#265. 5 Biggest Killers of Men - Layla Gordon & Becki Houlston

The UK has now overtaken the US in terms of percentage of obesity. You are joking, mate. The stats say there's 850,000 people walking around the UK with diabetes. You don't know they've got it. I am yet to speak to anybody who didn't have a stressful occasion within three years of being diagnosed with cancer.

It might even be a stressful email, a bill to pay, a problem with a member of staff. Problem is, in this modern day and age, we're constantly being bombarded with things that are spiking our cortisol. And this is on repeat in every single day, every week, every month. And a lot of men use dopamine so highest and make themselves feel better than they really do.

One in five men die before the age of 65. Men are three times more likely to die from suicide than women. There's a disparity. Why is men's health not equal to women's? 40% of men say they've never spoken to anyone about what they're experiencing. The whole build up to this is going to be a point where something bad is going to happen to someone who's overweight and under a lot of stress. And with most people, there are lots of warning signs either.

Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host Dodge and I'm the founder of Bournemouth Sevens, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast I speak to proper characters of all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodgewoodal. We've now had over 100 million views.

Supporting International Men's Day, I invited health expert Layla Gordon and life coach Becky Halston to discuss the importance of health in men. We discussed the five biggest killers in men and how we can change our lifestyle today. This is a massively powerful episode, and if you are affected by any of the topics mentioned above, please visit jack.org. j-a-a-q.org. Just ask a question.

Layla, Becky, welcome back to the show. Hi, Todd. Thanks for having us. Yeah, very much looking forward to this one. Just so people know, Layla, men's health expert.

Nutritional therapist. Nutritional therapist and many more to your bow. And we've got Becky, who's a life coach. And they've both been on the podcast before. Becky's been on twice now. And the first one was episode 103, which was about toxic relationships and narcissistic abuse. And the other episode is 125 is about men's trauma. And they're both so powerful.

And you know, I'm still getting emails and calls and messages on social media regarding those, you know, and I think the first one was like two years ago or something. Yeah, it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. And Layla really touched people. And Layla, we did one. You're episode two, two, two, which was so powerful as well about how sugar

is killing people and particularly around men's health. That was around six months ago. So, again, the outreach, the messages that we've had. Some real, isn't it? Yeah, the positive words, the life-changing experiences that people have been on. We've done over 250 episodes.

Those episodes that you've done, more men have reached out to me going, Oh my God, you've actually just saved my life. Oh my God, I've improved my life. Oh my God, I got in contact with Layla, I got into contact with Becky. It's been outstanding. So welcome back. And this is the first time we had both of you together. So this is going to be really powerful. Anyone listening and watching? Honestly, this is a really powerful episode.

Well, thanks for having us, Dodge. I mean, thanks for having us back on to the team. It's a delight. Because like you say, we have literally been changing lives for the better, extending lives. And really, just like you said, it was like there was a rock and we lifted it up and all these guys who didn't know where to get help, who to ask, how to find a nutritional therapist, even or to get help with their mental health, where to go, they didn't know. And now we know. Now we know, which is amazing. Anyway, the title of this one, we've called it the five biggest killers of men.

Number one, heart disease. Number two, suicide. Number three, obesity. Number four, cancer. And number five, diabetes. And Laila and Becky are going to be talking through everything right now. So let's fire straight in. Who are we going to start with? We should start with Laila. By the way, Josh, thank you so much for introducing me to NordVPN. That's fine. You needed it, mate. Mate, unbelievable.

Virtual private network. I know nothing about this. I've been on this now for like three months. I'm literally blown away and it's so fast and it's so secure. Yeah, Dodge wanted to pretty much keep your passwords safe. Passwords, my God. Passwords for me are an absolute nightmare. I've got passwords all over the place. I've phoned up my wife and phoned up you. What's the password for this, this, and this? Nord keeps all my passwords in one place and it's all secure. Yeah, it's been nice not getting messages all.

12 o'clock, mate. Mate, I've logged out of Facebook. It's an argument. Oh, mate. Yeah, I mean, the main reason I pushed Dodge to get a VPN was because you had a bit of an incident, didn't you? Yeah. An American company took money out of my account, and then I had nowhere to go to. But it has built in scammer protection. Yeah. So it was my own fault to be first. I'm not here to blame anyone. It popped up, and I thought, oh, lovely, it's only $9.99 or whatever. I bought it, and then they took more money out of my account. And that's when it pricked my ears. That's, I think, whoa, hold on a minute.

I got bored of being your cyber security expert, so I pushed you on to not VPN. It's probably not having a VPN. It's probably like walking around London on the phone waiting for someone to rob you. Yeah, pretty much. Do you know what I mean? You might as well get VPN to protect yourself. So what we end up doing, we've reached out to Nord VPN to help you guys and get you protected online. And they came back with this cheeky deal.

If you went to NordVPN.com forward slash eventful lives, they're going to give you a link that gives you an extra four months on the two year plan. It's literally no brainer guys. Yeah, the link to NordVPN will be in the episode description box. So make sure you check out. I'm buzzing by NordVPN. I've got to say.

Well, we're going to start with heart disease, cardiovascular disease, because it is actually the number one biggest killer worldwide. And actually, I don't think a lot of people know that, you know, maybe it was cancer or diabetes. It's actually heart disease. And I think the reason we don't really think about that is because you can't see your heart, you can't feel it. It really is a silent killer.

And we really want to bring awareness to this and what Becky and I are going to do is going to tie in a lot of the reasons for this the physiological the emotional the cycle the reasons why The heart health is is struggling so much and like I mentioned you I've had so many guys come forward into my clinic and we've run a lot of tests and I've helped them along the way and you would be surprised Dodge at the number of people in their 30s and 40s who have

sub-optimal bad cholesterol. Problems with their HDL, their LDL, their heart health in general, their blood sugar, their cardiovascular system is struggling in their 30s. It's crazy. Why? It's just a breakdown. What is heart disease?

Heart disease is a term for a number of different factors that can impact the heart and ultimately that may end up with a heart attack but really it may start with the very early signs and one of those is high blood pressure. So high blood pressure is going to put pressure on your vascular system and things that can cause high blood pressure for example would be stress.

you know, stress can do that. High amounts of salt in your diet, for example. And then that can then lead to issues such as inflammation on the vascular lining. So then you start to have an unhealthy vascular lining, which can then cause the bad cholesterol to build up. And then you have this cholesterol build up. And then potentially you're going to get things such as angina,

and heart disease potentially further down the line. We're talking like this stuff takes decades to really present itself and become a problem.

But if you've abused yourself in your 20s and 30s, you're going to really notice it in your 40s. Yeah. Like bad eating, bad food, too much alcohol. And when you, when you thought, I'm seeing it now, friends of mine in their 40s who are really struggling because they've abused their body for 20 years now. There's lots of people out there abusing their body, just going back to heart disease. And you're saying cardio, vascular, and you're saying, are you saying, what's getting clogged up? Is it the blood being blocked into the heart to create a heart attack?

Yeah, so like I mentioned, the underlying factor is inflammation. So that inflammation can come from things such as stress, high sugar, junk food, additives, you know, general wear and tear, you know, immune system, dysfunction, viruses, toxins. That can all create these tiny little micro flares of inflammation on the vascular lining. Then what happens if you also have the high bad cholesterol, we call it, that's something around in the blood and that can go and stick

the arterial wall like a plaster. So it thinks it's doing the right thing, it's trying to patch up the problem, then ultimately what you get is a build up. And that build up, like I say, can take decades. But what I like to say is the cholesterol was found at the scene of the crime and it didn't actually do the crime. You need to look further

upstream at what caused the damage to the vascular lining. Like you're saying years and years of potential abuse, overuse of alcohol, sugar, stress, drugs, toxins, all this kind of stuff is damaging this very delicate lining which is covering our entire bodies. You know, I think it's quite mad when you look at when we break all this down, obviously we're all passionate about this, but you can't see what's going on inside. No.

You can feel it. Like if you're lean, you feel a spring in your step. If you're obese with an overweight, what is it? Obesity is over 30% body fat in a man. Yeah. Yeah. But just to break that down, because a lot of people don't understand what 30% body fat is. If you saw someone walking down the street, you may go, Oh, he's overweight. Do you look at it and go, I think he'd be in the obese category.

It's really difficult to tell, particularly with guys, because you might have a guy who's very tall, very stocky. It's quite easy to hide or not be that noticeable in a guy, I would say. But what we need to be careful for is the visceral fat, the fat that's stuck to the organs and actually inside under the stomach lining. That is the kind of toxic fat that can really build up

and cause a lot of problems down the line. Do you notice that if a guy was there in his box of shorts or a pair of rugby shorts or something, you would see the back fat so thick. That's got to play. That's got to play in a part to tell whether someone's obese or not by grabbing the back fat and understanding you've got way too much fat and you're probably 30% plus.

Yeah, so we joke about the beer belly, you know, but you've got to be careful of that fat that is dangerous fat that's holding onto toxins. It's causing issues with your estrogen to testosterone ratios. It's potentially going to lead to raised bad cholesterol, potentially going to lead to cancer obesity is this

toxic milieu that's really causing a lot of harm. But just to say, we've had so many success stories. I mentioned you last week about the last man that I saw who came into my clinic who have been seeing a few times now. He's lost five stone in the time since he first listened to our podcast.

And now he's thinking about training for triathlon. Fantastic. So that is life-changing. Yeah, it is life-changing. I've had so many messages come through and you and I bounce on what I've got. Oh my God, do you remember this guy's just come through? This guy's just come through. It's like we're changing lives. We're really, really helping men here. Powerful. More than you realise, actually. And I think Layla very sort of well-described some of the physical ways to look at what creates heart disease. But you know, and some of those, like the visceral fat, are visible. But what about stress?

How do you know when you're stressed? And I think one of the biggest issues for men in particular is that they're not recognizing when they're stressed, because stress has been sort of an award. You know, lots of people will admit they're stressed, but they won't admit they're fearful. They won't admit that they're not sleeping at night. They won't admit that they're drinking two bottles of wine at night just to cope with their day. So, you know, actually,

When, how do people recognize when they're stressed and it's normally way, way too late? I have had over the years, I've been doing this 16 years, I've had a number of emails and phone calls that have come from somebody while they're in A&E. And they're in A&E because they think they're having a big heart attack. And actually, you know, the medical information comes back and they're not having a heart attack, but what they are is extremely stressed and anxious. And they haven't really recognized how they've got down that path.

Now that obviously if it isn't dealt with and you don't make some lifestyle choices or start to understand what's causing your stress.

then becomes a build-up to can create heart disease, particularly if it meets some other factors as well. What's the feeling of being super stressed related to the heart? So the stress is like that tension on you that you've got so much bills to pay or your business is not working or your relationships are not working or your finances are in a gun to itself. It's just building more and more pressure to your heart straight away.

Yeah, absolutely. And to your blood pressure, and to your nervous system, and obviously, gastro issues as well. So another indicators I'm sure Layla will pick up with is actually having lots of gastro issues. What from your gut? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm in Layla. Do you want to pick up from with a gastro? Yeah, just from a physiological point of view. Yeah, gastro issues, but also going to mention cortisol.

So you've got adrenaline and cortisol that spike. Now we want adrenaline and cortisol to spike, cortisol gets us up in the morning, gets us going, gets us moving adrenaline. It's going to save our lives if a car comes out from the road. So cortisol just explains the list and there is a stress hormone. It's a stress hormone. And ancestrally, we want that to be able to run away from the tiger, for example, save our lives. The problem is in this modern day and age, we're constantly being bombarded with things that are spiking our cortisol.

It might even be a stressful email, a bill to pay, a problem with a member of staff, quarter stars going bum bum bum bum around the system. Well, it's 24 seven activity. You know, and actually when we look very carefully about how our stress systems work, you've got something called your autonomic nervous system. And part of that is your

sympathetic nervous system which is likely accelerator of a car and then you've got your parasympathetic nervous system which is like the break of a car and in an ideal place physiologically you are using the accelerator and the break and if you imagine if you were to drive your car only using the accelerator until you hit the wall.

That would be someone who's constantly in stress and yet many many people are living like that day to day and you know you're living like that because you may sleep, but what you're doing is collapsing into exhaustion every night. You're not actually going down and taking yourself down into natural REM sleep.

you may be, you know, chasing dopamine to try and get energy. And by that, that's kind of highs and lifts. So a lot of social media is designed to give you dopamine lifts as a way of trying to manage your exhaustion. So the more you distract yourself, the less likely you are to know your stress. And

In with this accelerator and brake, you've also got an ancient nerve called your vagus nerve. And that runs from your brain, through your heart, down to your digestive system. So it really does have a powerful effect. So, you know, yes, you've got to, you know, the demands on you are really high and your resources are too low, then you have got a problem. How do you know when someone's stressed? You know when someone's stressed when you see someone, they're under pressure at work, the finances are whatever it may be. How do you know that you're stressed when you wake up in the morning?

Because you wake up, a lot of people wake up with shock. They actually wake up and they're on from the minute that they go. Other people go the other way and it doesn't matter how long they've slept, they wake up and they feel exhausted. Now, there are other things that come into play like all two immune conditions. And also, Leila referenced earlier, inflammation can have a big impact on your energy levels. Just break down what you mean by inflammation.

So yeah, well, inflammation, so the technical term that in the immune system fires off what's called cytokines and cytokines are little messages. So if you have a cut, then the immune system is going to go to that site to try to start to cause inflammation, start to patch it up. But what we're talking about is chronic inflammation. So we're talking about these cytokines being infiltrated all around the body by this mechanism of stress, basically, and high alert.

from the stress that comes in through the brain down to the adrenal glands and firing off from the immune system, these cytokines. We don't want these cytokines to be there around the brain causing brain fog, like I say, the vascular lining, that inflammation on the vascular lining. And sometimes what causes this can be the psychological problems that we're having

causing this physiological spike in inflammation which causes chronic inflammation and chronic inflammation is probably the underlying cause of most disease. And all of this can relate to heart attack. Yes. And you don't know whether you're going to heart attack, whether you're going to die or survive.

No, you've no idea. So anyone listening out there, the only men listening out there, you could change your lifestyle. If you're feeling that this is you, not eating well, overweight, not training, feel stressed, haven't got any energy in the morning, you wake up, trying to just get through life and then having anxiety on top and stress on top. That's the quickest thing that can relate to a heart attack.

but also a lot of people are particularly men because they've learned to cut away from their feelings. So they're not actually feeling overwhelmed. They're not feeling negative or depressed. And a lot of men use dopamine, so highs to make themselves feel better than they really do. So extreme exercise would be an example of that. So if you're a way of not facing the anxiety that you have from childhood trauma,

is to go and do triathlon after triathlon after Ironman after Ironman, then actually, what does your body have to say about that? What are you actually doing it? And most people in that case are trying to numb emotional pain by being in control of a physical pain that they're introducing. And from foods as well. So talking about last time, the response I had from the Yucca app, and the amount of people. About people are using Yucca now. My boy uses it. We go around the supermarket with Yucca and everything.

everyone's yuckering. Everyone I know is crazy. All down to that. Anyone out there is an app called Yucka Y-U-K-A and it's phenomenal. But the reason for me mentioning that was I was talking around ultra-processed foods and obviously sugar and I think what was been happening was that a lot of people were

Kind of self-medicating with these things. So like we're talking about circadian rhythm and the sleep, wake cycle and the cortisol and the stress, you get up in the morning, your cortisol is actually chronically low because it's not firing off as it should do. You have a coffee or two or five or whatever that gets you through the morning, then you have a slump because you've got glucose has gone down, then you feel a crap. So then you have to find some energy. So then you reach for the high process foods or the sugars.

to get your highs up and then the dopamine needs and it's this side and then you're just trying to get through your day like this yeah and this is on repeat every single day every week every month and the whole build up to this is going to be a point where something bad is going to happen to someone who's overweight completely under a lot of stress and with most people there are lots of warning signs either.

either emotionally and psychologically, for many people, they won't see it themselves. Maybe they're loved ones that saying you're doing too much of this, you're working too hard, you're drinking too hard, you're partying too hard. And it's very difficult, I think, if it's a working too hard to pull somebody into accountability, because nobody really asks, I mean, I do daily, but no one's really asking the entrepreneur, what are you doing with your time in the day? So it's often too, too late,

when problems come into flag. I mean, we mentioned the vagus nerve earlier. And there's a quick tip I'd like to give the listeners as well. I mean, it doesn't solve everything. You've got to change some serious habits and look at what's driving them. But something to just reduce the stress is to actually get your vagus nerve working better. Because what can happen under long periods of stress is your vagus nerve becomes dysregulated. So it's not behaving today to day life stresses as it should be.

which so it's essentially we're not accelerating and breaking. So a good little way to try and get your feeling better in that moment when you are under immense stress or even if you don't know you are is to regulate your vagus nerve and a good little tip to do this. Everyone's got some kinesiology tape and I've got an example here.

So it's just like a plaster but without a wound care in it. And what you do is you cut a length and then you stick it, I've got earphones on here, but you stick it just behind your ear and down there's a muscle just down through your neck, you just stick it there on both sides.

And what that will do is it will start to pull your nervous system into regulation. Now, it sounds very simple. It's not going to solve all your problems, but it's going to give you some capacity back. What you may experience when you do that is you might find your hands start twitching. You might find you get an overwhelm of anxiety before it settles down. So don't do it right as you go to bed. I would suggest doing it a few hours before you go to bed and then just sit with the tape on.

You don't have to do long strips. You can also do small square ones just to sit behind the ear. And what that does is it starts to regulate the nervous system and bring more blood into the system as well, which then activates your heart and your nervous system and your digestive system. Which gets that inflammation down, gets that cortisol down, gets the happier hormones up, the serotonin.

We all love the happy hall. Oh, the happy hall is the calming one. Yeah. You know, the gabber, the neurotransmitters that bring that sense of calm and regulation. I've got any stats on heart disease.

So generally talking about men, which is what we're here for you to talk about International Men's Health Day, we're going to talk about some stats around men's health and unfortunately men live four years less than women. That doesn't sound like a lot, but that's four years. One in five men die before the age of 65.

through the pandemic with Covid worldwide twice as many men tired of Covid and in the UK it was 20,000 more than the women died of Covid. So there clearly is a big issue going on here. There's a disparity. Why is men's health

not equal to women's. We're trying to look at the underlying reasons for that and trying to link that between this stress element, the mental health. We'll talk about the stats around suicide, which we're going to come on to because it is... Let's move on to suicide because this is a really powerful one.

I think this subject, it's the second biggest killer of men. And we are just not having the right conversations about this. Two men a day die in the UK from suicide. And men are three times more likely to die from suicide than women. In 2020, three quarters of registered suicide deaths were men. 75% were men. Why do you think?

there's more suicides of men than women. Because I think that, well, I mean, 40% of men say they've never spoken to anyone about what they're experiencing. I think we've also got a legacy that goes back, you know, a long time where

Don't feel your feelings. Don't cry like a girl. Don't look at your vulnerability. Don't actually acknowledge what you've experienced. I mean, on a daily basis, my heart breaks when I hear the stories of the men that come to see me and a lot of them are really tough men. And their childhoods, they've experienced extreme violence, alcoholic parents. Sometimes the violence hasn't been orientated at them, but they've had to sit and listen to other members of their family.

experiencing really traumatic events. So we've also got a lot of shame and a lot of rejection of vulnerability throughout men as a culture. And it's seeing vulnerability as weakness when in actual fact, what is strength is to have emotional resilience. You know, the male psyche has celebrated and focused on mental stability. And I've met many, many men who have got exemplary mental stability, but they have

absolutely no emotional caping skills other than to shut off from their emotions. Do you think that's because men at a certain age grew up in the 80s or 70s and 80s were like, tough enough. Get up. Get up. You're like, man, that's how we grew up. The biggest age gap, actually, the biggest

vulnerability to men is between 45 and 54 and in particular between 40 and 44 so you're coming up to the sort of the end of that era really but culturally we're passing on the same messages and also I think a lot of men don't know how to deal with those conversations because they're fixes inherently they're fixes so if they haven't got the solution they'd rather not go there in the first place

Or is particularly in the uk use humor to divert away from true feelings so and there's also that you know the shame i mean if anyone pictures someone who's vulnerable mostly it's not a strong man yeah i just saw recently louis hamilton.

talking about his own mental health struggles and this is someone you know who you wouldn't expect someone who's his a game in his career of what he does and he's spoken out about his own mental health struggles and how actually his career was part of that that was driving that stress and also his he was bullied and he was younger.

And he's only seen a therapist once, he said about that. He's only spoken about it once. But as Becky is saying, I think vulnerability is a strong system, how it's a real strength. And that's where I've been so blown over with the guys that have come to see me because they have worn their heart on their sleeve about a lot of things. And they have shown their vulnerability to me. And in doing so, they have seen and got the help that they need in whatever that might be, you know, mental health,

physical, you know, blood work, whatever it is. I've been so proud, really, of the people who have come forward. Yeah, I know your products. I always get messages off you. It's a nice buzz, isn't it? It's amazing. It's helped another man. We helped another person. And the same music, the amount of people we helped another man. And we all said, if we just help one person, that's good. But we're talking hundreds of people here.

And you've been sending me messages as well, Doge, and I think it's amazing that you have basically used your platform, you know, the power and, you know, everything that you've got here to basically reach out to these people who otherwise wouldn't potentially know where to get the help. Honestly, it was said, you know, quite a few people that came to me via this podcast said, I heard your voice and I just knew you could help me.

And you know, it's moments like that when you find somebody who you feel you can trust and be safe with, because I think the other reason that prevents men from getting help. And again, 40% of men said it was only when they had suicidal thoughts that they would consider getting help. And if you were at that point in your life, your suffering trainers already gone past so many stations that you could have got off that.

And it's understanding that, but they so fear ridicule from their peers and from family members and also from women. You know, I've also say that a lot of women have got to take responsibility that when their man opens up to them, when he shows vulnerability, it may not be in the same way a woman might.

It may take some time. And everyone says, men don't talk. Well, actually they do if you give them the right listening ear in the right way. And you take away the fear of ridicule from that. You've got to make it safe to talk. And also to learn the language, when you've spent a lifetime numbing your feelings, you often don't have the language to describe how you're feeling either, which doesn't help.

But by 2030, mental health issues are estimated to be the leading cause of death globally. So we can't sit around with this. We've got to re-educate ourselves. I have so, so much respect for any man who has experienced extreme violence as a child and has found a place within them where they have not replicated that with their own children. Now, to me, that is a hero. That is a super hero.

many men on here, as you know, from all sorts of backgrounds. And the trauma they've experienced with a violence they've experienced as a child that hasn't been dealt with, these men end up becoming super violent themselves as an adult, whether they're a bank robber, whether international drugs, whatever it may be, they're just replicating what the child is. The ones that have gone back and dealt with the trauma have been able to be set free as an adult. And that is a beautiful thing to see. On the note of all this, I like, you know, with Mind Health, Mental Health, I like to call it Mind Health and Mental Health, I invested in an app called Jack.

myself and my wife. Jack, it's just ask a question.org, j-a-a-q.org. Anyone listening out there watching, go and check it out. If you are thinking about suicide, if you have heart disease or you've got obesity or stress or whatever it may be, it's the most amazing app out there. I don't invest in any companies apart from our own ones. This is one when I saw straight away how we can help so many people, men and women.

Like you said, if we just had one person, there'll be lots more. And the awareness that we're spreading. There's 10 years ago now that the government did a report on men's health. And that was over 10 years ago. And nothing was really done again, up until 2019, when the who produced another report. So it was very, very slow to sort of catch up and get going for the awareness to build. But I really do think in the last three to five years, it really is flying.

And that's why Jack is so important because if you go and type in a problem, you've got pages and pages of black and white writing, Jack's all done on video. It's like, I think it's going to be an absolute unicorn of a business. I think you mentioned, you know, a really good resource for men and women that I'm real.

really good resource for men and women, but also I think it's important to understand as well that if you yourself are in a very crisis place, a suicide or loved one is, to understand what you need to do to get the help. If you've got a husband who's been acting normal a little bit, mind you, when people

I hear when people are thinking about suicide, they don't let anyone know and just go and do it. I've got three friends of committed suicide and we didn't have a clue. I'm sorry. Didn't have a clue. So how do you know if a man, if you're married to a man or whatever it is,

Are there signs? I think like Becky says, it's easy to shrug this off and say, oh, they're just down or they're just in a mood or they've just had a hard day. There are subtle signs that actually, if they go on for more than two to three weeks, we should really be considering whether that person is feeling depressed and whether they need further help. And it could be signs such as a lot of interest in eating, socializing, sleeping more, a lack of self care. Cutting your friends off.

Can your friends not get back to isolation? Isolation is one of the things that drives the problem. It drives information. It drives depression. Just on that note, you and I spoke about it. Talk about narcissistic.

other halves. That can play a huge part and a guy being pushed into a cage, keep quiet, the wife or girlfriend might cut all his friends off. Oh, completely. Like, this is a huge thing. And I've seen this in friends of, in friends of mine, where the woman's completely controlled of him, checks his mobile, doesn't trust, and then he loses his friends, he loses contact with friends. We're all looking in again. We can see this, but he can't see it.

No, the greater loss is the loss of yourself. And that's what an abuser will look to do. They will look to make sure that you lose yourself so that they put you in a place of helplessness and powerlessness. And helplessness and powerlessness are the biggest triggers for men committing suicide, death by suicide. Women actually attempt suicide more, but men tend to die from suicide in bigger statistics as referenced before.

So we really need to grab hold of this. And as men, as a community and a world of men, to start to have better conversations about our feelings and about what we're doing, we all have a problem feeling our feelings. Mental health has began an acknowledgement of mental health issues. But what the current education hasn't done is given people the ability to work through difficult emotions. Because if you're in distress,

It tells you that something is wrong and something needs to change. So if you are numbing the distress, the pain, the grief, all the things you haven't dealt with, then you are going to continue to express that in physical health problems. Because what we bury in our body becomes expressed as a physical health problem. And I think that brings us very much on to our next subject, which is obesity.

Just before we go to obesity, just to let anyone bloke know out there, it's meant to be really good for your mental health that blokes go to the pub twice a week with their mates. So any misses is out of their wives or whatever. Let the boys go to the pub and they can bond. But I mean, it's true. It's a try. Blokes want to be around blokes. They need try.

You don't have to get on the smash in the bows. You can have a couple of pints, but blokes wanna be around blokes to actually, when they've had a couple of pints, blokes normally will open up a bit more. And I think pub time for blokes really is a good thing. It's important, very important. They need tribe and to get and connect. Anyone listen out there makes all blokes, you can have a boozer with your mates.

100% first points on Dutch. What I'd like to just caveat is just come back just momentarily before we move on. And that is what do you do if someone is in crisis? Because there's one thing about saying I'm feeling in a hopeless place and actually being in crisis.

And if somebody is in crisis, you used to call the police up until recently, you know, how they ended up in charge of mental, the gatekeepers of mental health is beyond me. But these days, you have to go to A&E. So if someone you know is in a real crisis, then you need to take them to A&E, which can be problematic. Obviously, if they're in a real moment of danger to themselves, the police will be a place to call to.

But they need to have stability and safety at that point. It's not the time to have the therapy at that moment, is you have to do whatever you need to do to get that person to be safe. And just hold that intention for that person's safety even if they can't.

So i think it's really important for everyone to know and then obviously you've got the help lines like the Samaritans who are you know and your GP as well your gps also a gator gatekeeper of various psychology and psychiatry services if a bloke is brought up a conversation with his missus or his mates did any said.

I've been thinking about committing suicide or I attempted or I'm thinking about doing it. What's the first thing someone should do related to that person? It would more be like, I don't want to, I can't do this anymore. They're unlikely to actually spell it out as factually as that. It's more I can't do this. I can't carry on. Also, huge, huge overwhelm of shame. Shame about being a failure. Shame about letting the family down. Shame, you know, there may be hidden gambling debts.

You know, it doesn't matter what the addiction is and what the cause of pain is, the root cause will be underlying unhealed trauma. And that's where you need specialist help and therapeutic help to help you build enough stability in yourself to look at those root causes. But it's about keeping them safe in the moment, as you're asking.

And also the signposting. So if it's Jack or whatever, wherever it is, we need to make sure we're signposting. Because if you do get confronted with that red flag of someone who potentially is in very serious mental health condition, then you need some help, professional help to help deal with that. So don't try to think that you can deal with it on your own. So keep the person safe. And they might want to listen to you.

They might not, but get the help on board. Whatever avenue that is that Becky's mentioned, reach out and get professional support to then help you and them. It's all kept confidential. Just going back to the word therapy will probably put a lot of blokes off for some reason. Therapy, therapy, it seems you've got a problem. If you were to reach out as a bloke was to reach out and get therapy, how much would it cost that bloke an hour roughly?

Well, obviously in the UK, the NHS do have some services. There's steps to wellbeing as well, which you can self refer to. I mean, it's very, very underfunded and it's a big bugbear of mine. And I, you know, the government is always saying, well, you know, they know it's underfunded, but at the same point, they're all sitting in a puddle crying because they're wet.

Because actually, if you look at the waste that goes in prisons, social services, hospitals with physical issues and addiction problems, if you look at the cost to our national health service because of childhood trauma expressing itself in life, I'd say we cannot afford to not deal with childhood trauma at the root causes, get enough resources in place then.

And then in the future, you eradicate the expression of ongoing trauma and ancestral trauma, because of course, mine and yours trauma, then can get passed on to our children, which is what anyone in a social service will be nodding right now. So if you're a guy, how much would you spend for a therapy session to just open a door to the conversation? It can vary between about 40 pounds to about 200 pounds an hour. And you think that is money really well spent

I would say your life is so precious and you may not feel like that right now, but what is most important is no one can comprehend not being here. You cannot yourself comprehend not existing. And so if you're in that desperate place, actually what you're looking for is peace. You're looking from an outcome and you will not get the benefit of that outcome if you go down that path.

But if you go through the hands of a really good therapist, you will get that outcome. They will help you find the peace that you so want while preserving the well-being of all the people who love you. Brilliant. Brilliant. This is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic loving this. Let's move on to number three, obesity.

Yeah, obesity. So like I say, you know, I've done a lot of work on men's health in general and Becky's brought up some brilliant stats and obviously we've just had a really amazing deep dive conversation there on suicide. And just to just to say a couple of points on that that

the men's health stats unfortunately do look like men do struggle in certain areas and I know there's a lot of stereotyping going on but socioeconomically access to the help that they need access to the friends like you mentioned the support groups not thinking they can talk out not knowing where to go all of this stuff has been well documented in research that this is possibly why men are ending up in a critical you know chronic condition

And the two things that we're going to talk about next, like you mentioned, would be obesity and type 2 diabetes. And the two things really do go hand in hand. You know, you don't normally have one without the other. And type 2 diabetes is also really closely linked to cardiovascular disease, obviously we spoke about at the start. You're not going to see high blood glucose without high bad cholesterol. So high blood sugar.

high blood sugar. So this is something that is a huge, if not the biggest underlying health problem from a, you know, a dietary perspective is the overconsumption of refined sugars. We've just seen in the news recently, I don't know if you've heard about these lunchable, lunchily things that are coming out through a shocker.

three influencers, the guy that created Prime, has teamed up with two other influencers, they've created these lunch boxes for children, which is a bottle of Prime, I think it's a pizza, a packet of sweets, like literally just pure, it's not even food, it's just chemicals in a box.

And they're going to probably promote it on YouTube and TikTok and all these places. So they're going to brainwash them and get them and get their palettes and their minds thinking this way. And the children, poor children, I think this is acceptable. And this is going to steer them into this, give them into this life of, unfortunately, eating too much sugar and ultra processed food. Who are these people passing this?

I don't know. Who are nervous to allow this to be passed to brainwash kids' minds that they want to go and do? We saw what happened with Prime. We saw what the Prime was ever. All the kids went in Prime. Some of that Prime you look to the back of the content is just chemical. Unbelievable. It's not no good whatsoever.

I thought we were getting somewhere because the government has just agreed to ban the junk food ads after 9pm. Another step in the right direction, but then we've got the influencers and YouTube and these big gigantic corporations behind it all that have just got the power and the funds and the marketing to keep pushing this in front of us all.

Give me an example of someone who can get type two diabetes. How long it will take them to get to a point where they realize that they're going to be diabetic, or they are diabetic, but they don't realize this yet.

Yeah. So once you are diabetics, once you have type two diabetes, that's when you have two high amounts of blood sugar or blood glucose in your system and you will therefore always be classed as a diabetic. You can get your blood sugar down and you can manage it. But like I said, the men have come forward and I've done a lot of blood work, you would be

unfortunately surprised at the number of people in their 30s and 40s who would be classed as pre-diabetic. And I'm even looking deeper at that and I'm looking at blood markers for pre-pre-diabetes. So I'm really helping people to prevent this. And you can start to see the early warning signs. So you can start to see changes in your blood glucose by wearing a continuous glucose monitor on your arm. And you can track how food is impacting your blood sugar. So you can see it in real time.

A lot of my clients will wear this, and the early signs, funnily enough, are actually hypoed for so you make moments. So you know when you get a bit jittery and a bit shaky in the afternoon, you have an energy slump, that is a sign that actually you're already creating too much insulin. The reason you're creating too much insulin is because you're eating too much sugar.

so you produce more insulin and so it quickly shuttles the sugar out of your system and then you have this low and you have this dip and that's where then you might go into the garage or the supermarket and there you are you're presented with the highly processed high sugar foods which you're going to just crave and need and your brain's gonna subconsciously go and eat and there you are in that cycle again and especially as now we're moving into the winter we are hardwired

to seek out high calorie, high sugar foods. It's a survival mechanism talking about obesity. We are hardwired to put on a bit of fat through the winter because that's our survival mechanism. The problem is we don't need that anymore because the sugar and the foods are everywhere we go. We don't need that ancient survival mechanism. It's being used in a different way and unfortunately we're over consuming

calories. If you eat ultra-processed foods daily, there's a strong chance you're overeating calories by 500 calories per day because they are so easy to consume. Just eat them mindlessly. They're addictive. Therefore, we're talking about obesity. Unfortunately, before you know it, you may be presenting with prediabetes or diabetes. If you walked into a

Powerball or you walk down the street or you were at a sports center. Do you look up here and look at blokes and go, I think he might be pretty diabetic.

Potentially. I mean, obviously, dodge, I've worked with you and your dad, and both of your health is incredible. You've got a great tan, but I can tell from looking at you both, you look after yourself. It's not just the fact that you're in good shape. I can tell by your skin, the lack of bags under your eyes, you've got glowing skin. You just look healthy. And I can see the opposite in quite a few people. It's just obviously what I'm trained to do. It's what I see a lot. You can see people struggling. You know, they've kind of got a bit of a sort of

A pale look about them, bags under their eyes, maybe a bit sweaty, slightly overweight. I can see that all the time. And I look at people straight away. But this is why we got in contact. Yeah, because we were healthy people. And I'm seeing it all the time with friends, friends and friends. I'm looking for...

Oh, my God, you look like 20 years older. We were in a school together. Like, what have you been eating and drinking the last 20 years? And I see it and I want to help and say something. But you're best off sometimes just keeping quiet because it's not my world. But surely they must know that they're not feeling healthy. Surely, because when you eat well, you feel healthy. When you exercise, you feel healthy. When you're a losing body fat, you feel healthier.

If someone's out there and they're overweight and they don't feel good in themselves, what's the next step they should take to find out whether they are actually pre-diabetic or not?

Well, it would be to run the blood work that I've mentioned. So the blood work that I've been doing has been the key because like you say, you probably might look a bit unhealthy. There's a strong chance you're going to be feeling unwell. You might be struggling with your energy, your sleep, you know, you're just feeling sub-optimal, like walking around life, just not quite feeling right. And actually subconsciously thinking, if I don't feel right, is there something else going on here?

Yeah. Should I be checking my blood work? And in America and the states and in other parts of Europe, it's just a regular occurrence. You get your bloods done every 12 months, whether there's a problem or not. And then you find out, actually, I'm heading towards prediabetes. My bad cholesterol is a little bit raised here. My liver is struggling a little bit.

I come and saw you after our chat, myself and my old man, and my wife, in fact, and we all had our bloods done. Anyone listen now that you must go, if you're feeling healthy, go and get a blood test for Laila. If you're not feeling healthy, go and get a blood test for Laila, because this is a game changer. Yeah, she's a lady too. She's, it's unreal. But you get, you get injected, you get the blood test, they send it away, they come back and they give you everything you need to know whether your test is low or the, this is good, well, that's good, that's good. Well, that's bad. You get your answers for the sake of,

Cut the run and record. It's like a body MOT to get your answers to decide, right, are you serious about your body? You go and get your car done for cut the run and record because you have to each year. We don't have to do it for our bodies and our future and our health and stuff. Just go and get them done because you'll get your answers because if someone is eating, having too much sugar in their dark because they like a bottle of white wine on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday and they're eating chocolates on the road and they're not moving very far because they're sitting in office all day.

you'll get your answers. Do you know straight away when someone's got a diet? How do you go? If someone come to you and go, you know, by seeing looking at them going, I think in your mind, you're thinking he might be diabetic. When you get your answers back, how do you tell someone?

Yeah, good question. So first off, there are outliers. So sometimes someone can be presenting and they can be fairly overweight or they might totally feel like their blood work is going to be terrible. And it comes back and it's actually OK. Metabolically, genetically, we're all very different. We need to check and we need to check our family history.

family history and I really specialising at the moment in cardiovascular health. And if anyone has a family history of heart disease, heart problems, it's vital that you check your blood work and advance cardiometabolic profile. So yes, I do get some scary results come back.

I'm trained and I've done it enough times now to be able to help people through that. So obviously, you know, it's a difficult conversation. But in a way, like I mentioned, the key word here is prevention. So a lot of the time I'm helping people to prevent what could potentially be an issue. And that's

Prevention is the key word there. Because anyone listen here, go, oh, yeah, I'll do it one day. I'll do it one day. I'll do it one day. Just go and get it done because you'll get your answers. There's no point of saying, I'm going to do it in three months, five months, and two years have gone by. Well, you could have solved the problem now. But the reason people don't is because it's psychological, right? And they're actually avoiding. They're in denial. One of the biggest things that keeps people unwell, mentally, physically and emotionally, is keeping themselves in denial of the real problems.

And I would say that obesity is a much a psychological issue as it is a health issue, because for the majority of people who are with classifiers obese, for the majority of those when you talk to them, their self-worth is very low. They've normally experienced levels of trauma. There was a study called the ACE score study, which stands for adverse childhood experiences.

And it's a set of 10 questions. And if you score one, so you say yes to one of those questions, you've already got a score that's too high. And data shows that if you answered 1.4 of those questions, sorry, if you answered to four of those questions, yes, you are 1.4 times more likely to have diabetes. You're also

two to two point three times more likely to have cancer. So there's a direct relationship between what we, how we treat our bodies. I'm a fan of the saying, if you want to see what someone's thinking was like in the past, look at their body today. You've seen something fascinating. She's got something fascinating that she's observed.

Yes, which is called emotional armory. And with emotional armory, it is when the body is in a state of being unsafe. So unsafe, it's not safe to change. So they may take up the diet. And I've seen people like this. They have taken up the diet. They have taken up some exercise. So logic and experience would show that they would lose a few pounds. If you make any changes, they would lose a few pounds. No.

They don't. What happens is the body and the metabolism start to override the work that's being done because the overall message to the body, it is not safe for me to be myself. And actually, there's a lot of people unknowingly and subconsciously using size as a way of protecting their sensitive self.

Survival mode is a real place to be. So we need to start looking at people who are overweight and not just looking at them needing to control food. They actually need to look at actually how do you feel about yourself and what has happened to you that makes you feel so unsafe that you it's not safe for you to change.

I also look at it as well and see like we talk about ultra processed foods. I think the majority of people might not know what ultra processed foods are but the way I see it is a lot easier to eat one ingredient foods.

Real food. Just actual food. Everyone's so confusing right now. Also processed food. If you pick up a packet and it's got 10 things written on the back 20 or 20 things with loads of words that you could own. That is what you call ultra processed foods. And that's crap. Throw it out of the house. Get your fridge filled up with lovely vegetables, nuts, fruits, meats, even meats. You've got to be careful with meats. Sometimes meats have been injected with ultra processed meats. You look at the back and go.

I don't want to put that in my body because- Yeah, ultra process meets one of the worst, unfortunately. Yeah, but you put ultra process food into your body. It's creating- Inflammation. It's creating all these problems. So, whatever you put in your mouth, have a bit of discipline and go, no, because it's easy to grab something when you're hungry and go, that'll do, because you're just used to it. But if you've been doing that for a year, three years, 10 years, you get to 20 years, you've done 20 years of it, and you are massively overweight right now, which will cause

the stuff we've been talking about obesity and diabetes. But I just want to know if you are classified as a diabetic, you phoned someone up and went, I've got your results back, I've got something to tell you are diabetic, what does that mean to someone? I want to know some shocking stuff that if you are diabetic, this is what could happen to you.

Yeah, so diabetes is the start of unfortunately a long road to further health issues. So once you get into that diabetic state with your blood glucose is at a dangerously high level, quite frankly, this will start to have other issues around the body. So first off, you may need to medicate daily. So that might be taking a tablet or if it gets to the point, you may also need to inject insulin.

daily so your pancreas will shut down it will stop producing insulin so therefore you have to be taking insulin yourself every day which is not nice to have to inject yourself. There's also very close link between type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease so heart disease being the number one biggest killer underlying all of this is probably

this chronic overuse of sugar and the issues with insulin because it does cause the damage to the arterial lining. Then there are other issues that might happen. So very extreme versions would be the loss of limbs. You can you can lose your your legs. So someone amputate. It's a complication of diabetes. Yeah, it's a complication.

That's enough, like, if you're out there and you're thinking, I'm obese, it's enough. You know, just going back there a minute, just to rewind it. We're saying about, like, blokes, where do you go? I didn't know until you and I spoke that I would have to go and get a blood test to find out. You know, and this was only a year ago. You know, anyone out there, you're thinking, oh, I bet it. What is that? I'm not too sure. Just go get a blood test. That's your answer. Yeah.

but then how many people, you know, they've got all sorts of things and they just do what men do, which is get on with it. I'm going to get on with it and I'm going to get on with it and I'm going to get on with it. And that is the biggest mantra that is keeping men sick and killing them is getting on with it.

So on a, on a blood test here, Layla, we'll put your details below in here. Anyone out there, please go and click on Layla, get in contact with Layla. It actually makes it really simple and easy for you. It's going to get your blood test. Just get your answers, all you want is your answers. Let's move on to number four, Cancer.

Big subject. Talking about that, just linking it through. So we just mentioned prostate. So the biggest killers for cancer for men would be prostate, lung, and bowel. So there's been a lot of awareness this year about prostate cancer. There's been some campaigns. So a lot more guys are having their PSA antigen tested. So that's one of the markers that will come in the blood test. But I've had a lot of guys come forward and say, oh, can you add PSA or can I check my PSA? So this is great. This is like the cervical screening.

awareness that happened for women. So it's just when the doctor has to get his rubber glove on. You got this is just a blood test. So this will check your levels. Don't worry. I don't know.

touch your toes. Yeah, and yeah, no, we've got things samples and things. No, no, I'm talking guys who are going to go and you've got to go and get your prostate checked out. If you're having symptoms, yes, a physical examination will happen as well. Yeah.

Yeah. I can see why a lot of blokes don't do it. Just like, do you want me to go and touch my toes with a doctor behind you putting a rubber glove on? What you've got to remember is when you leave things and neglect things, what you will then have to do will be a lot. Yeah. And it's the same with digestive health. So we haven't really touched on gut health, but talking about bowel cancer, obviously being one of the biggest cancers of men, you know, how many guys have a bit of IBS, a bit of bloating, a bit of acid. What's that? Irritable bowel syndrome.

What does that mean? What is that? It's a grey area that you can't be diagnosed with IBS, but it's a collection of symptoms, which actually probably most guys would say, oh, yeah, I have IBS. What is IBS? Like, how do you know if you had it or not? So it's things such as bloating troubles with your digestive system, going to the toilet, acid reflux,

you know, just generally a malfunctioning digestive system. So, but they might joke about it. Oh yeah, every time I have a curry, every time I have beer, it makes me feel really bloated. You know, and they might just live with it like that. They might live with a bit of, you know. And they just think that's part of normal life. But it's not. So you live like that for many, many years. This is going to cause problems in your large intestine. Okay. So this is going to potentially lead to bowel cancer.

Because we need talking about the foods. We need to be stocking up on fiber. It sounds simple, but fruits, vegetables, antioxidants, real food. But they're so tasty. Yeah. All of that stuff is so tasty. When you've got your toast buds and you cut sugar out of, can I speak of my word? Will you cut sugar out of your life?

your taste buds just become alive. Like you want to go and eat fruit, you want to go and eat vegetables, you want to eat cold vegetables, all this stuff is just amazing. So the guy I saw last week, similar to the guy I saw last week, we went round in circles because he was with a friend and he didn't want to have the burger king that his friend was having because he's obviously following his plan. So he didn't, he went to MNS and he got some nuts and some grapes and some real food. And we were talking about this and we came to conclusion that actually he preferred that.

He wasn't doing himself a dish. He actually preferred eating the real food. Now, it sounds simple and it sounds boring, but actually when you're eating real food, you're feeding your gut microbiome. You're feeding goodness. So the gut microbiome is going to feed you with anti-inflammatory messages. So those cytokines don't be there. If you're a guy who has got a belly on him,

It gets to a stage where you've put so much ultra-processed crap in you and sugar and da-da-da-da-da-da. Do you find it hard to go to the toilet or do you bloat so much of things? Something's not working inside. My gut system isn't working like it used to. Yeah. So with you've got the additives, the preservatives, the sugars, the ultra-processed foods, this changes the composition of your gut microbiome, the bacteria that's there. Yeah. And it also damages the gut lining. So this starts to have this chronic underlying impact

where you're just not digesting your food properly, you've got more of the pro-inflammatory bacteria that cause the bloating, the irregular digestive issues, the acid reflux. This all comes from what you're eating, basically. And that can also lead to cancer. Ladies, this is unbelievable stuff you're teaching men right now. This is unreal. Just for the normal body out there, doesn't need to go and speak to a scientist. The powerful information you're giving here for guys

is on another level. I've had guys come to me and they've done their stool test, and it has come back with signs of cancer, but they've caught it early. And that's the key, is catching these ones early. Early detection is the best. I can only go from my experience of just getting it done, getting your results again, and having your answers. We want to rule out as much as we're in, a piece of mind. So what are the major cancers for men? Prostate lung and bowel.

So we've recovered prostate, we've covered bowel. What's lung cancer? Well, less people are smoking. I mean, vaping is a big problem. We're looking at the stats and actually there probably has been a decline in lung cancers because of the campaigning around obviously cigarettes.

But I would say we don't know at the moment what's happening with vaping is probably equally if not even more so of a problem. And we're talking about guys and their exposure to certain things. So we touched on it earlier. The reports are saying that unfortunately guys are exposing themselves to more sort of risk taking behaviours, the industries they work in. I love a risk, I love a risk.

Someone said to me the other day, I said, you're an addict, I went, no. She said on stage, I said, but I think you're a risk addict, I thought, you're right. I've never heard that before, I went, you know, you're right. But you've been lucky in risk. You've been lucky in risk. But also, I think men are often exposed to a lot more chemicals in the workplace. This is it.

farming, engineering, all of those. So actually, they get exposed to a lot more carcinogenic chemicals. And even today, no one's realizing what they're doing to that body. But also, I think very underlooked part of cancer, again, is to do with our emotional health and our mental health. What do you think that's related to cancer, do you?

very much that I referenced earlier a study called the ACE score study, adverse childhood experiences. And what the data found that if you had had, if you answered yes to four of the 10 questions, you are two to 2.3 times more likely to have cancer. Now, I also have a theory having spoken to thousands of people in my work and, you know, in life as well. And I'm also a cancer survivor myself. And that is I am yet to speak to anybody

who didn't have a stressful occasion within three years of being diagnosed with cancer.

And yet a lot of people won't understand they'd have, oh yeah, I got divorced, I, you know, it's fine now, they'll say, but, you know, oh yeah, I lost my dad, but I hadn't really seen him for 15 years, but they won't realize the impact that that has had on them. So I have a real theory that we haven't really started to cross reference the impact that shock and trauma has on changing the behavior of your cells and your immune system to therefore keep cancer away. What is cancer?

It's an overgrowth of cells. So the cells become overactive. So we've all got cancer. So just for example, keep it really simple in your cells is cancer like a black cell with the red cell and more and more black cells build up, which passes it around your body. Cause you know when you do a screening or someone who you know past the cancer, you can see like on their lungs, it's a lot more dark way. Is that, is that, is this something that can feed cancer to speed cancer up? Sugar. It's sugar.

Why is the sugar, why are we allowed to have sugar? Why is the sugar when you go down to the ice tree, you go into supermarket, I watched a film called that sugar film. I don't know if anyone's watched it, go and check it out. An Australian guy goes to America and lives like an American style for two months or whatever. And they did this sort of shot that they went into the supermarket and 98% of the supermarket was packed full of sugar apart from the aisle where it was fresh fruit and vegetables. About 5%, 10%.

The rest of it. Like everything is sugar. Like you, you go and have chicken for dinner. It's been injected with sugar. You go and have some, some bacon. It's got, it's like, how on earth is this allowed? Yeah. I know we know why it's allowed because the corporates are only fortunes from it, which is then putting pressure on our NHS and did it with its full circle. They also are the major sponsors of TV, media and et cetera, et cetera. So without their funding, so many systems of media would collapse.

Wow. Let's move on to the fifth one, and we've touched on it already, diabetes. We've kind of touched on that one, but it's one that is not really talked enough.

I don't think around men. Yeah. And it's something that needs to be brought to the attention of men who accidentally or don't realize how much sugar they're having when they wake up in the morning, having cereal that's been coated with sugar. They don't really realize later on, they get a quick snack, they go to fill up the car, let go of someone and get a snack or a three quid meal deal with a

because they're on the road, they're traveling. A lot of guys are, you know, in construction or building sites, for example, and they're on the road. And it's very difficult to go to places to get healthy real food, you know, but looking at the stats, so obesity-wise, the UK has now overtaken the US in terms of percentage of obesity. You are joking, mate. The UK is overtaken America. In terms of percentage of obesity. Oh my God. But they have more super obese.

So they're still ahead, but we're not. They're left to be in some way. They like to win. They've got the super obese, but we're not far behind, right? But that's changed. If you think about the 70s and 80s where people on the beach, everyone was lean. Everyone was lean. If you go on holiday now and you walk down the beach, I'm seeing more and more overweight people.

But was that the low fat that caused that? I think there was less sugar back then, there was less options. I just think there's so many options where I know you can get food anywhere you want and it's just, yeah. So talking about type 2 diabetes, the stats say there's 850,000 people walking around the UK with diabetes who don't know they've got it.

You know, the signs are there. The signs are there, you know, you actually lose weight after, you know, you put on weight, you start to lose weight because your cells are working differently. You might have struggle, struggle, sleep with energy, you more need to go to the toilet to urinate, blood vision. There are some signs and symptoms that come along with this. But like you said, you're sort of fascinated about this link between what we're eating

and this type two diabetes that's really obviously very prevalent, that then can lead to the cancers and the heart disease, for example. When you eat crap, you crash. When you eat nice foods, it makes you happier. Exactly. It's so simple. But if you feed yourself nice, healthy food, you feel good about yourself,

And then you make better decisions, you're more productive, you get more done, you have better relationships. It reminds of like alcohol, like nothing good comes from alcohol, like all the negative stuff in life that links to alcohol, when you don't drink alcohol, all the positive things happen.

But a lot of people don't have the baseline of what it feels like to feel good. So you're coming at this as being a place that you know what it feels like to feel good. But for someone who's had extensive trauma, and obviously there's a lot of emotional connection to food, as well as dopamine hits that come from sugar, etc. But if you don't have a baseline of what it is to feel good,

Or if actually being connected to yourself puts you right in all your trauma, your negative thinking and your pain, then you haven't got that baseline to move in and out of. So I think one of the most difficult thing is coming out of denial. It doesn't matter if you're facing giving up an addiction, be it food, alcohol, work.

gambling, you know, exercise, whatever it is, you have one of the hardest things to deal with is to face the denial that you've surrounded yourself, the belief system that you enjoy this food, the belief system that, well, you know, I'll just get on with it. You have to face up to the denial that you are under. And that is the hardest place of making any change. Or break in a habit. Yes.

Breaking a habit takes 100 days. You might have the desire, but you haven't made the commitment. And if you haven't made the commitment, you haven't made a decision. So start with making a decision. And it's so brave and so strong when you do. So powerful. So powerful. Disciplines the most powerful thing in the world. To see the changes that have been happening, Dodger, it's been really inspiring.

The commitment that people i i mean i'm not one doing hard work it's the people that come to see me that doing the real car and the confidence that i'm going to know that i am supporting them through it and i've got a skill to do that but it's the people themselves that are having you know the guts and the strength to come forward and go i'm gonna own this now i'm gonna look into this i'm gonna deal with it. Ladies absolutely love this.

as being an absolute thrill to join in with you again and talk about our favourite subjects. Amazing. Literally amazing. And help people. And help people. That's the key to this podcast. We've got a platform that has copious amounts of people watching millions a week watching and on YouTube and all the different platforms. And you're using it for such good dogs. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Amazing. Amazing. We've got some proper characters on YouTube. I know you have. A fantastic.

Well, we've had some pretty good chats about everything. We're equally as passionate. Absolutely love it. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. I really do appreciate your time and your expertise. And anyone listening down there, we'll leave it on the show notes below. Please contact Layla. Please contact Becky. Yeah. Thank you so much, girls. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. Nice one.

Hi guys, I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favour and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show. Cheers guys!