at least solid hypothesis. And the leading answer

833
01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:03.520
is to why when you're sleep deprived, you end up eating horses because of the hormone imbalance

834
01:15:03.520 --> 01:15:08.400
of leptin and grelin. Sleep deprivation directly alters the hunger hormones produced in your gut

835
01:15:08.400 --> 01:15:12.880
and fat cells. If Grelin increases known as hunger hormone, Grelin signals the brain that it's

836
01:15:12.880 --> 01:15:17.280
time to eat. Studies from Stanford University show a sleeping for only five hours increases

837
01:15:17.280 --> 01:15:23.920
Grelin by approximately 15%. Leptin decreases. The satiety hormone tells your brain you are full.

838
01:15:23.920 --> 01:15:29.280
The same sleep loss decreases leptin by approximately 15%. And therefore, the result is that your

839
01:15:29.280 --> 01:15:35.040
brain receives a loud, I am starving signal and a very weak, I'm full signal simultaneously.

840
01:15:35.040 --> 01:15:39.520
And leptin is the hormone we talked about at the beginning, which when you're breastfed as a baby,

841
01:15:39.520 --> 01:15:43.680
you're repeatedly making more leptin. And the setting can stay with you for life. So it's

842
01:15:43.680 --> 01:15:48.800
possible that also there's some stuff going on in early life that makes you more or less hungry.

843
01:15:50.560 --> 01:15:56.400
To speak to my mom. You know, every once in a while, you come across a product that has such a

844
01:15:56.400 --> 01:16:02.160
huge impact on your life that you'd probably describe it as a game changer. And I would say

845
01:16:03.040 --> 01:16:09.120
for about 35 to 40% of my team, they would currently describe this product that I haven't

846
01:16:09.120 --> 01:16:15.360
front of me called ketone IQ, which you can get at ketone.com as a game changer. But the reason I

847
01:16:15.360 --> 01:16:19.120
became a co-owner of this company and the reason why they now are responsive to this podcast

848
01:16:19.120 --> 01:16:23.520
is because one day when I came to work, there was a box of this stuff sat on my desk. I had no idea

849
01:16:23.520 --> 01:16:29.200
what it was. Lily in my team says that this company have been in touch. So I went upstairs, tried it

850
01:16:29.200 --> 01:16:35.200
and quite frankly, the rest is history in terms of my focus, my energy levels, how I feel, how I work,

851
01:16:35.280 --> 01:16:39.920
how productive I am, game changer. So if you want to give it a try, visit ketone.com slash

852
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Stephen for 30% off. You'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. And now you can find

853
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ketone IQ at target stores across the United States, where your first shot is completely free of charge.

854
01:16:52.560 --> 01:16:56.240
For the first 10 years that I was a founder, I didn't prioritize getting a good night's sleep

855
01:16:56.240 --> 01:17:00.400
at all. But over time, I started to realize that it was the key metric that influenced everything in

856
01:17:00.400 --> 01:17:04.560
my life. I moved my focus, my ability to show up and to think clearly and to lead well. So now,

857
01:17:04.560 --> 01:17:08.320
with my lifestyle being pretty crazy, traveling across time zones, working late, training late,

858
01:17:08.320 --> 01:17:12.080
I still fight to protect my sleep, which sometimes means starting the day a little bit later.

859
01:17:12.080 --> 01:17:15.840
It was my work that helped me to make this connection. They are one of my sponsors for the show.

860
01:17:15.840 --> 01:17:19.840
And for the last four years, every day, my work has given me insights into my sleep and my recovery,

861
01:17:19.840 --> 01:17:25.040
the strain I'm taking on, and more broadly, how my daily behaviors influence my overall

862
01:17:25.040 --> 01:17:30.080
holistic health. It's the difference between guessing and knowing why I might be feeling the way

863
01:17:30.720 --> 01:17:34.400
that I feel. Sometimes it will nudge me, sometimes it will get me to slow down, sometimes it pushes

864
01:17:34.400 --> 01:17:38.960
me to go even harder, but all the time it provides me with data that gives me a deeper understanding

865
01:17:38.960 --> 01:17:42.800
of myself. And without it, it'd be hard to optimize how I live and perform it. Right now, you can

866
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get one month free through my link at join.woop.com slash CEO, one month free join.woop.com slash CEO.

867
01:17:53.520 --> 01:17:58.560
Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you to come even

868
01:17:58.560 --> 01:18:04.640
deeper into the dire of a CEO. Welcome to my inner circle. This is a brand new private community

869
01:18:04.640 --> 01:18:09.280
that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never

870
01:18:09.280 --> 01:18:13.920
shown. We have the briefs that are on my pad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips

871
01:18:13.920 --> 01:18:18.000
we've never released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guests and also the episodes

872
01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:24.560
that we've never ever released. And so much more. In the circle, you'll have direct access to me,

873
01:18:24.560 --> 01:18:28.480
you can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of

874
01:18:28.480 --> 01:18:33.600
conversations you would love us to have. But remember, for now, we're only inviting the first

875
01:18:33.600 --> 01:18:38.080
10,000 people that joined before it closes. So if you want to join our private close community,

876
01:18:38.080 --> 01:18:44.080
head to the link in the description below or go to doccircle.com. I will speak to you then.

877
01:18:47.600 --> 01:18:52.880
What is the most important thing we haven't talked about as it relates to nine months that

878
01:18:52.960 --> 01:18:57.920
count for ever your new book that we should have talked about? I think protein. Protein. Yeah.

879
01:18:58.880 --> 01:19:05.360
By the time your baby is born, he is about 50% protein if you exclude water. So protein is not

880
01:19:05.360 --> 01:19:11.360
just for your muscles. Protein forms your immune system, your skin, your organs, many, many tissues,

881
01:19:11.360 --> 01:19:16.160
many, many signaling molecules in your body. So when you're pregnant, you need to eat more protein

882
01:19:16.160 --> 01:19:20.560
to give more protein to your baby. An animal studies show something fascinating, Steven. They

883
01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:26.960
show that when a mom is slightly protein restricted, meaning she's eating a bit less protein than she

884
01:19:26.960 --> 01:19:33.360
needs to. There's a little epigenetic switch happening in the baby that says, dear baby, keep your

885
01:19:33.360 --> 01:19:37.920
muscles small because there's not a lot of protein in the world you're about to be born into.

886
01:19:38.640 --> 01:19:44.480
So what we're eating during pregnancy is an essence sending a little postcard to our baby

887
01:19:44.480 --> 01:19:49.600
in our uterus, telling him what kind of nutrients will be available in the world that he's about to

888
01:19:49.600 --> 01:19:55.760
be born into. And so these animal studies suggest that if you have a low protein diet, your baby will

889
01:19:55.760 --> 01:20:01.120
be programmed to stay smaller and have a smaller muscle mass throughout his life. And the thing is,

890
01:20:01.120 --> 01:20:05.360
Steven, you need a lot of protein when you're pregnant because your baby is very protein.

891
01:20:06.080 --> 01:20:11.120
So here I have four chicken breasts, which is basically the amount of protein that I needed to

892
01:20:11.120 --> 01:20:17.920
eat every single day in the third trimester of pregnancy. Yeah, per day. Per day. It's a lot.

893
01:20:18.480 --> 01:20:24.000
So I would have four eggs in the morning. That's about 30 grams of protein. And then I would have to

894
01:20:24.000 --> 01:20:30.480
have three good servings of proteins represented by the three chicken breasts here. So I would have

895
01:20:30.480 --> 01:20:35.360
fish at lunch, probably a meter of chicken at dinner, and then a high protein snack. For example,

896
01:20:35.360 --> 01:20:39.760
Greek yogurt, I would add some way protein powder in there to make sure I was having enough protein.

897
01:20:39.760 --> 01:20:46.160
So you need about 1.6 grams of protein per kilo of body weight per day in the third trimester

898
01:20:46.160 --> 01:20:50.640
of pregnancy. And this is where most of us fall short because nobody's telling moms they eat

899
01:20:50.640 --> 01:20:56.160
more protein. So the result is that moms lose their muscle mass because the muscles are being broken

900
01:20:56.160 --> 01:21:02.320
down to give protein to the baby, but there's a limit to it. Like you can't, your muscle mass cannot

901
01:21:02.320 --> 01:21:09.440
compensate for a low protein diet. And this is why we see across all women's studies, low protein

902
01:21:09.440 --> 01:21:15.600
diets lead to smaller babies. And potentially this epigenetic programming of staying smaller throughout

903
01:21:15.600 --> 01:21:21.920
life. So protein is key. On that subject of muscle loss. Have you thought much about the

904
01:21:21.920 --> 01:21:28.160
impact of GLP ones, these sort of fat loss drugs during pregnancy? Oh, wow. I don't think they're

905
01:21:28.160 --> 01:21:33.760
recommended during pregnancy. I hope not because they prevent you from feeling your hunger hormones.

906
01:21:33.760 --> 01:21:39.520
They prevent you from feeling hungry. So pregnancy would be a very dangerous time to take these.

907
01:21:39.520 --> 01:21:44.640
Because during pregnancy, you need to eat a little bit more in terms of quantity and calories,

908
01:21:44.640 --> 01:21:48.640
but also you need to eat differently. So you need to learn about the protein, the calling,

909
01:21:48.640 --> 01:21:52.320
the omega-3s. And I think it would be quite dangerous to take a GLP one during pregnancy.

910
01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:58.080
Do you know the vinegar thing you talked about to me before where you said you have vinegar

911
01:21:58.080 --> 01:22:03.520
before eating something that's high in glucose? Do you recommend that for mothers as well?

912
01:22:03.520 --> 01:22:08.000
You can, but if you're going to do that, you need to make sure the vinegar is pasteurized.

913
01:22:08.000 --> 01:22:12.080
Because you want to make sure that during pregnancy, people are like only eat pasteurized foods,

914
01:22:12.080 --> 01:22:16.720
because you want to prevent any food contamination. So make sure you look on the back of the vinegar

915
01:22:16.720 --> 01:22:22.800
bottle and make sure it's pasteurized. Apple cider vinegar is usually not pasteurized. So do I recommend it?

916
01:22:25.280 --> 01:22:29.360
I think it's okay to do. Like vinegar is fine during pregnancy, especially if you really want

917
01:22:29.360 --> 01:22:34.080
like a cookie or muffin, it could be helpful to reduce速 glucose spike. But truly, pregnancy is

918
01:22:34.080 --> 01:22:39.360
kind of the moment where you need to be eating as little sugar as possible because it's impacting

919
01:22:39.440 --> 01:22:44.240
your baby's development. So ideally, you don't have to use the vinegar hack.

920
01:22:45.360 --> 01:22:49.760
You know, I've often seen people talk about like an obesity gene and stuff and ask if

921
01:22:49.760 --> 01:22:55.520
obesity is genetic. I guess one of the things I've kind of deduced from today is that the genetic

922
01:22:55.520 --> 01:23:03.760
component might be that during pregnancy, our mother had a certain lifestyle or diet and that

923
01:23:03.840 --> 01:23:11.680
increased our predisposition to having a different reaction to certain foods. Completely.

924
01:23:11.680 --> 01:23:15.920
And the studies show that. So in animal studies, when a mom has a lot of sugar during pregnancy,

925
01:23:15.920 --> 01:23:19.680
there's little epigenetic switches in the baby's DNA that encourage fat storage.

926
01:23:20.720 --> 01:23:26.560
Why is that? Because if you eat sugar, your baby's getting sugar in his bloodstream.

927
01:23:26.560 --> 01:23:31.680
And how does the baby protect himself from high sugar levels by turning the sugar into fat?

928
01:23:32.480 --> 01:23:35.840
So by eating a high sugar diet, you're sending a little postcard to your baby because like,

929
01:23:35.840 --> 01:23:40.160
hey, baby, you're going to be born into a world with a lot of sugar. So it'll become really good at

930
01:23:40.160 --> 01:23:45.920
turning that sugar into fat to protect yourself. And this is why we see across studies on tens of

931
01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:52.480
thousands of moms that the higher moms glucose levels during pregnancy, the more fat mass a baby

932
01:23:52.480 --> 01:23:58.800
is born with. Higher glucose during pregnancy, baby had to turn that glucose to fat to protect

933
01:23:58.800 --> 01:24:03.760
himself so he's born with more fat mass. And it doesn't just stop after birth. Studies show

934
01:24:03.760 --> 01:24:09.920
that this continues. Babies born to high glucose mothers are more likely to have obesity as children,

935
01:24:09.920 --> 01:24:15.680
as teenagers, and as adults. So the cycle continues. The programming of stirring a lot of fat

936
01:24:15.680 --> 01:24:18.800
continues, even though they no longer connect it to their mom's bloodstream.

937
01:24:20.400 --> 01:24:25.680
In the process of producing this book, did you think much about the evolutionary sort of backstory

938
01:24:25.680 --> 01:24:30.320
of where we came from and how our ancestors used to eat? Did you consider, I don't know, the

939
01:24:30.320 --> 01:24:35.040
orangutang where we share most of our DNA? I think it's like 19% of our DNA. Because if you look

940
01:24:35.040 --> 01:24:41.600
at sort of what we used to eat, meaning nutrient-rich organ meats, and not just like a chicken breast,

941
01:24:41.600 --> 01:24:45.920
which is just muscle, which is actually very poor nutrients, if you think about how we didn't

942
01:24:45.920 --> 01:24:51.600
used to eat processed foods, we had a diet that was much more conducive to baby having more of what

943
01:24:51.680 --> 01:24:57.760
he needed in the room. Today, our food system is failing us. We're all deprived of proper nutrition

944
01:24:57.760 --> 01:25:02.400
with what we're eating with all these ultra-processed foods, and that includes pregnant moms. So I

945
01:25:02.400 --> 01:25:08.320
tried to write a book that was going to help people navigate this very toxic food landscape to

946
01:25:09.120 --> 01:25:12.880
see these four simple things they could do to try to optimize a little bit with the baby

947
01:25:12.880 --> 01:25:17.360
was getting. But it's a lot to think about. And also being pregnant comes with, I think, innate

948
01:25:17.360 --> 01:25:21.840
pressure. Like, I felt pressure during pregnancy. I'm like, man, I'm making another human like,

949
01:25:22.400 --> 01:25:26.240
this is a lot. And then you're bombarded by messages online and Instagram, what to do,

950
01:25:26.240 --> 01:25:31.120
what not to do. And it feels like whatever you do, you feel guilty. So I'm hoping this book

951
01:25:31.120 --> 01:25:36.480
gives clear scientific evidence to help people navigate that pressure. But listen, I just want

952
01:25:36.480 --> 01:25:40.560
babies to be healthy. Like, I want my baby to be healthy. I want everybody's baby to be healthy.

953
01:25:40.560 --> 01:25:46.000
I want moms to feel as little stress as possible. And that's just the truth that I'm hoping that

954
01:25:46.000 --> 01:25:53.840
this book brings a little bit of reassurance and light in this complicated world-redivid.

955
01:25:55.200 --> 01:25:59.600
Stress is something we haven't talked about, but I guess that also is an important factor in this

956
01:25:59.600 --> 01:26:05.760
story of raising a healthy child. I was extremely stressed my entire pregnancy because of my

957
01:26:05.760 --> 01:26:10.960
miscarriage. Like, I probably the diamonds of my pregnancy with my son were the nine most anxious

958
01:26:10.960 --> 01:26:15.600
months of my life. And that's probably not very good for my baby. But hey, you do what you can,

959
01:26:15.600 --> 01:26:20.240
you know, I tried everything to reduce my stress levels. I just couldn't. I was so nervous about

960
01:26:20.240 --> 01:26:24.640
losing the pregnancy. You tried everything. Yeah, I mean, everything. I didn't take anxiety

961
01:26:24.640 --> 01:26:28.720
medication, but I was, you know, doing your good and breath work and working out and talking to

962
01:26:28.720 --> 01:26:33.120
my therapist and blah, blah, blah, but I was still anxious because they really didn't want to

963
01:26:33.120 --> 01:26:40.160
lose the pregnancy. And I was scared I would. More smiling. But you didn't. No, I didn't. Yeah.

964
01:26:40.160 --> 01:26:47.920
And you have a happy, healthy, little baby. Yeah. You'll have more babies. I would love to.

965
01:26:49.120 --> 01:26:54.160
But man, now it's like logistics. Okay, so I'm doing this project and that project and this work

966
01:26:54.160 --> 01:27:01.360
thing. So where can I find nine months plus six months where I can't really work in this crazy

967
01:27:01.360 --> 01:27:06.480
schedule that I create for myself? By the way, I just love my works. I'm always planning new things.

968
01:27:06.480 --> 01:27:11.200
When you look at products in the supermarket, I think we all have a different thing we go straight

969
01:27:11.200 --> 01:27:15.200
to on the label. You know, sometimes people go to calories, sometimes they look at protein,

970
01:27:15.200 --> 01:27:18.640
sometimes they're looking at, is it gluten free? Sometimes they look at the carbohydrates or the

971
01:27:18.640 --> 01:27:24.240
sugars. What's you look for? Ingredients. I go straight to the ingredients list. Yeah. Because in

972
01:27:24.240 --> 01:27:30.800
the ingredients list, things are ordered by weight. So the first ingredient is going to be what

973
01:27:30.800 --> 01:27:36.000
there is the most of in that food. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah. So they're ordered by weight. So

974
01:27:36.080 --> 01:27:40.800
if there's sugar or any other type of sweet thing in the first five ingredients, like

975
01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:49.840
dates, like fruit juice, like molasses, like orange syrup, whatever, I know that's a dessert.

976
01:27:50.720 --> 01:27:55.280
And so I put it in my mind, okay, this is a food for enjoyment for dessert. So if you look at

977
01:27:55.280 --> 01:28:01.200
the sardines ingredients, sardine olive oil, salt, natural flavor. So I would try to look for one

978
01:28:01.200 --> 01:28:04.880
that doesn't have natural flavor because I don't know what that means. I don't think it's necessary.

979
01:28:05.440 --> 01:28:09.040
But as you can see, there's no sugar in here. So this is not dessert. This sardine can is not

980
01:28:09.040 --> 01:28:14.320
dessert. Isn't that helpful? Because I often just look at the back of labels and I just

981
01:28:14.320 --> 01:28:18.800
go straight for the carbs and sugar level. Really? Yeah, I don't know why. I always look at the

982
01:28:18.800 --> 01:28:22.400
sugar level. I think it's because I've done keto for a lot of while. So it kind of depends,

983
01:28:22.400 --> 01:28:27.840
though, because if you're looking at like carbon sugars for a pack of table sugar versus,

984
01:28:29.200 --> 01:28:34.640
I don't know, like protein shake. Yeah, protein shake. I mean, it's a helpful place to look.

985
01:28:34.640 --> 01:28:38.640
That's also where I look because carbs, carbs and sugars will tell you a lot about what the

986
01:28:38.640 --> 01:28:43.280
food is going to do to you, but also it depends on the ratio, right? If there's a lot of protein also

987
01:28:43.280 --> 01:28:47.200
than having carbs in there is not going to create that big of a glucose spike. If it's a product

988
01:28:47.200 --> 01:28:52.320
that has just carbs in yes. A lot of people look at the calories. Yeah. The calories are a very

989
01:28:52.320 --> 01:28:58.320
bad way of assessing a food because two foods can have the exact same number of calories and be

990
01:28:58.320 --> 01:29:02.320
completely different in terms of what they do to your body. So an avocado and a donut,

991
01:29:03.120 --> 01:29:08.480
both 200 calories, a vastly different impact. It's like saying two books are the same because they

992
01:29:08.480 --> 01:29:14.880
have the same number of pages. Calories and pages tell you nothing about what's inside the food or

993
01:29:14.880 --> 01:29:19.520
inside the book. We have to learn about molecules, which is why your reflex of going to carbs and

994
01:29:19.520 --> 01:29:24.480
sugars is much smarter because you're seeing what's actually going to happen when you eat the food.

995
01:29:24.480 --> 01:29:30.320
For example, avocado and donut, the avocado, mostly fat fiber, going to keep your glucose levels

996
01:29:30.320 --> 01:29:34.240
nice and steady. You're going to give your food healthy fat, your body healthy fats. Donuts,

997
01:29:34.800 --> 01:29:41.440
mostly sugars is going to create a big glucose spike, inflammation, aging, crash, cravings,

998
01:29:41.440 --> 01:29:46.320
fatigue. It's going to have a vastly different impact on your body. So only looking at your diet

999
01:29:46.320 --> 01:29:53.360
to the lens of calories is a very bad idea because two diets can have the exact same number of calories

1000
01:29:53.360 --> 01:29:58.080
and you can have a completely different experience of life depending on what you're actually eating.

1001
01:29:59.040 --> 01:30:03.600
And what's your diet generally? Like what time do you eat in the morning? Do you do fasting or

1002
01:30:03.600 --> 01:30:09.280
anything like that? So no, I don't do fasting. So I'll have breakfast in the morning, always eggs.

1003
01:30:09.280 --> 01:30:16.240
Right now my current kick is a bacon and egg quesadilla. Super good. With coffee, always with

1004
01:30:16.240 --> 01:30:21.760
whole milk that I love. Then for lunch, I'll have a veggie starter if I'm having some carb-heavy lunch

1005
01:30:21.840 --> 01:30:27.520
or I'll have like a collard green chicken wrap with avocado and peppers.

1006
01:30:28.880 --> 01:30:33.280
After lunch, I always usually have something sweet because I love sugar. I love sugar. So I have

1007
01:30:33.280 --> 01:30:37.200
like some chocolate or a nice cookie that I had and then I'll try to move my body if I can.

1008
01:30:37.200 --> 01:30:41.920
This is the main thing I can get a bit difficult. And then the evening is when I have most carbs. I

1009
01:30:41.920 --> 01:30:49.360
love having rice or pasta. And it just makes me feel cozy at as early as I can. I'm very

1010
01:30:49.360 --> 01:30:54.240
un-french in that way. If I could have dinner at 5 p.m. I would. But I would have no more social

1011
01:30:54.240 --> 01:31:00.720
life. So maybe after my baby's in bed, so like 738. And are you having the day before that meal?

1012
01:31:01.600 --> 01:31:05.520
It depends. If I don't have a veggie starter, yeah. If I have a veggie starter, I'll put some

1013
01:31:05.520 --> 01:31:09.920
vinegar on the veggie starter. What else are you working on? What's next for you, Jesse?

1014
01:31:09.920 --> 01:31:14.640
One is mental health because I have a deep passion for mental health. It's the reason I got

1015
01:31:14.640 --> 01:31:20.960
into glucose in the first place. So I want to see if I can start putting together some mental

1016
01:31:20.960 --> 01:31:25.520
health hacks based on studies. There's something that's been in the back of my mind for a long time.

1017
01:31:25.520 --> 01:31:31.760
And I'm trying to find the time to go there. And I'm working on new types of content. I'm just

1018
01:31:31.760 --> 01:31:37.760
endlessly inspired by what I'm able to do and how lucky I am to like dream of something and be

1019
01:31:37.760 --> 01:31:45.040
able to put it together. So lots of surprises coming. As you know, we have a closing tradition

1020
01:31:45.040 --> 01:31:48.560
of this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next. I do know. And the question

1021
01:31:48.560 --> 01:31:54.160
left for you is if you could make the world a better place in one way, what would you change?

1022
01:31:54.720 --> 01:32:01.120
How could you make the most impact? I would maybe outlaw food marketing or maybe outlaw

1023
01:32:01.520 --> 01:32:09.920
sugary breakfast foods. Something about making very bad foods that are that look healthy,

1024
01:32:09.920 --> 01:32:16.560
making those illegal. It would be illegal to put any health claims on a product. For example,

1025
01:32:16.560 --> 01:32:20.560
no added sugars or vegan or gluten free. I would outlaw all of those to help people navigate a bit

1026
01:32:20.560 --> 01:32:27.040
better. Or if I could have like one magic wand to do one thing, maybe I would say no more fruit juice

1027
01:32:27.040 --> 01:32:32.400
in schools. Even that would be really cool. Nine months that count forever. How your pregnancy

1028
01:32:32.400 --> 01:32:38.800
diet shapes your baby's future? What is the closing message Jesse for pregnant couples and

1029
01:32:40.080 --> 01:32:48.320
anybody who is who is once conceived for themselves? The closing message is pregnancy is complicated.

1030
01:32:48.320 --> 01:32:54.240
The food system we live in is complicated and toxic. And this is a very simple four step trimester

1031
01:32:54.240 --> 01:32:59.440
by trimester plan that doesn't require a lot of money that is going to help you give your baby

1032
01:32:59.440 --> 01:33:04.640
the best foundation during development. Do you think there's things from a legislation perspective

1033
01:33:04.640 --> 01:33:09.040
that can be done? The most important is for the system, the support system around the moms

1034
01:33:09.840 --> 01:33:17.680
to help make it really easy for them to eat eggs and sardines and vegetables and healthy fats.

1035
01:33:17.680 --> 01:33:22.720
We have to all support moms because they're creating the next generation and they can't change

1036
01:33:22.720 --> 01:33:26.560
the food industry. Things have to shift around them to make it easier. I think it's also about

1037
01:33:26.560 --> 01:33:31.120
education. For example, Colleen, you know, I said 90% of moms are not getting enough. And when

1038
01:33:31.120 --> 01:33:37.520
people run surveys to see whether doctors are talking to moms about Colleen, only six percent

1039
01:33:37.520 --> 01:33:41.920
of doctors are talking to moms about Colleen during pregnancy. So there's also just a big

1040
01:33:41.920 --> 01:33:47.200
information gap somewhere. Things are broken in lots of different areas. And maybe it's like,

1041
01:33:47.200 --> 01:33:52.160
oh, moms can't handle it. Or maybe it's just that doctors are focused on very short-term,

1042
01:33:52.160 --> 01:33:56.960
like emergency things to manage. Maybe they don't have time to talk about nutrition. I don't know,

1043
01:33:56.960 --> 01:34:02.880
but there's a real gap. And I'm hoping this book will fill it. I'm hoping like, this is pie in

1044
01:34:02.880 --> 01:34:08.480
the sky. Like, why don't we prescribe nine months that count forever to every parent that gets

1045
01:34:08.480 --> 01:34:14.160
pregnant. This will be a very good nutrition guide for them and very simple. I have many people in

1046
01:34:14.160 --> 01:34:18.880
my life that are currently pregnant. People that are very, very close to me. And it's funny because

1047
01:34:18.880 --> 01:34:23.040
you hear the conversations they're having. And it does kind of sometimes feel like horoscopes and

1048
01:34:23.040 --> 01:34:29.520
guessing. No, that's to people that love horoscopes. But it does feel a little bit sort of pie in

1049
01:34:29.520 --> 01:34:33.920
the sky. What's your sign? Yeah, I know fucking that. You don't know your sign. I'll let go. Okay,

1050
01:34:33.920 --> 01:34:40.160
okay. People play, I knew it was a fair game. I'm not really I'm Sagittarius. But it is. It's

1051
01:34:40.800 --> 01:34:44.560
it's confusing because there's so much information out there. So it's wonderful to have a manual

1052
01:34:44.560 --> 01:34:50.080
like this that demystifies an area where there's just so much information coming at you. And there's

1053
01:34:50.080 --> 01:34:56.880
so much conflicting information. And your book is so importantly based on scientific consensus

1054
01:34:56.880 --> 01:35:02.480
and facts and studies versus just experience alone. And I think that's why it's so important.

1055
01:35:03.280 --> 01:35:10.240
Whenever the time comes that me and my fiance are fortunate enough hopefully to have our own

1056
01:35:10.240 --> 01:35:15.360
baby, we're both going to reread this book because it's hard to find books on this subject that

1057
01:35:15.360 --> 01:35:20.720
are so succinct that break it down stage by stage. And you as an author, you'll have a wonderful

1058
01:35:20.720 --> 01:35:25.760
way of making things accessible. Even in this conversation, I don't need to ask you to define

1059
01:35:25.760 --> 01:35:29.280
complicated words. And that's reflected in all the work that you do and all everything that

1060
01:35:29.280 --> 01:35:33.440
you write. So I highly recommend. Great book to buy for someone as a gift if you've just found

1061
01:35:33.440 --> 01:35:36.720
out that someone in your life is pregnant, but also a great book to buy for you and your partner

1062
01:35:36.720 --> 01:35:40.320
if you're going through your own pregnancy journey or thinking about getting pregnant soon.

1063
01:35:40.320 --> 01:35:45.680
It's also a good book to buy for your kids for all the grandparents to be out there. It's a

1064
01:35:45.680 --> 01:35:50.320
good book to buy for your kids if they're going to have a baby soon. Amen. Just so thank you.

1065
01:35:50.320 --> 01:35:53.200
Thank you so much for having me back Stephen. It's always a pleasure.