The evolutionary science behind why you can’t lose weight and how to avoid 5 modern food mistakes | Prof Daniel Lieberman

Description

Why can’t you lose weight, and why do modern diets fail? Today, Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman explains how evolution shapes hunger, body fat, food cravings, and modern food mistakes. You will learn why eating well can feel so hard in today’s food world. Using themes from Daniel’s new book, Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet and Eating Well, we explore how our modern food environment explains weight gain, failed diets, and confusion about what to eat. We discuss calorie counting, ultra-processed food, hunger, and why there may be no single “best” diet for everyone. By the end of the episode, you’ll have some simple ways to make better food choices and will know how to make healthy choices easier. If your body evolved for a world where food was scarce, what does that mean for how you eat today? 🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30 🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE Follow ZOE on Instagram. Timecodes 00:00 Intro 03:34 The 3 reasons evolution changes what you eat 07:28 Why supermarkets make healthy eating harder 10:51 Why sugar and fat are so hard to resist 12:12 Are humans really fatter than hippos? 13:20 Why your brain burns so much energy 14:25 Why humans evolved to hold onto fat 16:06 The 3 hidden costs behind body fat 18:23 How cooking changed the human body 19:15 Why raw food may not be natural for humans 22:08 Did farming make humans less healthy? 24:49 How processed food transformed what we eat 28:22 Why modern food triggers ancient cravings 29:48 What the paleo diet gets wrong 31:08 Why there is no real paleo diet 31:55 Why calorie counting can mislead you 33:05 Why hunger beats willpower 34:20 Why weight loss often comes back 35:56 What you need to know before buying food 36:53 Why no diet is truly optimal 38:24 What the healthiest diets have in common 40:08 Are your genes really making you gain weight? 41:40 The simple shopping