High Performance Health The Truth About Calories, Weight Loss and Longevity with Dr Herman Pontzer
Angela talks with Dr Herman Pontzer about his work with the Hadza people in Tanzania who are distinct as a population extensively relying on hunting and gathering.
He discusses the truth about calories and how the body adjusts to dealing with energy expenditure during non-exercise based on activity levels in exercise periods.
Weight loss is ultimately a function of nutrition and weight maintenance is achieved through activity and in this in-depth interview is a great opportunity to understand more about why the hunter-gatherer strategy is so successful
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The more active you are the more calories you will burn than if you are sedentary
- Your body adjusts to how it deals with the non-exercise part of your energy expenditure depending on how active you are in your exercise
- Your energy at rest is the energy that you use for organ function
- Exercise has effects throughout your body and you need to think about it the profound impact it has across all areas of the body
- We are built for hunting and gathering and that’s what all humans were doing a few generations ago
- Exercising is a western world thing we have got so artificially lazy that we have to invent ways to exercise
- The entire point of hunting and gathering is you have the advantages of the carnivore and the plant-eater when you combine the advantages of both you have a very successful strategy which is why there are 10 million people on the planet
- Sharing the mixed portfolio approach to getting your food is what it’s all about and is what makes us unstoppable
- It’s easy to say you haven’t got the time to be outside and exercise
- There are those of us who are better off than we think but we have constant pressure in our own minds about working 50 to 60 hour weeks
- Once you have lost weight and got where you want to be staying there is easier with exercise but losing weight is a function of your nutrition
- Diet is a much better tool for weight loss, you need to create a metabolic deficit to achieve this
- Overeating and obesity seem to be a brain regulation issue. It’s about reward and responses to food
BEST MOMENTS
‘If you asked the men and women that I work with, in Tanzania, about exercising for fun they would just laugh at you’
‘Hunting and gathering is a fantastic strategy and that’s why we are so successful’
‘You need to stay in-tune with yourself and family and friends’
VALUABLE RESOURCES
High Performance Health podcast series\
Burn: The Misunderstood Science of Metabolism
ABOUT THE HOST
Angela Foster
Angela is a Nutritionist, Health and Performance Coach. She is also the Founder and CEO of My DNA Edge, an Exclusive Private Membership Site giving individuals the tools and bio hacks needed to optimise their genetic expression for optimal health and performance.
After recovering from a serious illness in 2014, Angela left the world of Corporate Law with a single mission in mind:
To inspire and educate others to live an energetic, healthful and limitless life.
Angela believes that we can truly have it all and has spent the last 5 years researching the habits and routines of high performers, uncovering age-old secrets, time-honoured holistic practices and modern science to create a blueprint for Optimal Human Performance.
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