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Scot: Hey, guys. So question for you. If you're trying to watch what you eat and you go off the rails, when is that going to happen? Have you noticed any patterns? Thunder, for you, is it late at night? Is it early in the morning? Is it after a stressful day? When is it going to happen to you?

Thunder: I think for me tends to happen more at night if it is going to happen. Maybe I had a really active day, maybe I ate dinner a little earlier than normal. And yeah, I kind of get that. It's 8:00 at night and I'm like, "Oh, man, I'm kind of hungry. I think I want to eat something again."

Scot: Right. Let me rephrase this, when do the poor decisions happen? Is that when the poor decisions happen?

Thunder: Yeah. And then, of course, at that time, you're not going to prepare an outright meal. So you're kind of looking what to snack, what to scavenge, what's around. And yeah, you may not always make the best decision.

Scot: Right. Especially if not the best things are around, which can happen easily. Mitch, when does it go off the rails for you?

Mitch: It is a Thursday afternoon when I become this feral . . . I maybe have missed going to the grocery store that week and maybe some other things have come up, and blah, blah, blah. And then, yeah, I end up making some poor decisions while I scavenge for stuff.

Scot: Is there another reason that it is Thursday night? Because maybe you were undereating the rest of the week and Thursday hits and it all just kind of adds up there, or is it just really . . .

Mitch: Probably.

Scot: Okay.

Mitch: That's probably what it is.

Scot: I'm with Thunder. It tends to happen at night. I think another aspect of it for me is my willpower is a little less at night. During the day, I can keep myself occupied with work or whatever if I'm a little hungry, but at night, it's just me and those hunger pangs and a desire to do bad things.

Thunder: Yeah.

Scot: All right. Well, it's probably a familiar story. New week, new plan to lose those stubborn pounds. It goes pretty well for the first few days, but then maybe like Mitch, Thursday night, the plan turns to pizza.

Mitch: Oh, yeah.

Scot: Or half a carton of ice cream. I think it's something all of us guys have experienced at least once in our lives. But Mitch has told us it's been a lifelong struggle, and recently, a nutritionist told him that his biggest issue might not be strictly calories or eating the healthier things. There's not an aversion to those.

Mitch: Right.

Scot: It's just hunger, and then that hunger causes him to wreck the progress. So if hunger is wrecking the progress, is there something we can do so the plan actually survives throughout the week?

That's what we're going to hit today on "Who Cares About Men's Health." Information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men's health. I'm Scot. I bring the BS.

The MD, but not today, the Ph.D., he's still a doctor, to my BS is Thunder Jalili. He's a professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrated Physiology at Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ. Thunder, thanks for being on the show and guiding us through this.

Thunder: Yeah. You're welcome. I'm happy to be here and talk about this subject.

Scot: And Producer Mitch, he's a new man. A couple years ago, he started this podcast. It was a job and now it's actually something he's trying to do. He is trying to pursue better health.

So, Mitch, fill us in with what your struggle has been for what you've told me has been most of your life.

Mitch: So I've always kind of struggled with my weight, and it's not just necessarily vanity pounds. I've been in the overweight to obese BMI since my 20s. And I know I'm a bit taller. I'm 6'1", but I've been in the 220, 230. I think I topped out at 250 pounds. So in that not-so-healthy range.

And I've tried so many different times and so many different ways. I followed the crazy Reddit diets and lost a lot of weight, but didn't sustain it. I tried doing some other healthy things, etc., but even today, even with all of this great information Thunder has given us, and the stuff we've done with all nutrition on this show, and being this convert, I'm still hungry.

I'm getting better, healthier advice, but I am still having trouble sticking to that plan for a long time and it's something that actually is something that can last for a while.

I've got a wedding on the horizon and I'm back to being pre-diabetic even after dropping it all down. It's like, "What is stopping me from getting to that next point?"

Scot: So it sounds like you've kind of diagnosed this. You probably have gone through different stages, I'm guessing, thinking, "Oh, it's my willpower. Oh, it's who I am. Oh, I don't eat well enough."

Mitch: Right.

Scot: And now the troubleshooting has brought you to this idea that maybe it's this hunger feeling that hits you that then causes you to make the decisions that sabotage your progress.

Mitch: Yeah. I actually went to a nutritionist. I scheduled an appointment and everything. I sat down . . .

Scot: Why didn't you go talk to Thunder?

Mitch: He wasn't on the easy-to-schedule . . . Yeah, I should talk with him.

Scot: Well, that's why Thunder is here today, I think. All right.

Mitch: So I went and I was like, "Okay, I need to bring in some outside perspective because I'm just failing here." And so I went and spoke with the guy. Really smart, really knowledgeable. He took a whole hour or so with me. He did an interview.

He looked at a month-long food log that I had put together, etc. And the answer was basically like, "You're eating healthy stuff, you're eating good things, you're staying in the right calorie deficit that we need to get you to that healthy range before we can switch back to kind of management, but it sounds like you just get hungry. And through the day, you're snacking. You'll go a couple of days and it's just really you ache, you whatever." And then I do, I make those bad decisions.

I will wake up at 3:00 in the morning some days, where the hunger pains will wake me up in the middle of the night. And I look at my calorie deficit, I look at everything that I've eaten. It's salads. It's healthy veg and chicken breast with dinner. It's good stuff and a lot of it, and I'm still just starving. And so he gave me some advice that I've never heard before about how to manage hunger.

Scot: And that's why Thunder is here. You're looking for a second opinion. You don't trust this guy.

Mitch: It's a little different . . .

Thunder: And for validation.

Scot: Yeah. So, Thunder, based on what Mitch just said, is that kind of a typical meeting you might have with a nutritionist? Kind of the process that they went through? That sounds good to me.

Thunder: Yeah. I mean, I think he did the right approach to talk to somebody. And I think the question of hunger is legit. There are definitely eating patterns that can blunt some of the hunger and control it a little bit and there are eating patterns that may not do that. So I definitely think it's a good subject worth talking about.

Scot: Yeah. I have to admit, Thunder and Mitch, that when you said you wake up at 3:00 a.m. and you're hungry, that to me is . . . I can tolerate a lot, but going to bed with hunger pains . . . And that happens when I try to eat healthier too myself, even if I eat at 6:00 or 7:00 at night and I'm having good meals. I hate that. It's really hard. That really resonated with me.

So, Thunder, let's keep going here.

Thunder: I was just going to comment on, in general, the idea of trying to adjust your eating with not just thinking about nutrition and healthy foods, but also how to adjust it to control hunger, to kind of work on some of the physiology that regulates hunger. I think that's a really worthy topic to discuss.

Mitch: So, I guess, what is hunger then?

Thunder: Well, hunger is . . .

Scot: It's the saboteur.

Mitch: I know. It's this thing that's aching in my belly, but I know there's something more to it.

Thunder: There are still two things. There's hunger and there's appetite, and sometimes we get the two confused. Hunger is a physiological urge that you need to eat. You need calories. And appetite is a craving for food. It could be a craving for a specific food. It could be a craving for a type of meal, things like that. But there is a difference. One is a physiological drive, and the other is more a mental issue, like, "I am craving or I desire this." That's appetite.

So I guess the first thing is to be clear, are you feeling hunger, or are you responding to appetite or a craving?

Mitch: Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I would express . . . Are you asking if it's a physical feeling that I'm having, like an emptiness, or is it like I need something in my mouth that tastes like this?

Thunder: Yes.

Mitch: Is that what you're saying?

Thunder: The "I need something in my mouth that tastes like this" is appetite. So if you're really hungry and I only have a couple subpar choices for you, you'd be like, "I don't care. I'll take it." But if you have an appetite for something, like, "Oh, I really feel like Chinese food," or, "I really feel like I want a hamburger," that's appetite.

So you come to me and you're like, "Man, I'm just starving. I have to eat something." And I'm like, "Mitch, man, all I have is this cup of ramen instant noodles. Take it or leave it," and you're like, "Oh, I'll gladly take it," that would mean hunger.

Scot: And if you're like, "Eh, I guess I'm not hungry . . ."

Thunder: Yeah.

Mitch: Yeah, at 3:00 a.m., it is hunger. I cannot get back to sleep. I feel like I'm getting lightheaded. I feel like I'm something. I mean, appetite is part of it too, now that I know that there's a difference. During the day, there are certain things I crave, etc., but it's that hunger in the middle of the night thing that I think I screw the most up with. And that is a sensation where if you had the grossest thing of ramen, I would probably still eat it.

Thunder: Well, if it's 3:00 a.m. and you're feeling lightheaded, you could just pass out.

Mitch: Oh, that's nice. I didn't think of that.

Scot: Is that professional advice?

Thunder: I mean, that would, to some degree, solve it.

Here's another thing, and this, I guess, gets into a different topic, but it's sleep. Sometimes we get into sleep habits and we wake up at a certain time every night regardless, and it's maybe for one reason or another. So not directly in line with this topic, but I wonder if that's also part of what's going on with you, is the disrupted sleep for the middle of the night stuff and then it's associated with hunger, but now it's kind of habitual.

Mitch: Interesting. Yeah, I'm totally open to exploring that too.

Thunder: I guess that's an aside, but getting back to the hunger thing, if you're not picky and you have the hunger pangs and anything will do it, that is hunger. That's not appetite.

Scot: And that's your body telling you, "You need more calories"?

Thunder: That's your body telling you, yeah, you need to eat. And usually that's associated with the physiological need. I say usually, not always, because some of it could also be psychological.

Scot: Right. Even if he's hitting his calories and the nutrients that he needs, if you still have hunger, how do you respond to that? Especially if you're trying to lose weight and you're trying to be in a calorie deficit, do you just go, "All right. Well, I guess I've got to power through this"? Or is that your body telling you, "No, you need nutrition right now"?

Thunder: Well, I think there maybe you turn to some of these alternative strategies during the day within what you're eating. Maybe timing the meals differently, making sure you have certain food components in those meals that are known to slow gastric emptying or augment GLP-1 release, things like that. Those are some of the strategies that you should look at and we can discuss.

Mitch: All right. That's a good segue into what my guy called levers. He's like, "When it comes to hunger, there are certain levers that we can pull." And the first one that he kind of introduced me to, the first lever to manage hunger, was protein amount and distribution. How much you get through the day, how it's broken up between meals, etc.

And so the advice I was given was that, yes, there are baseline functional requirements for protein. And we've talked about that a lot on this show because it seems like that's the number one thing we've got to eat as guys, is protein, right?

Thunder: Yeah.

Mitch: But he was saying that maybe an increase in protein uptake with each meal through the day can help me feel more full and help kind of keep those hunger needs and wants a little more under control throughout the day.

So what about that? Maybe higher protein, not for muscle mass, but just to get your stomach feeling a little full.

Thunder: Yeah, that's definitely good advice. So there are actually several things besides protein you could add in there. So when we eat protein, it does a couple things. Protein can actually augment GLP-1 release. And that's the satiety hormone. When you eat, you release GLP-1. That comes from your gut and it basically tells your brain, "Hey, I'm getting full." Protein can augment that release.

Protein also slows gastric emptying, which is kind of a fancy way of saying it slows the speed at which your stomach empties. So if you have a certain amount of protein, your stomach will empty slower. Then you'll obviously feel full for a longer amount of time. There are other things that do that too. Fat is another one, so having fat in your diet. Having fiber in your meal, that also slows gastric emptying.

So those can be pretty good dietary levers, as you say, to use to try to be full, have that satiety for a longer period of time.

Mitch: You had mentioned fat, and he did bring that up too, and he was saying that there are some types of fats that last longer. Certain types of dairy fats might last longer than certain types of oil fats, etc., in the whole system of anything. Do you know anything about that?

Thunder: Yeah. I mean, some of that probably depends on the food matrix that it's in.

Mitch: Oh, sure.

Thunder: To put it simply and put some numbers and context to it, I think if you have a meal that has, say, 25 to 35 grams of protein in it, and you have fiber in that meal, like 10 grams of fiber, and you have 20, 30 grams of fat in that meal, those are all things that will help you feel full for longer.

I am thinking of an avocado. An avocado obviously has a lot of fat. It also has a lot of fiber. Avocados are pretty filling.

So let's say you are having a salad or some sort of vegetable, like mixed greens, whatever, and you have an avocado in that. There's a great tool that you just added extra fiber and a lot of fat to that salad that maybe wouldn't have that much fat normally, but that'll help you feel full for a longer amount of time.

Mitch: Oh, I got you. If that's the amount throughout the day . . . You were saying 30 grams or so with each meal and stuff. Does the spreading out of the protein over the day help, I guess, with that? Like, I'm not chugging a couple protein shakes in the morning or something to try to get my numbers up. Is there something about through the day that's also what we're looking for?

Thunder: Yeah, absolutely. And for many reasons, we want to spread our protein out during the day. We don't want to have it just in one meal. Let's say you're aiming for 80 grams of protein in a day and you plan on eating three times in a day. Well, I'd make sure you're getting 20 to 30 grams per meal so you're hitting that 80 total. You don't want to do the protein shake in the morning with 80 and say, "I've done it."

The other thing about protein is that when you eat it, it also stimulates anabolic events and muscle protein synthesis and things like that. And to have multiple hits of that in a day as opposed to just one is actually a little better from like an exercise, muscle-building standpoint as well.

Scot: I think it's interesting that Thunder . . . And I don't know if we were going to get to fat later in the episode, but Thunder brought it up now, so I want to hit this.

Mitch: Yeah, go for it.

Scot: This idea of if you're going to have a salad, that's kind of the quintessential . . . You're trying to lose weight, you want to fill the stomach, you have a salad, right? But when we're thinking about losing weight, a lot of times the first thing we do as humans and society, they tell us don't eat the fat. So that 20 grams of fat is something you're trying to get rid of in your diet as opposed to something that you're adding.

Thunder: Yeah. And that's a mistake because fat slows gastric emptying and it makes you feel full. So you really should be adding the fat in there. So I would say have that salad, have some avocado in it or some olive oil on there to bump up the fat. Throw some pumpkin seeds in there, whatever, some nuts, have some protein with it. You've kind of hit all the stuff to make you feel full.

Scot: And the other thing I think that people don't realize, and I think goes out the window when we're trying to reduce calories, is the fiber count.

Thunder: Absolutely.

Scot: We're supposed to get 30 grams of fiber a day, I think. Is that it for men, or is it 40?

Thunder: It kind of depends on how many calories you're eating in a way, but 30 is a good ballpark.

Scot: I mean, 30 grams of fiber is really kind of hard to get, especially on a lower-calorie diet, unless you are intentionally incorporating stuff that has fiber in it. It's really, actually, kind of shocking how hard it is to get that amount of fiber.

Thunder: Yeah. You have to put some high-fiber things in there like oatmeal, nuts, a big pile of broccoli salad, etc., beans. You've got to go for some of the rich sources. It's hard to just get it from incidental little sources.

Mitch: That is actually something he brought up. I'm just like, "I must be getting some good fiber because I'm eating these big salads, whatever." And he's like, "Yeah, a raw kale salad, two big cups of it, is like two grams."

Thunder: Yeah, it's not much.

Mitch: It's nothing, right? And so it was just kind of interesting. And then there's no fat in it and whatever. Yeah, that's kind of an interesting idea, too.

Thunder: Mitch, can you eat nuts?

Mitch: Yeah.

Thunder: So there's a great source of fiber and fat, and it goes well with salads. So if you are having salads as part of your diet, spice up those salads. Throw some nuts in there, throw some seeds in there, things like that. That will help, and with the other fat sources we're talking about. Put some cheese in there. Protein and fat.

Mitch: I guess I fall into this . . . And this is a good transition to the next topic or the next lever. I kind of have always in the back of my mind said, "A great way to stay full and lose weight is to eat these big ugly salads." And when I envision the salad, it's just a head of romaine, and I just power through that and then I'll lose weight. But one, if we don't have that fat or protein, it's not going to feel that.

But the other lever that was introduced to me was this idea of energy, density, and fiber. And that's when we're playing with that stretching of the stomach. What can we do to fill the stomach with lower-calorie foods that hit that second part of the appetite and hunger system?

Thunder: Yeah. And this is, I think, what we're doing when we have these augmented salads. I wouldn't worry too much about the low-calorie thing. I would go ahead and have that kind of augmented salad and not worry necessarily about the calorie content, because it's still probably going to be pretty reasonable compared to a typical alternative meal.

Scot: Right. Or it's going to be reasonable compared to if you have a slip-up at 3:00 in the morning.

Thunder: Yeah, 100%. So I would not worry about throwing an avocado in my salad. I would not worry about throwing a couple hundred calories of nuts in there. I mean, who cares? Nuts are even hard to digest. You're probably not getting all the calories from the nuts that's on the nutrition label anyway.

Mitch: Wow. Interesting.

Thunder: Yeah. So I think that sort of thing will serve you much better. Where calories are probably more important is if you're mostly eating processed or simpler carbohydrates that are easy to digest, because those are all pretty usable calories. They're going to give a pretty vigorous insulin response. You'll digest them pretty quickly, and you'll be hungry shortly thereafter. They don't really slow gastric emptying, things like that. So in that case, I'd be more calorie concerned.

But if I'm eating vegetables and the things we're talking about, I don't really care so much about calories, especially if the processed carbohydrate content of those meals is low.

Mitch: That's interesting, because I was shocked when I went and spoke with this nutritionist. It's a weight loss consultation, I think, is how they coded it or whatever. Not a single talk about calories. And I was just like, "What? I'm sorry, I was under the impression that we did a bunch of math and tracked everything and then I lost all this weight." It was a little surprising to me that it was focused on, "How do we get this relationship with food to be a little different?" rather than hyper-focusing on the math.

Thunder: It's more of a pattern of eating than it is the calories you're eating, the pattern and quality of the macronutrients as opposed to how many calories is this adding up to.

Mitch: So I guess as a follow-up question, if actually filling of the stomach also helps with hunger, is there stuff other than salads that we could be doing that . . . Maybe swapping in different options or something like that, that kind of open up and give that more full feeling?

Thunder: Yeah. I mean, literally anything with animal or plant protein and anything with fat. I'm just going to make up a meal here, okay?

Scot: Oh, this is going to be awesome.

Mitch: Yeah, I'm ready.

Scot: Let me get a pen because this is what I'm having for dinner, Thunder.

Thunder: Here we go. Make a piece of salmon, and have some roasted cauliflower with it. Put a bunch of olive oil or put some butter on the cauliflower. Maybe have a side of potatoes or sweet potatoes or something with it. Sweet potatoes are actually great because they have a lot of fiber and they're filling. That sort of thing.

Mitch: Interesting.

Thunder: And we've kind of hit on the fiber. We've hit on the fat. The salmon has fat. You put fat on your cauliflower. You can air fry the sweet potatoes with olive oil or something, add fat that way. That's not a salad, right?

Mitch: No.

Thunder: And it has some alternative things. So if you just think about protein, fat, fiber, that gets you a long way. And then don't worry about the carbs. As long as it's coming from a natural, unprocessed source of carbs, it can be filling, like that sweet potato or maybe a side of beans or something, like a side of baked beans or seasoned black beans or whatever. Something like that should be filling.

Scot: I saw on Instagram . . . So here I am, Thunder, you're probably going to have to scold me because I'm going back to thinking about calories. I'm getting the feeling that maybe that's not necessarily always the best way to think about it when it comes to feeling not hungry.

But they compared the amount of calories in a serving of rice versus a sweet potato or a potato. And bulk-wise, amount of stomach-filling space, the potato was twice as big as the serving of rice. And sweet potatoes are even more so, aren't they?

Thunder: Yeah, and sweet potatoes will have a lot more fiber than rice. Rice really won't have any fiber.

Scot: So not only are you getting bulkier foods, you're getting food with more fiber as well. So to some extent, maybe calories does come into it when you're making those choices. If I have two foods, which one actually takes up more room on my plate, which will, in turn, take up more room in my stomach?

Thunder: Yeah. What's the volume of 400 calories' worth of this versus that?

Mitch: One of the suggestions he was talking about . . . He's like, "Let's talk about soup season and how we should have more broth-heavy soups, or a chili with beans in it." Popcorn over chips was one of the ones he gave me because he noticed that I like my salty snacks. And he's like, "You can eat a lot of popcorn in the same sitting and have it fill up your stomach more than a half a bag of chips." So those types of things are also kind of . . . It's interesting how you fill up your belly.

Thunder: Maybe you don't have to eat the popcorn. Find something else. Maybe you have nuts instead. It's more calorie-dense, but it's also more filling.

Mitch: Okay.

Scot: Thunder, I'm wondering did this person suggest soups to Mitch because of the bulk of the water? I mean, again, I'm talking calories. Bad Scot. But that's really filling, right? You're getting a lot of space filled with soup.

Thunder: Yeah. I mean, soups definitely can be filling because you have the water, you have maybe vegetables or protein in the soup. So it's space-filling. Water by itself is also something . . . Having a glass of water before the meal, that can kind of temporarily blunt the hunger a little bit. If you're confusing thirst with hunger, it can kind of take care of that aspect of it, too.

The one thing, though, I will say about water is it's a temporary thing that's going to fill your stomach. So if you just have water and say, "Okay, I don't have to eat now. It's going to keep me full," yeah, it'll keep you full for a little bit, and then you're going to be hungry again.

Scot: So would water work for Mitch at 3:00 a.m. in the morning? He wants to go in the fridge and grab the ice cream and instead he does 12 ounces of water and then just is patient for 10 minutes?

Thunder: It could. Yeah. And if you want to dress up the water a little bit, maybe a dilute electrolyte solution so it tastes like it's something.

Mitch: Oh, an electrolyte solution. I don't know if 3:00 a.m. Mitch is going to have the patience for any of that, but I'll give it a try. I will give . . .

Thunder: Pre-make it.

Scot: Yes, have in the fridge.

Thunder: Pre-make it and have it in the fridge.

Scot: And then have a little note on there tying back to one of our old episodes and say, "A gift from past Mitch to future Mitch."

Mitch: Right. "Have this, not that."

Thunder: There you go.

Mitch: Well, cool. And then I guess one of the last levers I did want to get your opinion on had to do with food order. It's kind of interesting because he gave me one order. And this is the order in which you eat the things on your plate. Not, "Hey, you start with this type of meal in the beginning of the day." It's while you are sitting down for a meal.

His suggestion to me was if I started with protein and fat, then I would be able to start that GLP feeling, get that kind of full satiety thing started at the start of the meal. Then I switch to fiber, or things that take up a lot of space, so then I'm starting to fill that up. And then if I wanted to do some more simple carbs or a bread or something like that, even if it's whole wheat, save that for the end because your body will already feel that it is full.

And I've seen all sorts of different orders as I've been searching online, etc. I don't know. I had never heard of that before this time. How much difference can fullness be impacted by what you eat on your plate in which order?

Thunder: I think there's something to be said for that, for one simple reason. We were talking about salads a few minutes ago. If you start your meal with a salad, very traditional, right? Very old-fashioned. "Let's have dinner. Here's the salad." If you do that, you've already eaten something that's lower in carbohydrates, not as calorie-dense, filling, if you put, like I said, a little bit of the fat in there and some more fiber-y things in that salad, like nuts and seeds and stuff.

So now you've eaten something and you've taken up that space in your stomach and you've introduced some things that will start to activate GLP-1, like the protein maybe from the stuff on the salad, the nuts, if you have chickpeas in there, or whatever, and some of the fat and so forth.

And then you move on to other things, like protein, as your person suggested. Another thing that slows gastric emptying and starts stimulating release of GLP-1. So I think there's something to be said for that.

Now, the exact order, I'm not sure how much that would matter, whether you have the fiber first or the protein first, or both at the same time.

The part of the order I do agree with is saving the simpler carbs for last, because by the time you get there, maybe you're already going to be kind of full and you would eat less of them than you . . .

Mitch: Oh, okay.

Thunder: Because if you flipped it the other way and you're like, "I'm starting with the pasta first and then I'm going to have my salad last," you'll probably eat a lot more pasta because you're starting from peak hunger.

Mitch: Oh, yeah. I'm going to eat one fork full of that salad if that's where I get to at the end. That's interesting.

Thunder: Yeah. And you see that. We had dinner not long ago with some friends and we had salad and kind of the whole meal and everything. Half the people saved their salad for after the hot food, and half the people ate the salad first. I ate the salad first. And the people who ate the salad first ate the whole salad. I noticed the people that saved it for last only ate half of it.

Mitch: Interesting.

Scot: So, Mitch, after this conversation, how are you matching up to doing these things that we've talked about today and that you talked about with the nutritionist that you visited before? Do you see legit paths forward that might prevent you from 8:00 at night or waking up at 3:00 in the morning starving? How is that last meal of the day when it comes to protein, fiber, and fat, or bulk, or whatever?

Mitch: It's usually pretty good. Jonathan is one of the primary cookers in the house, but it's got beans since our beans episode. We got a big serving of beans. We usually have either a chicken breast, chicken thigh, or salmon cooked in a bunch of different ways, and then a veg, whatever is either from the garden, or even some frozen stuff if we need to. And that's kind of our go-to easy weeknight meal, is just protein, beans, a vegetable.

Scot: Right. I mean, are you feeling . . .

Thunder: You're missing fat.

Scot: Are you feeling a solution here, though? I mean, it sounds like you're kind of doing that, aren't you? Yeah, where do we go from here, Thunder?

Thunder: The meal that you just described, Mitch, is missing some fat. Describe your veg. What kind of veggies do you guys typically have?

Mitch: The other night there was a medley of peas and carrots and corn, and it was kind of cooked a little bit in a frying pan with the tiniest spritz of olive oil.

Scot: Is that true? The tiniest spritz, huh?

Mitch: We actually have a little device that measures how much spray comes out of the thing. Yes, it is.

Scot: And it's a tiny spray, huh?

Mitch: It's like a teaspoon, I think, per spray.

Thunder: Mitch, I cook that exact same thing, corn, peas, carrots. I put at least two tablespoons of olive oil, at the minimum.

Scot: I mean, could that make that big of a difference, Thunder?

Thunder: Compared to a spritz? Yeah.

Scot: What are we doing? What's a spritz, Mitch? What are you doing here?

Thunder: What's a spritz? Yeah, it makes a difference. When I make my salmon or when I make my chicken . . . Salmon is an easy one. I always cook salmon with olive oil. I always dress it with olive oil or garlic butter. When it's done, I add some fat to it.

Sometimes I'll make vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower, kind of stir fry it, and I'll season it with Parmesan cheese, or I'll season it with grated Manchego cheese or something different, adding some protein and fat to it. Try it.

Mitch: Okay.

Thunder: Yeah, don't be afraid of the avocado, the olive oil, stuff like that.

Scot: Don't be afraid of the fat. It comes back to this idea we think when we're trying to lose weight, we get rid of fat, and that could be absolutely the wrong decision. And you actually said that earlier, Thunder. You said that's the wrong decision.

Thunder: I may have.

Scot: And the other thing when it comes to fat, you start thinking about kind of that traditional meal. I grew up on a ranch and the fat wasn't olive oil, but when we had peas or beans or broccoli, there was a cheese sauce on it, or it was made in heavy cream, which there's your fat right there.

Thunder: Yeah. Exactly. And you don't have to resort to heavy cream, but you have options, right?

Mitch: Well, I think we've found something. I think between needing maybe some water, an electrolyte solution pre-made before I go to bed, and maybe being a little less stingy with some of the fats and different odds and ends when I'm actually prepping the food, because it'll also taste better.

Thunder: Yeah. Be a little reckless with it.

Mitch: Okay. I'm going to spritz that thing twice, is what I'm going to do.

Scot: I think Thunder wants more than a spritz.

Thunder: You're going to spritz it three times.

Mitch: Three times this week. Thank you. I really appreciate that kind of perspective because that was some of the takeaways. I got a lot of information in front of me about how to control hunger, and I think between Scot's suggestions and your expertise, Thunder, I've got a couple of options I can try out the next couple weeks.

Thunder: Good. Excellent.

Mitch: And maybe I'll touch back and see how that's going, see if I'm still waking up starving in the middle of the night.

Thunder: All right. Awesome.

Scot: Hey, Thunder, did you have any takeaways today after this conversation? Because sometimes conversations, even for the expert, can generate a takeaway.

Thunder: Yeah. One takeaway. If I'm doing the electrolyte solution in the middle of the night, I've got to make sure it doesn't have sugar in it.

Mitch: Sure.

Scot: Absolutely.

Mitch: Not like a Tang?

Thunder: No, not a Mountain Dew with salt in it.

Scot: They still make Tang?

Mitch: I don't know, man.

Scot: Wow. All right. I loved a lot of things about this conversation. I loved this idea of how the advice that you're getting about not feeling hungry so you don't make poor decisions, which that's what really can sabotage your eating plan, revolves around putting some of these things back in that we think inherently are not good for us. Like, we reduce the fat. We think we're eating more fiber than we really are when we're eating that salad, but are we? I mean, you've got to educate yourself a little bit.

I know from personal experience in monitoring, it's hard to get those 30 grams, especially if you're concentrating on being a calorie deficit, like you might be right now.

But at the very beginning of the conversation, I think this idea of hunger versus appetite is huge. And maybe asking yourself in the moment, "Is this hunger or is this appetite?" If it's hunger, you can go back and go, "Did I have my protein? Did I have my fiber? Did I have my fat? Am I being honest about that?"

If the answer to all those things is yes, and you've had your calories, then you're dealing with appetite. You're dealing with a craving that you might have. And that might mean you have to do some other things to solve your problem.

Thunder: Yeah.

Scot: All right. Cool. Mitch, we feeling good?

Mitch: Yeah, I'm feeling good. I've got some things to try out. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Scot: All right. We're going to look for that update.

Guys, if you're listening and you've been struggling with this, or maybe you found the solution, and if you have found the solution and what worked for you, we would love to hear about that. You can email us at hello@thescoperadio.com. If you have a takeaway, any advice for Mitch on what he can do to make sure he's not sabotaging himself at 9:00 or 3:00 or whenever, that would be great.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.