Video summary
Dr. Mike Israetel addresses the efficacy of supplements for fat loss, distinguishing between modern anorectics and traditional stimulants like caffeine or Yim E beans. While he acknowledges that certain appetite suppressants can offer marginal benefits regarding mental clarity and hunger reduction without interfering with sleep, he warns against relying on them due to rapid tolerance development. He specifically highlights the rise of GLP-1 agonists (such as semaglutide) and other drugs like ratriite and tepati as highly effective tools that make dieting significantly easier by directly reducing hunger drive. Unlike older stimulant-based fat burners which often induce anxiety, these modern anorectics are described as incredibly potent with manageable side effects when used correctly within a dietary framework. The transcript explains why most people fail at diets despite following standard protocols like tracking steps and prioritizing protein; the primary culprit is evolutionary biology rather than a lack of willpower. Israetel argues that humans evolved in an environment where food was scarce, making us hyper-sensitive to super-palatable foods engineered today for maximum taste appeal. He uses the analogy of sexual drive to illustrate how biological imperatives override conscious control when hunger reaches certain levels. Consequently, diets often fail because individuals cannot resist these powerful cravings and subsequently revert to old habits once they stop eating "diet food," leading to weight regain unless a sustainable maintenance plan is established beforehand. To mitigate this inherent struggle against hunger, Israetel suggests several practical strategies beyond pharmaceutical intervention. He emphasizes the importance of avoiding ultra-palatable foods that are engineered to be irresistible, noting that trying to make every diet meal taste perfect often backfires by increasing future cravings. Other effective tactics include maintaining a consistent meal schedule to prevent psychotically high levels of hunger, staying hydrated before meals to fill the stomach, and focusing on fibrous vegetables for satiety. He also advises against setting unrealistic goals like losing thirty pounds in a month; instead, smaller, sustainable targets reduce daily deprivation and make adherence more likely over time. A critical distinction is made between temporary dieting phases and long-term lifestyle maintenance. Israetel critiques fad diets that require drastic changes or restrictive eating patterns which users abandon once the novelty wears off, only to return to their previous unhealthy habits like frequent fast-food consumption. Successful weight management requires building core abilities such as knowing how to construct balanced meals with protein, vegetables, healthy fats, and carbs, and learning what to order when dining out. The goal is not perfection but rather creating a flexible maintenance plan where one can occasionally indulge in junk food without derailing progress, allowing for indefinite retention of a lean physique through habit formation rather than rigid restriction.
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are there any supplements that offer an
edge for fat
loss the modern anorectics like OIC and
tepati absolutely uh man you know for
some people various
stimulants
caffeine couple of other ones yiman Etc
they have a marginal effect on reducing
appetite improving mental Clarity and
focus if they don't interfere with your
sleep you can take them the problem with
stimulants is that you uh develop a
tolerance to them quite quickly when
you're ending the diet which I'd love to
talk about as far as how to transition
out because that's super important when
you're ending a diet and you have to
manage your stimulant use again and you
maybe come off of them you get radical
rebound hunger and just you know
stimulants are just oh because it's
suppressing your appetite
artificially and so you don't want five
monsters every day anymore you're like
pull out the monsters and you're like
dude brownies instead it's tough
caffeine is like you know you have like
a a circuit board with a little nail and
you're like giant hammer I like I would
hit all the other stuff so as far as
real supplements that just straight up
work for fat loss they kind of don't
exist if you have the Yim beans and the
other things they can of add a little
bit to the thing Yim Bean it's like a
it's a it's like a stimulant derivative
sort of thing and it has some cool
health effects it burns a little bit of
body fat but this is something that just
don't write home about it's this teeny
little thing it's a bodybuilder will
take it they'll take a fedra they'll
take other stuff and it it all works it
just works a bit and it has quite a few
side effects and the stuff that doesn't
have a ton of side effects generally
just doesn't tend to work that
much
um big Pharma one this one the ultimate
supplement quotee unquote to a fat loss
diet are the modern what they're called
really as anorectics I like to take
people away from terming them glp uh
agonists or gp1s because it's already
not true for tritide it's glp1 plus Gip
and for ratri is glucagon as well and so
anorectic is the general term for drugs
that make you less hungry and that's how
they work anorectic correct yeah and so
modern anorectics because there used to
be some back in the day that were also
stimulant based like uh fenfen fenfen um
subut [ __ ] up a lot of people cutrine
was quite healthy but the Regulatory
Agencies didn't think it was quite as
safe as they wanted it probably was but
they got wigged out about it it's also
it's a stimulant derivative so it's got
some side effects dry mouth at Etc uh
the trade name for the drug was Meridia
it was a cool drug not approved for use
in the United States I don't believe
it's approved for use in Europe of
course you Cavalier Europeans like well
we'll take anything but um the modern
day anorectics currently the GP and Etc
uh group of drugs they're just [ __ ]
good now do they have side effects yes
can they be managed with with how you do
your diet MH almost almost completely
are they not for some people totally do
they have really tiny downside risks in
some cases uh yeah they do uh every drug
has that but are they just as a general
rule insanely effective and make dieting
50 trillion times easier yeah so did fat
burners not work fat burners work but
they burn this little bunch of fat and
they just make you super anxious and
awake at night most fat burners are
stimulant based non-stimulant fat
burners are kind of a joke at the
current time and so yeah it's just like
how much caffeine can you cram in an
energy drink is most of the question
with fat burners a pill you can take
that doesn't wig you out that burns fat
in enough of a margin that you can tell
on a realistic diet is just not around
okay given this relatively easy to
follow format that you've explained
about how much food you're putting in
your face about why you should portion
this prioritizing protein looking at how
much exercise that you're doing tracking
steps trying to keep it consistent
why do so many people fail at
diets yeah it's a good question
geeez I think as we've seen with the
anorectic drug
trials um seatide tepati ratri other
drugs when you take away or better put
reduce substantially hunger
Drive almost everyone loses es a bunch
of
weight it's also precisely the reason
that we've seen
obesity Trend up is because there's tons
of super palatable super tasty
food uh over historical time if you
reverse that like people in the 1950s
probably didn't have any more average
willpower than people today we like to
romanticize and think they did probably
didn't and so most people fail diets
because Evolution designed most of us to
fail
diets it's a similar question to if you
take a bunch of 22-year-old dudes and
you put them into a controlled facility
I don't want to say prison but a
scientific research facility and you
tell them no wanking that's what you
guys call it in the UK and you stretch
it out for 60 days you're going to ask a
real weird question how come everyone
started wanking after a while they
failed cuz Evolution designed you that
at some level of SE Drive is just going
to turn you [ __ ] wild and you're
going to do the
thing same idea for diets I don't think
there's a necessary extra level of
causal inference we have to make I think
most of the reason people screw up on
diets is because food tastes really God
damn good and they get [ __ ] hungry
and they're like [ __ ] this now you can
architect your preparation for a diet to
try to minimize that being around people
in your family and friends group that
are at least neutral and hopefully
supportive of your diet versus active
trying to be like come on have a french
fry that's terrible getting rid of the
junk food in your home and eat out less
or have places you eat out where you
know exactly what to order and it works
part of your diet a big one is not
having Napoleonic
goals if I say to myself in one month
I'm going to lose 30 lbs of fat I'm
almost certainly going to fail and it
wasn't any crazy explanation on the fact
that like I should have made it 15 lb
and made the goal 3 months the magnitude
of depravity and hunger per any day is
now like six times less and then I every
day is sustainable I'm not trying to
crash and burn so a ton of people Crash
and Burn another reason and it all
threads into eventually they just eat
junk food and stop so it's all the core
reason to Ste the tasty food another
reason is a lot of people simply a lot
of people actually do well with diets
the vast majority of people will lose
weight on diets the vast majority of
those people will regain it back why
because most people don't have a
habitual reference intake pattern a diet
they do that allows them to stay healthy
and lean and isn't radically different
from what they do normally for example a
lot of the folks that have used RP what
RP diet coach app it is you eat three to
six meals a day and it portions it out
into proteins and healthy carbs and
healthy fats people will eat it and be
like this is the diet I'm losing to lose
fat like I'm just going to do it I don't
give a [ __ ] how hard it is but after
they're done with it and this happens
even more in our private coaching
they're like wait if I just add a bit of
junk food to this every now again this
is a maintenance plan I know how to eat
now I know how to put together meals of
protein and carbs and and healthy fats I
know what I'm doing at the grocery store
I can even eat out and I know how to
make core good meals but a lot of people
who fail diets their idea of a diet is
cabbage soup and protein shakes and then
when the diet ends they go back to what
what are their habits the same [ __ ] they
used to do what gets you the same
results you used to have same [ __ ] you
used to do they go back into the world
they start doing Taco Bell again they
blow up do the diet diet works stop the
diet diet reverts if you can from the
diet take some healthy habits that
aren't just psychotic things you only do
on a diet knowing how to build a a meal
of a core of Protein healthy protein
veggies knowing how to time it getting
into the habit of eating every four or
six hours knowing how to shop at the
store knowing what to order to estra
practicing saying you know what I don't
want 18 trillion pounds of french fries
if you do that on a diet all you need to
do is layer in a bit of [ __ ] on junk
food every now again and now that's your
maintenance you constrict it a little
bit if you're gaining weight again you
loosen it up if you lose weight again
and then you can for years indefinitely
maintain that new healthy lean U but
many people who do diets they never
build the habits to begin with which is
one of the reasons why fad dieting is so
terrible this new weird stuff you're
never going to sustain listen here's the
thing keto carnivore great ways to diet
and for many people like Joe Rogan a
lifestyle awesome but for many people
they're like I'm doing keto to lose
weight okay so you just never going to
eat a lot of breads any because if you
told Joe Rogan for example like hey man
so you're really good with just like
having an occasional bread and pasta
every few months when you're on business
trips with people and otherwise you just
like stick to your elk or whatever he's
like yep I love it Frank down the street
he's going to be like well who know I do
the keto diet then I lose weight what do
you do after that Frank elk all the time
he's like [ __ ] that I'm going to Olive
Garden like guess who's going to come
back then old fat Frank again it's the
lack of those core abilities to have
that habit of good eating and the fat
diets do not help that at all if
appetite and hunger are primarily to
blame is there anything that you can do
to mitigate or help reduce
hunger yes anorectic drugs apart from
those there's a bunch of stuff eating a
diet higher and protein tends to work
well not going a very long time without
food until you're psychotically hungry
you show up to Whole Foods to buy your
groceries for that day or a few days and
you're like you eat two hours ago you'll
buy all the stuff you need to you go to
Whole Foods after 6 hours not eating
you're going right to the vegan Jung
food section and putting whatever the
[ __ ] in your carart so a meal schedule
is a really good thing having a diet
high in fibrous vegetables and really
filling Foods tons of veggies tons of
fruits reducing the overall palet
ability that I don't mean eating total
[ __ ] like space GRL that you go to space
jail they give you the GRL and the slug
always wants more but you're like [ __ ]
take mine this is awful hopefully he's
not your roommate you know but your jail
s right and so sometimes just not trying
to make your food taste the best it's
ever going to taste cuz some people do
this and this is really common they're
go okay I'm on a diet I know my macros I
know my calories I'm going to do it I'm
going to take these minimal macros I
have in this meal I'm going to try to
make it taste as good as possible I
can't use Mayo but I'm going to sprink
all this [ __ ] [ __ ] on it that meal
just leaves you really hungry afterwards
you look forward to eating it so much it
screws up your day entirely it's kind of
counterintuitive very counter Chris it's
not kind of counterintuitive it's
completely completely counterintuitive
your intuition is literally designed for
an ancestral evolutionary environment
where like tasty [ __ ] is a good thing to
eat because you're going to die nothing
in this world that the ancestral peoples
from whom we evolved had ever [ __ ] with
a double cheeseburger from McDonald's
Paradise it doesn't taste like anything
they've ever seen because it's
engineered to be the best tasting thing
anyone's ever tried it's an Unstoppable
thing real you ever see those like
survival Wilderness shows where they
kill an animal and they like throw it on
the grill and like yep tastes pretty
good no it doesn't you don't have salt
on it are you out of your mind you can
only eat grilled meat for so long until
like H is there anything else so Ultra
super tasty food back away from it a
little bit another one is make sure
you're nice and hydrated have a little
little bit of fluid before you start a
meal and it fills up your stomach a bit
it's a huge hack it can help some people
a little bit another one is if you tell
yourself look I'm at a party and I'm
going to be eating normal people food
try to fill up on proteins and veggies
first and then maybe have a cookie or
two but if you go [ __ ] right for the
cookies man you know I mean yeah sure
well if depends on what game you're
playing if you're if you're gold coins
or calories [ __ ] you just broke all the
level records right so uh stuff like
that these kinds of uh pieces of advice
they're not revolutionary but when
you're hungry and you're dieting all of
them can help to a considerable degree
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