Lessons - What The Food Industry Doesn't Want You to Know | Kim Constable - Fitness & Nutrition Expert

In this lessons episode, discover how one unexpected book sparked a lifelong journey into nutrition and wellness. Understand how food labels, fat types, and cooking oils impact long-term health, explore the dangers of oversimplified social media advice, and learn why critical thinking is essential when evaluating health claims and diet trends. Was, when you were, when you were practicing yoga, was diet? I mean, I mean diet for people that are into working out and into fitness. It's always a thing, but it was it as much of a component of your life as it is now. So here's what happened. I was 21 years of age, living on a diet as most 21-year-olds do of bacon buddies and sausage suppers and, you know, French fries and, you know, with the occasional, you know, good meals thrown in there. I was definitely wasn't being in at the time. I was living with my boyfriend who he had a yacht. We I've always written horses my entire life, and so we had set up this horse yard together, and so we were very fit and very active. I was very, very, very lean. Like I was a U.K. or like a U.S. size two at the time, and I'm five foot at all. So I got was really, really lean. So I was physically active, physically fit, looking great, but I to know what's a really, it's one of these funny moments. I remember one day going to the mirror and going, oh, was that pimple on my cheek? I remember like scraping my cheek and thinking like I had like a pimple, and as I kind of poked it, moved it, it didn't, you know, like if you this is disgusting, but like if you have a pimple and you squeeze it, it pops. Well, this was a popping, right? And I remember going, is that, and I remember going getting a pair of pointed tweezers and poking at this thing and pulling it out, right? And it was a little white ball, and I realized it was like a cholesterol deposit in my cheek. That's, and I don't know whether it was or it was. That's so gross. What happened? That's so gross. It might not expect you to be going in that direction. So I, so what happened was I picked it out. And so I had a moment, I, at the time, I was eating a lot of bacon, right? And we didn't have a lot of money at the time. And so, you know, we were, we were spending money on food, but we were probably not buying like the highest quality food. And I was eating a lot of salt, a lot of bacon. I was, you know, drinking probably a lot of alcohol. I was smoking a lot of pot. I was like, you know, not the healthiest like 21 year old in the world. And I remember, that was a pitiful moment for me. I remember thinking, I wonder, should I change my diet? So this weird thing happened. I went to my aunt had a beach house. Okay? No, it's not. It's very glamorous. It's really not like over here in Northern Ireland. We did not have big beaches like this is clocky beach. We're talking about here. It's like like a hundred meters long, right? And it's mostly like pebbles on a better sand. But she had a house in this little time called clocky. And I was working at the time in a restaurant. So I was working really long hours, you know, working, you know, and I didn't get much time off. And whenever I did, I was with the horses. And so I said to my boyfriend at the time, I was like, Jonathan, let's go to clocky. Like for our, for my day off, let's leave after, you know, I finished. I've got two days off. We'll go there. We'll go to the beach. This is in the middle of winter. And I was like, we will, you know, we'll have, we'll have a great time. Like this is before iPhones, iPads. This is that, you know, there was Sky TV or whatever. But like there was so I thought, you know, we'll go there. It'll be great. We'll go to the pub and, you know, it'll be fun. So we got to clocky in the middle of the winter. The wind was hiling. The house was absolutely freezing. It was not like the glamorous beach kind of vacation than I had on my head. When we got on to the house, I was like, shit, there's no TV. I didn't realize there was no TV. And so I was like, okay, there's nothing to watch. And really there was, you know, we went for a walk. We went to the pub. We came home. It's like there was nothing to do, right? So I thought, okay, well, there must be a book here. Like I'll try and find a book to read. So I went scarring right my aunt's house. And I, she was, there were big golfers. And there was like a couple of golf books. And I was like, I would have to literally be at like at my, you know, at the very end of the earth to have to read a book about golf. So the only other book in the house was this book, which I picked up. I was like, this is the weirdest book to find in my aunt's house, because she and my, my, you know, uncle are not like super health conscious and this kind of stuff. It was called It Weeks to Optimum Health by Dr Andrew Viel. I think it is W E I L, but I think it's pronounced Viel, but I don't know. I'm just guessing. So I was like, It Weeks to Optimum Health, I was like, a fucking health book. Like, are you kidding me? Like, is this it? Is this all I have to read? But like starved of anything else to do apart from drink alcohol, I started to read this book. And about one chapter in, I was completely and utterly hooked. He, it was an eight week program where he discussed the water that you drink, the supplements that you take, you know, your, your health about digital, you know, clocks in the bedroom, like some of it. I, it's not like I'm evangelical about all that stuff. No, I'm absolutely not, but he opened my eyes to health in a way that no one ever had before. And the biggest thing that I began to learn was about food. He was like, he talked about food labels and about how, you know, there's this stuff that goes into our foods. And I'd never, ever in a million years, picked up something on the gross, on the shelf in the supermarket and, and read the label on the back. I picked it up and looked at the front. Oh, this looks delicious. I'd never even considered calories. It was like, you know, if it looked good, I, I bought it. Never considered what was in the food that I was buying. And he started, he, edgy started educating me in this book about preservatives and, and, you know, hydrogen, you know, hydrogenated fats and stuff like a lot of people don't even know what a trans fat is. And I learned about saturated fats, monoinsaturated fats, polyinsaturated fats by their molecular structure, what makes a trans fat. And I was just blown away. And the being the kind of person who really loves information and learning, this book transformed my life. From that moment on, I became a massive advocate for food and for health and for what we put inside our bodies because I was suddenly educated as to all the stuff that I had been doing that I didn't even know was wrong. And I was like, walking around telling people, do you know what's in that? Do you know what's in that? Have you read the label on that? Let me, let me just, let me just tell you what all these things are. I drove my family bananas, but I think it was the, it was weird. It was like having that like whatever that little, I thought was a cholesterol bump on my face. That came just before this book. And I began to about two and two together. And I just began to completely revolutionize my health. And that's when I went down the rabbit hole. I was 21. I'm now 46. So I was 25 years ago. And I think you were so ahead of your time, educating myself for 25 years. Yeah, because now this is, so it's interesting. So that little cholesterol bump or whatever it is. You know what everyone else's cholesterol bump was? It was COVID. It was COVID. And then everyone's like, shit, I don't want to die. I better figure out about health and wellness and what I put in my body. That's why you see so much content now about what's in the label and what in seed oils and all the other things that you see all over TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. But 20, 20 years, well, like 24, 23, four years ago, I don't think it existed, but it was not as. Did you mention seed oils? I'm just going to bust. Can I bust a myth right here? And I was just a little bit, just a little bit of data, right? So at the minute, I keep seeing people saying that they're cooking with avocado oil. And this drives me bananas. And this just shows me how people just see something on social media. And they, because it's on social media, they, and everyone's doing it, they think that it's, that it's okay. So what I always say to people is, the whole thing about seed oil is, oh, you shouldn't take seed oil. I'm like, why? And they're like, because they're bad for you. And I'm like, tell me why? Well, because they, because they're highly processed. And I'm like, really, why is that bad? And they can't answer because they don't know. It's like, well, I saw it on TikTok, right? So I don't buy into the whole seed oil. There is, it's not that I buy into it. There is something about seed oils, which is, which, there is an, like, anything, there's an element of truth in anything, but it's not the complete picture. And I always, so one thing I was asked myself is who would stand to gain from the propaganda of this information? That's the first thing I ask. Soon as anything comes out as this is bad, and this is good, I'm like, okay, who's driving these studies? That's what I want to ask first, because if you follow the money, you get to where the actual data is. Second thing is, let me just tell you about avocado oil, right? For those of you who are like, oh, I'm, I'm, you know, cooking with avocado oil. Avocado oil is the worst oil you could ever cook within your entire life, because it is a polyunsaturated fat. People think it's a saturated fat, because it's solid at room temperature, when it's an avocado. But there's three types of fats, saturated fat, stop me if I'm going to, if you're like Kim, this is not the point of the podcast. So there's, there's saturated fats, they're, which are solid at room temperature, and the only saturated fats that exist in the world are coconut oil, animal fat, and ghee. That's it. And how you know that they are saturated, which means they're saturated with hydrogen atoms, is that they are solid at room temperature, okay? So if a fat is solid at room temperature, completely saturated with hydrogen atoms, why is this important? It means that when you heat it, it doesn't have any place on its molecular structure to take on any extra hydrogen atoms. So it's considered stable. So they are the best fats to cook with, especially at a high temperature, because they cannot turn into a trans fat. A trans fat is a fat that has been heated to a smoking point, which means that it has taken on more hydrogen atoms onto its molecular structure, which makes it then solid at room temperature. So if you take a seed oil, for example, a monoinsaturated fat, let's say, flexed oil, right? Monoinsaturated fat, flexed oil. You heat that to a really super high temperature. What that's going to do is it's going to twist and change the molecular structure of the oil and force it to take on more hydrogen atoms. It then becomes a saturated fat, but it doesn't. It becomes a hydrogenated fat, okay? A artificially hydrogenated fat, which is actually a trans fat. What makes it solid at room temperature is it taking on extra hydrogen atoms, but that makes it a trans fat. It's not a saturated fat. It's not stable for cooking, but why do they do this? They do this so that they can use these fats in cookies and pastries and things that they sell in the supermarket because they have a very long shelf life. Avocado oil is a polyunsaturated fat. It has two or more places on its molecular structure that it can take on extra hydrogen atoms. The reason it's solid at room temperature is because it's a fucking fruit, not because it's a saturated fat. So if you squeeze the oil out of an avocado, it's actually a polyunsaturated fat is the most unstable of fats. You cook with that and you heat that, it instantly becomes a trans fat. Your body doesn't know what to do with trans fats. It can process them. So it throws them into fat tissue where they where they migrate and grow and like cause all kinds of havoc in your body and they're very carcinogenic. In wellness, sometimes you don't see the negative and sometimes you live with a certain diet or a certain point of view about what you put into your body for years. And it can actually be very harmful. And I don't think the creators put a lot of thought into if somebody listens to my word as if I was God, what is their health going to be like in 20 years from now? Do you know what else? I don't think creators think that way. No, they don't. The majority. I'm actually going to go to the other side, actually, of that as well. And I'll tell you something that's happened to me a lot recently. Because I understand assumptions and presuppositions in a way that a lot of people don't. So what I mean by assumptions and presuppositions, presuppositions is assumptions are you have to ask yourself when you're hearing somebody say something, what would have to be true in order for the person to say this? If I were this person and I was making that I was saying this thing, what would be the assumption behind what I'm saying? So it's it's almost like trying someone on if you like. But there's and so like if so if you said to me, you know what Kim eating eating meat is like so so so good for you. Like I would never eat anything else. Rather than go, well, fuck me, he's wrong. I would go, okay, well, what do I know about Scott? What would have to be true in order for Scott to make this statement? Maybe he has suffered from some kind of autoimmune disease. Maybe he has had about experience with plants. Maybe he so I try on all these different things that would have to be true for you to say that, which leads me to ask for more data. And presuppositions is is I'll give you an example, like online, for example, I started making a lot of content where I've been taking content that I teach in master classes and we've been breaking it down into bite size one minute chunks to put on on Instagram. And people hear content, which is kind of what you're saying. So I'm getting a lot of flack at the minute. People are going, this is not true. I'm blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I'm like, no, you're 100% right. That and that's not what I'm saying. And they're like, but that is what you said. I'm like, no, no, it's actually not what I said. I'm explaining one process of how your body processes that say utilizes the fructose. What happens to the fructose in fruit, right? Because like people hate me whenever I say that fruit is more readily stored as fat because of the fructose. And that's why I say whenever you eat fruit fruit is because here's what happens in every fruit, the primary sugar and fruit is fructose, whenever you're the only the only organ, not the only, but like the biggest organ in the body or high fructose is most utilized by the liver, the liver, very little fructose can actually be utilized, can be broken giant into glucose, sent to the tissues for energy to be used as muscle glycogen. So it goes to the liver. It's turned into glycogen in the liver. And then it sent via triglycer, turned into triglycerides and sent to the fat stores. Okay. So it's really sent to fat store, one process, fructose liver fat store. So I explain this online and people go, you're saying the fruit is making you fat. I'm like, no, no, I'm saying that fruit, the primary sugar and fruit is more easily converted into triglycerides via the liver and stored as fat than any other, you know, than any other sugar, one part of the process. So whenever I'm putting out information to this, I assume that people watching it are going to be able to evaluate data. But what I've learned is people cannot evaluate data. They can't go, well, is this the whole story? What else might she be saying? What else could possibly be true, which is the presupposition? So it's like, you know, and so like in order for her to say this, this would have to be true. That's what a presupposition is. And so I think that there is an onus on the creators to create more content. But what I keep pushing back on is there's also, there's also an onus on the watchers to say, I agree with that. Is this like, is what she's saying, true in reality? Whenever I hear someone make a statement about something, I go, oh, interesting. I want to hear more. I'll ask a question. So is what you're saying, whatever, I did this recently, but the video I put out a video and said, muscle only grows in the final reps of the final set. If you're training, you know, the to failure the way that we train and then I went on to explain how, you know, going for straps, failure reps, whatever causes the muscle to grow. And so, and I got a lot of a lot of backlash from that video and people are saying, okay, so you're saying that I should be training this way. And I'm like, no, and they're like, that is what you're saying. I'm like, no, there was absolutely no should in this. I'm just explaining high in high intensity training muscle grows in the final reps of the final set. But what people here is you should be doing this. And if they're not doing it, then they get angry with you. And I'm like, guys, like, chill the fuck out. Like, you know, it's, or I say, most people are, most people are capable of lifting more than they believe than they do. I said, you know, if you've increased your, this is not a video, we made recently the month viral. If you can increase your weight, if you can squat 30 kilos in the first week and then you go 35, 40, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, you were probably capable of squatting 60 kilos in the first week. That was the video. And I had thousands of comments of people going, so you're saying that I should injure myself the first day I go into the gym and squat 60 kilos. I'm like, no, no, it's absolutely not what I was saying. I was just saying you were capable of lifting more, not that you should lift more. But I the more I see of the world, the more I realize that our schools are doing our kids a disservice because they do not understand who to evaluate data outside of emotion and perception. You know, there's what I think about the data. There's what I feel about the data. There's how I have evaluated the data. And then there's actually the data. Then there's what the person meant in the data. And we're not able to separate our meaning and perception from the actual data and making evaluation. And I believe that this is one of the major problems in the world right now. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.