Ten Things Lean People Assume About Weight Loss

James Hill:
Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

Holly Wyatt:
And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

James Hill:
Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

James Hill:
Ready for the “And” factor?

Holly Wyatt:
Let's dive in.

James Hill:
Here we go.

Holly Wyatt:
Have you ever gotten advice about weight loss from someone that made total sense? The advice made total sense, but somehow it didn't work for you at all?

James Hill:
Ah, and maybe Holly, you've given advice that worked perfectly for you and couldn't understand why someone else struggled to follow it.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. Here's what Jim and I have been thinking about lately. What if the problem isn't the advice? It's not what you said or it's not what you heard. What if it's the body you're in?

James Hill:
Because the truth is that not all bodies experience hunger in the same way. And not all brains experience food in the same way. And not all metabolisms respond in the same way.

Holly Wyatt:
And if you've never lived in a body that fights you, if you've never been in a body that was struggling in terms of weight loss or maintaining a weight loss, you may not realize what you don't know.

James Hill:
And the reverse is also true.

Holly Wyatt:
If you struggled with your weight your whole life, you may not know what it feels like to live in a body that doesn't. And if you've lived in a body that doesn't, you don't know what it feels like to live in a body that does.

James Hill:
So, Holly, I think we've got a fun episode today. And it's not about who's right.

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly. This isn't a blame game. This isn't to say people who haven't struggled with their weight need to think differently or people who have struggled with their weight need to think a certain way. It's about something much more interesting, how your physiology shapes what you believe is true.

James Hill:
Wow, that's really interesting.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, so I like how we're going to approach this episode. And I think this conversation matters more right now than it ever has. And I think people can get it right now because of the new GLP-1s. Because for the first time, these new generation medications, we're starting to see something clearly, that when biology changes, your experience changes.

James Hill:
Yeah, Holly, and people are saying things like, “I didn't realize how much I was thinking about food, and I didn't realize it could feel this quiet.”

Holly Wyatt:
Right, new experiences that they've never experienced before are happening. And that's a big moment because it reveals something uncomfortable. When you've been assuming that everyone experiences hunger, cravings, weight loss, the same way.

James Hill:
And, Holly, they don't.

Holly Wyatt:
When you have that realization. So today we're going to walk through 10 things. You know how I love a good list. It keeps me organized, okay?

James Hill:
Oh, yeah. 10 is a good number. We sometimes get through that.

Holly Wyatt:
I like a good list. We're going to walk through 10 things that often sound true, especially if weight loss has never been a struggle, but don't hold up across different bodies, different metabolisms, different physiologies.

James Hill:
So, Holly, do you think anybody's listening to us that doesn't have a problem with weight?

Holly Wyatt:
I know. I know. But maybe, maybe.

James Hill:
But to understand how they think may be helpful as well, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Right. We're going to do it from the standpoint of 10 things people who are lean think they know but don't hold true. But you can reverse it. This isn't about thin people being wrong. This is about realizing what feels obvious in your body. But may not be universal. So it goes either direction.

James Hill:
Gotcha. I think that's going to be really interesting to talk about.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. I don't want all the people who don't struggle with their weight or maintaining a lean body state to come after us, Jim, because they could.

James Hill:
No, but they need to understand that not everybody feels the same way as them. I think sometimes someone that's never struggled with weight, like can't even understand the concept of food noise. It makes no sense to them because they never experienced it. I think understanding that, in fact, some people do experience it. Hopefully, that's going to be useful.

Holly Wyatt:
And even though we're writing it from that angle, we got to take one angle, people who have struggled their weight, people who are living with obesity, they can have the same, what I call a shakabuku, when you realize your experience in your body is not the same experience someone else has. And that's going to lead them to think about it differently.

James Hill:
And that really fits with what we've been saying all along. There's no one size that fits all. People are different. Their bodies are different. Their brains are different. It doesn't mean good or bad. It just means different. And if we want to provide the maximum help to people, we have to understand that help isn't going to look the same for everybody.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So it translates into what we do. But when you've had your own experience, you almost can't imagine that it's different from someone else because you've lived it and it's so real to you. So it's hard to say, well, this is what everybody feels because this is what you felt and this is what you experienced. But when you start realizing that's not the case, everything opens up. There's so many different things that you may have thought were this way, which you're like, well, it's this way for me, but it's not this way for everybody. So first one on the list, I'm going to have you take it first. Once again, these are 10 things that people who are lean think they know because they've experienced, but don't always hold true for everybody. Number one.

James Hill:
I'll start out. Number one is willpower, Holly. There's some people that just, just a little willpower, just don't have dessert or just eat a little bit. What's so hard about that? Just go to the gym. I mean, come on. It's really, you have willpower, you're going to do it.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah.

James Hill:
They're probably people that that's their experience. They have a lot of willpower. They do it. It works. They probably also have good genetics, but it seems to them like willpower is the answer.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. The thing that they think they know is it's just about willpower. If you have enough willpower, it's going to be okay. You can do it if you just try harder, put in more effort. And that's something they feel, someone who's maybe hasn't struggled with their weight or is on the leaner side, they feel that's really true. And they feel it's true because for them, a little bit of willpower may have worked really well.

James Hill:
But here's the problem, that people's brains differ in how they perceive hunger and society and reward pathways. So you may be one of those lean people and you get a signal to stop eating. Boom, it works. You're fine. Everything's great. But what we know now is that differs. So the effort in using willpower differs in different bodies. It might be easy for one person to say, “I just use willpower.” For the other person, their reward pathways, their satiety pathways are so different that using willpower is way harder than for other people.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. And so the biology is different. And someone who maybe doesn't struggle as much maybe does have to, does use a little bit of willpower. So they're using some willpower. So they say, “You know what, I am, I'm saying no to the cookies” or I'm saying “I'm stopping watching my portion sizes. And having willpower on my portions or having willpower in different areas. And they are, they are having that effort. They are making that effort and it's working. The differences that may not be clear is for some people, that amount of willpower, that amount of effort won't work because the biology is much stronger.

James Hill:
So if your biology is maybe unfavorable, it takes tremendously more willpower than someone whose biology is a little more favorable. And I think the GLP-1 meds, Holly, illustrate that so effectively because people experience that increase in satiety, a decrease in hunger that they never did before. Biology is important. It's not just about willpower for everyone.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. I've talked to people who say, “I'm at a healthy weight because I do these things, Holly. I have willpower. I have effort. I make effort toward this. It's not like it doesn't happen without any effort.” And I think, and it's true. They are choosing to eat a little bit less or do some, making some different food choices. But what they don't understand is the background, the physiology is different for them that's allowing that to work better. So that's key, I think.

James Hill:
So would you say the new meds make it level the playing field for willpower? So people that had to use a lot before now can succeed using less.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes.

James Hill:
They're more like thin people in that sense.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes. It shows that there's different pressures that then some of them require more but if you take away that physiological change then the willpower works. It has worked. All right.

James Hill:
Okay. What's two, Holly?

Holly Wyatt:
Number two is one of my favorites. Remember these are things that people who are lean may say or think they know that may not always hold true. So i've heard this a lot. If you just eat less and move more it will work. You'll lose weight, And I think everybody maybe has, you know, a friend that says this, “You know what, this is what I do. If I gain a couple pounds, I just eat a little bit less. I just move a little bit more and those couple pounds come off. It takes care. That will work.” I know I've said this before. My ex-husband, whenever the scale would go up a little bit, he would just say, “Oh, I just think about eating a little bit less. And that will work.” And I was always like, “That just doesn't work for me. I wish that would work for me, but it doesn't.” But I can get how it worked for him. So he didn't understand why it wouldn't work for me because he had a physiology where even just thinking about eating a little bit less produced a result.

James Hill:
I would say that, you know, in some ways this makes sense to say eat less and move more, but it's absolutely not helpful at all to say that. I mean, it's one of those things that, yeah, if you eat less and move more, you know, you're negative energy balance, but that's not the real life. For people who struggle with this, that's not helpful.

Holly Wyatt:
For people who struggle with this.

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
But the point is, there are people who that works, you know?

James Hill:
[11:22] Absolutely.

Holly Wyatt:
It's their experience. So you can start to see how, if that's been your experience, how you can't understand how that wouldn't work for someone else.

James Hill:
Yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
And that's really what we're trying, this awareness that we're all different and that we need to not only be careful, but recognize my personal experience is not everyone's personal experience. And it doesn't mean that someone else is doing it wrong or not doing it right or anything like that.

James Hill:
So again, for some people, that's fairly easy to do. Just eat a little less and move more and everything works out. For other people, it's tough to do that.

Holly Wyatt:
So I would argue with what you just said. I think for some people, that's fine to say that if it works, then it's okay. It's a simple thing that works.

James Hill:
It's a good strategy if that works for you and you can do it, fine.

Holly Wyatt:
I'm not saying that's wrong.

James Hill:
But for a lot of people, that's not helpful because they struggle with how to do that. They get it. People understand that. To lose weight, you have to be a negative energy. It's not that people don't understand it, but for some people, that's not easy just to do, just to eat less and move more.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think for many, many years before the medications, that's been, okay, just do that. It works. Just do that. And the new generation GLP-1s have really shined a light on that. All right, number three.

James Hill:
Number three is a good one. I just listen to my body and I stop when I'm full. So there's been a lot of effort to say, “Hey, just pay attention to these natural signals. Your body is telling you you're full and you need to stop eating. And we just get rid of all this other noise and focus on your body's signals and everything will be fine.” What do you think, Holly?

Holly Wyatt:
Okay, this is personally one of my pet peeves because people used to tell me this all the time. It kind of goes with the intuitive eating. Just eat what your body tells you you need. Just, and then stop. Just this intuitive eating movement. And for some people, maybe that works really well, but you know what happens when I do that, Jim?

James Hill:
What?

Holly Wyatt:
My body says, eat chips, Holly. Eat chips. Eat chips. It will tell me to eat a lot of chips because I love chips, right? Or whatever your chips may be. But for me, it does not work. My body has that food noise, has me eating more. And so just listening or intuitive eating or stopping when I'm full, my body has a different set point for that. That doesn't work. That it may work for some other people. But people telling me that's what I need to do frustrated me.

James Hill:
Regulation of food intake is so complex. You have signals all along. You have short-term, long-term signals from your biology. Now you add on top of this the environmental stuff, the environment. You walk by the bakery and smell the cookies and everything. So this is not simple, this regulation of food intake and simply saying, listen to your body. Maybe for some people that works, Holly. They say, “Oh, I'm not hungry. My body tells me when I'm hungry.” But for a lot of people, it's not that simple.

Holly Wyatt:
There's a complex piece to this because you do want to listen to your body. I mean, I do talk about make sure you slow down and feel when you're starting to get the signals of fullness. Really listen to maybe what your body's telling you can be an important piece. And we do that in State of Slim and some of my other programs. But to say that's all you need, that if you simply ate what your body told you to eat and stopped when you were full, if you didn't do anything else, that that would solve the problem is too simple and not true for everybody. So that's where it gets complex because there's little pieces in here that's true. Pay attention when you're full. Don't eat past your fullness.

James Hill:
Again, for some people, that works. For a lot of people, that alone is not a successful strategy.

Holly Wyatt:
Put it in there, but realize your body may be having signals. Not everyone gets the same signal.

James Hill:
And again, part of how the new weight loss medications may work is to get rid of the external stuff to allow you to do that more. So they may help you do that.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. So you can now feel that and interpret that.

James Hill:
Get rid of the food noise. Get rid of the environmental stuff. And now it's easier to do that.

Holly Wyatt:
I agree. I agree. All right.

James Hill:
[16:06] What's next?

Holly Wyatt:
Number four. And remember, these are things that thin people, people who are lean, think they know that we're just discussing. So number four is cravings are just a lack of discipline. They don't really, cravings are just, you can override a craving. You know, it's just something that you feel.

James Hill:
Kind of relates back to the willpower. Just ignore that craving. Holly wants chips. Just ignore it, Holly. You don't really need chips. Just forget about your cravings.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. So I have, and I do have some discipline over my cravings, but they're pretty dang strong. And they are related, a lot of cravings are related to your physiology, to your biology.

James Hill:
Do you think that's part of food noise, the cravings?

Holly Wyatt:
I do. I do. I think there's lots of reasons for cravings. That's not just the only reason for cravings. And sometimes you can crave things for things that maybe aren't physiologic. There can be reasons you crave things. But in general, I don't think we should think of them as lack of discipline. But for others, I can see why they say that. They're like, okay, I have a craving and I just don't act on it. I just don’t give in.

James Hill:
I think some people have tried to do for a long time is to overcome physiology with behavior. So it's sort of a competition. You have this strong physiology that says eat and behaviorally, can you overcome that? And I think what we've learned over time, this physiology is very, very powerful. Cravings are a physiological signal, and it's difficult to say, just ignore it, overcome it.

Holly Wyatt:
So we're learning that. And at the same time, Jim, I do believe there are behavioral things you can do to lessen it.

James Hill:
But it's not behavior competing with physiology. Can we figure out a way where behavior complements physiology?

Holly Wyatt:
Exactly. That's exactly why we think it's not one or the other. And I'm a little bit nervous with the new GLP-1 era that I call it. We're going to swing all the way over to biology and physiology, which we needed to swing that way. We needed that. That's what changed everything. But it can be too much because you can do some behaviors that can be helpful. So for instance, for me, I need to try to avoid the insulin glucose, the glucose spike, and then the insulin spike because I know that that's going to affect my appetite and even my cravings. And so there's behaviors I can do to prevent that spike from happening or lessen that spike. So there's an example of where behaviors can impact physiology and physiology is impacting behaviors.

James Hill:
And it's why I think the new weight loss medications are fabulous, but they aren't going to do everything for you. They aren't the magic bullet where you take the shot or the pill and you don't have to worry about anything. In fact, what they do is to allow you to be able to do the behaviors better to be synergistic with the medications. It's an and, not an or.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So I don't want people to leave this conversation and think, “Oh, I can't do anything about my physiology. The drugs or the medications are the only thing that might impact it.” I think it's both ways. And that's why I love thinking about this is, yes, physiology drives behaviors and makes behaviors and the experience different for every person. But you can do some things that will impact physiology. You can do something and see that the glucose-insulin curve changes when you do that and measure appetite or cravings and things change. It's bidirectional. So once again, it's complex, but it's not either or. And when people stand up and say, this is my experience and this is the right experience because I've experienced it, which makes sense. You've experienced it. You know it to be true. That's when we get into trouble.

James Hill:
Yeah, I think the future here is going to be figuring out ways that medications and behavior work together, and that's going to be different in different people. Some people may need medications chronically, others may not, but it's not one or the other. It's the combination. And now the medications are a wonderful new tool. Let's combine it with the other tools we have for long-term success.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. All right. We're on the same page there. Number five, I don't think about food that much. Why do you?

James Hill:
Yeah, so this comes back to a lot of the food noise things. Some people, the concept of food noise is foreign to them. They don't understand it. Food noise, what's that? Yeah, I eat and there's food, but, you know, I don't obsess over it. And other people are saying it's like this radio in the background that's always encouraging me to think about food and eat. Different brains are wired differently.

Holly Wyatt:
And you can imagine if you've never had food noise or the food noise is turned way down, it's not on there all the time, or you could easily drown out the thoughts about food. You can imagine how that's been your life. That's been what you've experienced. And therefore, you have no awareness, no understanding, because you haven't experienced what it would feel like to have that noise, that voice constantly going in your head. And I want to point out that if you haven't experienced it, that's not, it's not a bad thing. I mean, that's not, that's normal behavior when you haven't experienced something not to understand it as well.

James Hill:
I totally agree. And I think people who have never experienced it have a hard time even understanding what it is.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. We now know that people who have experienced it that thought that was normal, the voice that thought, so he says, when are you going to eat? What are you going to eat? Playing what you're going to eat. You know those people that like eat one meal and you're already thinking about the next meal. The meds took that away. So they were like, “Oh, this is what maybe someone who doesn't have food noise feels like. This could be what it's like in their brain, in their body, in their experience.”

James Hill:
Yeah. So that's a good one. All right. Number six, Holly. Weight gains happen slowly. You would notice if that happens, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. How do you get 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight?

James Hill:
Come on, Holly.

Holly Wyatt:
Take care of it two or three pounds at a time. Yeah.

James Hill:
In many cases, this is so gradual. We did some research years ago suggesting that the weight gain in the population occurs due to an extra 15 or 20 calories a day over time. So it's this subtle difference. You aren't going out and gorging and eating 1,000 extra calories. It's this gradual thing. You move a little less. You eat a little more. Or you look at the scale, it's up a pound or two and a couple more pounds. Then you quit weighing yourself and it just happens. And then 10 years later, it's like, “Whoa, 20, 25 pounds. Where did that come from?”

Holly Wyatt:
And I think you're right. This is why I do believe everybody should be weighing themselves every morning, just because it gives you that information. Because it can creep up. It doesn't happen all at once. And so just little bitty changes over time, you don't notice it necessarily. I think weighing on the scale can help show it to you. I also think that people who don't struggle with their weight, and I'll call these weight stable individuals. We know people like this who stay within the same two to three pounds. Now, it's not the majority of the population, Jim, but…

James Hill:
It's a smaller and smaller number.

Holly Wyatt:
A smaller and smaller number that are weight stable and their body is helping them do that naturally. I can understand how they don't get it. They're like, my weight stays within two or three pounds.

James Hill:
And I don't have to do much to make that happen. It's sort of my body's doing it for myself. What you aren't paying attention. If you were paying attention, your body would do it for you. Not true.

Holly Wyatt:
Because your experience has been that. And so you're like.

James Hill:
That's right. You think everybody is that way. It's a natural thing.

Holly Wyatt:
Yep. All right. We want to go to the next one?

James Hill:
Go to the next one.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. If you exercise, the weight will take care of itself. I've had a lot of people telling me this. I exercise a lot. Now, this is going to get into kind of what we, you know, this metabolic flexibility. We're big physical activity exercise people. So I've had people tell me, if you would just exercise, Holly, you wouldn't struggle with your weight at all. What do you think, Jim?

James Hill:
No, I wish that were true. You and I both believe that exercise is critical, primarily for weight loss maintenance. You and I run across people who are overweight and they exercise a lot. We call them people that are good at the maintenance behavior, but they got to get the weight off. And the exercise, in most cases, won't do that. Now, if you did a tremendous amount of exercise, you could lose weight. The reality is, if you want to lose weight, the realistic way you do it is by eating less. However, exercise becomes important in keeping the weight off. And so, again, we talk about the benefit of exercise is both burning more calories. You can eat more without gaining weight, which is not trivial. And then an even bigger one is it sort of optimizes your metabolism. And again, this happens to different degrees. For some people, I believe you can exercise a little bit, and man, you optimize your metabolism. For other people, you know, genetically, your metabolism isn't on the optimum side. You got to do a lot of exercise to maintain it, and it's still not as good as someone who's genetically more fortunate. So exercise is critically important, but it differs for different people.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, I think we believe in doing the physical activity, doing the exercise does help with weight management for sure.

James Hill:
You got to do the intake part as well.

Holly Wyatt:
But for everybody, it's not the same. And it's not just as simple as if you exercise, the weight just takes care of itself.

James Hill:
That's right. It's important. It's part of the puzzle, but it's not the only thing. Just like the meds. We want to highly figure out one thing, one thing that works, and it's not that way. It's many things and it's different for different people.

Holly Wyatt:
And unfortunately, we tend to study it that way. And that's part of the reason, even in the science world, where we tend to get kind of locked into one thing because we tend to study it and control for other things and all the above. Here's one thing, Jim, too. And this could be another episode for us. You know, we now have the GLP-1s that have kind of shown us this different physiology for thinking about food and satiety and hunger. There's data out there, and we could have someone on the show that says people feel different about exercise.

James Hill:
Yeah. They clearly feel different about food, right? We know that. Why wouldn't they feel different about exercise? It makes total sense.

Holly Wyatt:
That some people get the runner's high, that it feels really good, and some people never experience that. That there's a physiology in the enjoyment or even the ability to exercise and how your body responds. So there's probably a parallel that we can't see yet. So when taking a drug to say, oh, this is what people who loved exercise feel like when they exercise.

James Hill:
Well, again, these GLP-1 medications affect these pathways that are involved in pleasure and reward and so forth. Why wouldn't they affect how exercise makes you feel? For some people, exercise just makes you feel so great. For others, not. So I'd be shocked if the medications didn't alter that in some way.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, I didn't think about that. So maybe the GLP-1s are having an impact on that. I don't know if we have data on that.

James Hill:
And I don't know if it's negative or positive. You could say on one thing, they may be blunting the satisfaction people get from exercise. We just don't know.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. I was thinking like even new medications that are in a different category, doing something different. And therefore, you would say, okay, my experience with, you know, exercises, I go out and I do it, but I never, I never enjoy it. Here's a pill. Now you take this and it's like, oh yeah, I feel differently.

James Hill:
It's making behavior work with physiology rather than trying to use behavior to oppose physiology.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. We got another episode there because there's research on that. I don't know if you remember, but at University of Colorado, there were some people working on that.

James Hill:
Yeah. All right. Let's finish this off, Holly.

Holly Wyatt:
All right.

James Hill:
Next. Once you lose the weight, you maintain it. And unfortunately, this has been kind of a widespread belief of all I have to do is get the weight off and then I'm okay. Some way I don't have to pay that much attention. Once I get to the weight I want, it's going to be easy to maintain that. And the sad news is in some ways, it's more of a challenge once you lose weight to keep it off because losing weight, you're in negative energy balance, you're eating less. Now you got to match things up and you got to do it forever. We always talk about weight loss is kind of a temporary situation. You can avoid parties and you can avoid buying the stuff you like and you can go to the gym for short term. Weight loss maintenance is forever. You have to figure out a way to live your life that works. And as you've convinced me over and over, you can't be hanging on by your fingernails. It's got to be a lifestyle that is satisfying as well as effective in keeping your weight off.

James Hill:
So no, once you lose the weight, you've lost the weight, but you haven't solved the problem. You now face a different challenge.

Holly Wyatt:
But you could understand someone who hasn't struggled with their weight would think that. Lose the weight and just maintain it. The difference in the physiology of losing weight and of maintaining weight wouldn't be important to them because they've never had to do that. So in their mind, they're like, yeah, just lose it and maintain it. So understanding that difference would be different for different people because of that.

James Hill:
And again, I guess the message you and I have been shouting from the mountaintops for years and years and years is losing weight is different from maintaining weight, requires different behaviors, different information, and as a society, we've been focused so much on losing weight that we haven't focused on weight loss maintenance. And I think we're at that point where the future is understanding weight loss maintenance. That's where we are right now. And I think we're going to see research turning away from weight loss to focus on weight loss maintenance.

Holly Wyatt:
I hope we see that. And I also want the listeners out there who do struggle with their weight, who have had this experience, to recognize it's important to move to weight loss maintenance. I know sometimes the tendency is like, oh, let me just get the weight off and not deal with weight loss maintenance. If I could just kind of tell them one thing is really put as much effort into figuring out what's going to work for you for weight loss maintenance as you do for the weight loss?

James Hill:
You and I talk to people who start weight loss journeys and ask them, what's your goal? And most of the time is to get the weight off. And they haven't thought beyond that. My goal is to reach this number on the scale. What then? And it's like, well, I'll figure it out when I get there.

Holly Wyatt:
Right.

James Hill:
You really need to think about the long term at the beginning And with the medications, Holly, for most people, you will lose the weight. You will.

Holly Wyatt:
And this is what's really changing things.

James Hill:
For the first time. It's going to work. Take the meds. You're going to get there. Now start thinking about how you're going to stay there.

Holly Wyatt:
Begin with the end in mind. I tell everybody that. Let's begin with the end in mind. So, all right. Last one.

James Hill:
What's last?

Holly Wyatt:
This is a good one. What should work for me should work for you.

James Hill:
Of course. Everybody's like me, Holly. If they would just do what I do, everything would be fine.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think when people say this or think this, it's with good intention. They're sharing. This works for me. I'm going to share it.

James Hill:
I'm going to help you, Holly, because I know what works because it works for me. Just do this and it'll work for you, too.

Holly Wyatt:
So I think the intention is good. This has worked. I'm going to share it. And that's what we have out there with the social media world. Lots of people sharing what's worked for them. And that can be helpful because something that did work for somebody else could work for you. But when you start to say, this is the way. If this doesn't work for you, it means you're not doing it right, or you're not putting enough effort in, or something like that, then you're missing the whole picture.

James Hill:
Yeah. And that message that different people require different strategies is not out there, especially on social media. It's “Here's the way to do it. I have the answer. Here's the way. Works for everybody.” It's a little more complex to come out and say, well, this might work for some people. This might work for others. We love these simple solutions. The problem is when it comes to weight management, these simple solutions are almost always wrong or incomplete. It's complex.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think part of this is people want it to be simple. So the people out there looking for solutions were saying, “Okay, I want a simple solution.” The people who are giving the simple solutions are giving what worked for them. And in their minds, this works. It's simple.

James Hill:
Oh, they believe it. They believe this is the answer.

Holly Wyatt:
So it's not them trying to pull, you know, do something shady. It's just not what the true, what's really going on, that everybody's body is different and that everybody has massive biological variability. And that you may need more than one thing or a combination of things. That it's not one thing and something that works for one person may completely not work for the next person.

James Hill:
Wow. That's our message. And I think you said it. The biological variability we're beginning to understand is huge. And understanding why not everybody responds the same. I mean, in medicine now, everything is precision medicine. As I understand you, Holly, I'm able to give you programs and interventions that work for you. Those might not work for me. That's where we're going. We're not there yet, but I think it's the understanding that it's not going to be one size fits all.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, so that's where we're going. That precision medicine, that's where we're going. But I think even now in healthcare, we still tend to assume the solution is simple because a lot of times it feels simple in our own body. So a doctor, a physician has had an experience where this worked and it was pretty simple and it's hard to not try to translate and to say this works for everybody, you know? So the idea of precision nutrition, I think is something that's coming, but isn't fully out there yet.

James Hill:
All right, you wanna do some listener questions?

Holly Wyatt:
Let's do it. We pick some listener questions that I think fit with this topic.

James Hill:
Okay.

Holly Wyatt:
All right, this is good one, Jim. How do I explain this to a family member who thinks it's just willpower? So you have a family member who maybe doesn't struggle with weight and you're trying to explain this concept, what we've been talking about.

James Hill:
Simple. You make them listen to this podcast.

Holly Wyatt:
Simple. It's simple.

James Hill:
No. I think, you know, this idea of biological variability, not one size fits all, you know, the things we covered, you can use that to talk to your family members, to help them understand that people are different. And for some people, they have to work a lot harder to do the same amount of willpower that's easier for other people. And just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for me.

Holly Wyatt:
Sometimes with these individuals, it can work if you can think of a different area that this is also true in. I mean, we were talking about it in terms of weight loss and body weight regulation, but different physiology is true for everything, for many different conditions and things. So they may struggle with something else, not their weight. And sometimes it's easier to go in and say, “Okay, I don't have the same physiology as you do for this thing.” And so sometimes that can help them think, “Okay, wait a minute, I get it for this thing. So let me apply it to weight where it may not be difficult for me. It may be easy to have willpower.” That can be helpful sometimes.

James Hill:
Okay, Holly, if my body fights back, am I stuck?

Holly Wyatt:
No, no. I think you have to have the awareness of what's going on, but I don't think you're stuck. I do think there's behaviors that can impact it. And that's where we've been really talking about. It's both. And I am a little concerned that the meds are going to pull us too far in that other direction.

James Hill:
Behavior, willpower play a role. It's just that we understand not everybody approaches that the same way.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. I'll do one more, and then we're going to do vulnerability. Can metabolism really be that different between people?

James Hill:
Absolutely.

Holly Wyatt:
100%.

James Hill:
Can be different in energy expenditure. Someone can spend 100 calories a day in movement. Somebody else can spend 1,000 calories a day in movement. Your metabolic flexibility is such that when two people overeat, the one who's metabolically flexible may store less of that energy as fat, expend more as energy. And those differences can be very, very important. So, yes.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. I would even take it to a next level. I would almost think of your metabolism as a thumbprint, that yours is not like anybody else's.

James Hill:
There's probably a normal curve on metabolism. If you're fortunate, you have this fast metabolism. It's hard for you to gain weight. If you're unfortunate, you may have more of a sluggish metabolism that makes it easier for you to gain weight. But it still depends on your behavior interacting with your metabolism.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, we know there are, I think, thousands of genes and combinations of genes that are impacting our metabolism. And that's where I kind of like to think of it as a thumbprint. Nobody probably has the exact same metabolism as you have. And therefore, you're going to respond differently. I say, yes, your metabolism is playing a role, but it is not the only thing. You can impact it. You can work with it. So I don't want people to say, “Oh, I have this metabolism that is really thrifty and really makes it hard for me to lose weight. I mean, and therefore I can do nothing.” No, no. But understanding that you're different and it may take different strategies, to me, is critical.

James Hill:
You can optimize your metabolism. You can make it as good as it's genetically possible for you to do. So you do have some control.

Holly Wyatt:
All right, Jim. Vulnerability.

James Hill:
Holly, when did it really click for you that not everyone experiences hunger the same way?

Holly Wyatt:
I remember the exact moment and this happened to me and I was so happy that it happened because it changed how I thought about things. This was back when Fen-phen was, we were prescribing Fen-phen, which later there was a side effect with Fen-phen and we do not prescribe Fen-phen anymore. Luckily that side effect then resolved. So it ended up being a big problem, but we don't use that combination anymore. But I was really struggling with my weight. I was in my fellowship, my endocrinology fellowship, so pretty early in my career, and I was prescribed this medication by an endocrinologist to help with my weight. I took it, and for the first time, I believe that medication also got rid of food noise. We didn't call it that, but the experience I have is I'm like, “Oh, I now know how it feels to be able to stop with a reasonable portion.” And I had never felt that. And I remember in that moment, I can remember sitting there eating something one morning and thinking, I can stop right now. I had had a yogurt and I'm like, I'm satisfied. I feel good at this moment because of the medication. And suddenly I'm like, wow, other people may feel like this all the time.

Holly Wyatt:
And I suddenly said, I get it now how they don't understand how I can't stop because right now it's fairly easy for me to stop at this portion and feel good and not think about what I'm going to eat, you know, an hour from now. And I suddenly was like, “Wow, what if this is how other people feel and how they couldn't possibly understand how I felt?” And that's when I think I even told you later is I want a pill to give the people who don't understand something so they can experience short term what it is to be in my body all the time. So that was key for me because it made me think about this whole field differently. And it impacted programs and everything that I did after that point.

James Hill:
All right. One more.

Holly Wyatt:
Yep. Let me give you a vulnerability. Let's see. What do you think what's the part of what we've been talking about that is hardest for people to accept especially maybe people who don't struggle with their weight. What do you think might be hard for them to accept?

James Hill:
Oh, that's a tough one, Holly. For people that struggle with their weight, I would say one of the things that I don't know that it's hard to accept, but people don't think about it, is they think of weight as separate from the rest of their lives. And you and I know that it's so intertwined. It's like this idea of my goal to hit the number on the scale. And when I hit the number on the scale, life's going to be beautiful. And I think what we have been talking about is this is a wonderful opportunity to help people understand their goals need to be more than weight loss. And weight loss can be part of it. We're big fans of weight loss, but I wish we would use this idea of helping people manage their weight with also integrating that we help them increase their quality of life because that's what people really want.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, that is exactly, I agree with you 100%. And even the programs I'm doing now, I'm like, okay, we're going to set a weight goal, but we need to set another goal, a goal that hooks together. When you take weight and put it out here by itself, it doesn't work. It's got to be hooked to your life.

James Hill:
And what we've realized, it's okay. Let's take people that start with weight goals and let's work with them on that. Don't try to tell them right away. Don't do a weight goal. But use the opportunity of while they're working on their weight goal to help them understand other goals.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, Jim, I try to tell them right away because that's just how I am.

James Hill:
They won't listen.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, they know, but I try to have them. I don't take it away. It's an and situation. I say we can we're going to set the weight goal. We're going to hit the weight goal I'm not going to take that away from you and, Let's set another goal that fits with that. That's how I kind of approach it. And I do think that that is critical because we have to start integrating it more and understanding how it fits in the bigger picture of someone's life, which is really what motivates them to do this.

James Hill:
Okay, Holly. So, to sum up, most of us walk through the world assuming our experience is normal. The way my body works is the same way your body works. What works for me is going to work for you. If hunger feels manageable, we assume it's that way for everybody. If our weight's stable, we assume that's what happens with everybody. But today's conversation is a reminder that your body shapes your reality. And someone else's body may be telling a completely different story. That doesn't mean that one person's doing it right and the other's wrong. It means that biological variation is part of the equation. And when we understand that, we move from judgment to curiosity to better solutions.

Holly Wyatt:
Oh, well said, Jim. That was a good pie in the plate.

James Hill:
All right. Well, I hope this episode has been useful. I wish a lot of thin people could listen to it, Holly. So suggest to your thin friends that they listen to this and they may understand a little bit about why it may be harder for you to do some things than them.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. But if you understand it, that helps too.

James Hill:
It helps. It helps. Okay. See you next time on Weight Loss And.

Holly Wyatt:
Bye, everybody.

James Hill:
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

Holly Wyatt:
If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

James Hill:
We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at weightlossand.com. Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

Holly Wyatt:
And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.