In a digital landscape that prioritises and promotes polarising content, it’s no wonder that people so easily get set in their views and are driven to extremes. When I first encountered Thomas DeLauer eight years ago, he was a fierce advocate for a low-carb, ketogenic diet. And while he remains a proponent of a lower carbohydrate diet, his stance has evolved to adopt more nuance and place greater emphasis on the importance of unsaturated fats and fibre.
Escaping an echo chamber and admitting that you have changed your mind – particularly when you have a large, engaged audience – is no easy feat. In Episode #265, I sit down with Thomas DeLauer to break down some of the walls that exist between different dietary camps, opening the conversation around nuance and an open-minded approach.
“We need to stop pitching diet against diet and focus on the benefits of what could work.”
Thomas DeLauer is an expert in diet, nutrition, and mindset. He is motivated by a guiding ethos of integrated optimisation, believing that if you perform better, so does the world. He has built upon his experience as a young, successful athlete and later, successful businessman that had found him tipping the scales at close to 300lb. It was through his 100lb weight loss transformation that he was able to tap into how he could truly help others. These experiences allowed him to develop the belief that we all possess the ability to tap into the best versions of ourselves by optimising our understanding and application of fitness, nutrition, and mindset. He is supported by a remarkable research team that backs his platform with science and evidence to validate the work, and his expertise is shared in fitness and lifestyle publications worldwide.
“It’s easier to default to comfort, it’s easier to default to hyper-palatable because it’s easy, we’re all pressed for time. Until we can learn how to change our default patterns, every time we get stressed we’re going to go back there. Every time it’s hard we’re going to go back there.”
In this episode, we break down stereotypes commonly associated with specific dietary camps, challenging dogmatic views on nutrition and overall well-being. Thomas shares his weight loss journey, revealing the mental shift that pushed him to achieve his health goals and the strategies that helped him do so.
This exchange covers a variety of topics around weight loss and health optimisation, including intermittent fasting, finding a macronutrient balance that works for you, CGMs and other tracking tools, sleep, fibre, and much more.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Intro (00:00)
- Simon makes assumptions about Thomas DeLauer (5:03)
- Thomas on working out (6:58)
- Biohacking (8:37)
- Cold plunges and saunas (9:35)
- Thomas DeLauer and alcohol (15:51)
- Tea or coffee (18:50)
- Battling and overcoming obesity (20:39)
- Low-carb vs low-fat diet (31:06)
- Unprocessed vs. ultra-processed diets (39:04)
- Benefits of CGM for non-diabetic (47:10)
- Saturated fat and insulin resistance (52:09)
- What Thomas and Simon’s diets look like (1:02:29)
- Do we need fibre? (1:10:18)
- Food intolerances (1:17:40)
- Changing lifestyle after traumatic event (1:23:17)
- Strategies for a healthier lifestyle (1:26:15)
- Calorie Counting and Intermittent Fasting (1:28:26)
- Thomas DeLauer on Vegan diet (1:35:46)
- Choosing different diets and finding common ground (1:37:40)
- Roy Taylor’s research on Losing Weight (1:43:47)
- How Sleep Deprivation affects your diet (1:51:01)
- Outro (1:56:14)
Thomas’ approach to mindset is truly inspiring, and his capacity to evolve his views over time is admirable. If there is one thing that is a clear green flag for an expert in any topic, it’s the ability to change their mind. I hope this conversation equips you with strategies to feel more confident in your mindset and see that often, if you dig below the surface, those with opposing views agree more than we might think.
For more insights like the ones shared in this episode, head to Thomas’ YouTube channel or check out his book, Intermittent Fasting Made Easy. You can also connect with him on Instagram and his website, https://thomasdelauer.com/.
The best way to support the show is to use the products and services offered by our sponsors. To check them out and enjoy great savings, visit theproof.com/friends.
Enjoy, friends.
Simon
More about Thomas DeLauer
Thomas DeLauer is an expert in diet, nutrition, and mindset. He is motivated by a guiding ethos of integrated optimization: if you perform better, so does the world. Thomas reaches more than 15 million viewers monthly (on average) through his Youtube channel, where he translates experience and learning from his own health transformation into actionable steps for his dedicated community of 2.9 million subscribers. The strength of Thomas’ platform is communication, distilling complex subject matter – i.e. the biochemistry of the ketogenic diet, fasting, metabolic health, and more — into digestible insights for the viewer.
Thomas has built a name for himself by helping busy people across the world find time to make small, easy changes to not only become healthier, but to become top performers in life, whether career, fitness, family, or hobbies. He has built upon his experience as a young, successful athlete and later, successful businessman that had found himself tipping the scales at close to 300lb. It was through his 100lb weight loss transformation that he was able to tap into how he could truly help others. These experiences allowed him to develop the belief that we all possess the ability to tap into the best versions of ourselves by optimizing our understanding and application of fitness, nutrition, and mindset. He is supported by a remarkable research team that backs his platform with science and evidence to validate the work, and his expertise is shared in fitness and lifestyle publications worldwide.
As a father and husband (2 young children), Thomas’ motivation lies in helping people become better not just for themselves, but for their families. Utilizing lifestyles such as intermittent fasting, paleo, and even periods of keto, he inspires and optimizes those that are eager to become better versions of themselves.
Supporting studies
- Optimal diets for prevention of coronary heart disease • PMID: 12444864
- Nutritional basis of type 2 diabetes remission • PMID: 34233884
- Effects of Saturated Fat, Polyunsaturated Fat, Monounsaturated Fat, and Carbohydrate on Glucose-Insulin Homeostasis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomised Controlled Feeding Trials • PMID: 34233884
