The Thermo Diet Podcast Episode 66 - Billy Craig

In this episode of The Thermo Diet Podcast Jayton Miller sits down with one of the original gangsters of metabolic nutrition Billy Craig. Billy Craig is a UK based Independent Health & Nutrition Researcher. The focus of his work and research is currently on the Psychology of Dieting and Metabolism amongst other related topics. In this episode they talk about Billy’s story, The no diet -diet, why diet and exercise might not be what you need to slim up and feel good, why you should not cut calories, and how to deal with some of the psychological barriers that come our way when adopting the "eat more and exercise less" approach. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Instagram: -

@_christopherwalker ( https://www.instagram.com/_christophe... ) - @researchcowboy ( https://www.instagram.com/researchcow... )

Billy's Website - http://www.billycraig.co.uk/ 

https://umzu.com/ 

Full Transcript:

Jayton Miller:
Welcome back to the Thermo Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Jayton Miller, and today I have on podcast one of the OGs, Billy Craig. Billy Craig is the author of Consistent Eating. He is a UK-based independent health and nutrition researcher with a focus around the psychology of dieting and metabolism, among other related topics. 

Jayton Miller:
In this episode, we talk about Billy's story. We talk about the no-diet diet, why diet and exercise might not be what you need to slim up and feel good, why you really shouldn't count calories in most cases and be cutting calories whenever you're trying to heal your body. And why this is a common misconception in some cases. So there's a lot of golden nuggets in this episode and I'm really excited for you all to be able to listen to it. Every once in a while the audio is a bit funky, but he is in the UK. So outside of that, it is relatively decent. So I hope you all enjoy this episode. Let's get into it.

Jayton Miller:
How's it going today, guys? I am here with none other than Billy Craig. How you doing today, Billy?

Billy Craig:
Very well, thank you. You?

Jayton Miller:
I'm doing very well. So for the listeners out there who might not know who you are, do you mind telling them a little bit of your background and where you came from?

Billy Craig:
I started off as a cyclist, so riding for Team Great Britain. Got injured, ended up working for Rolls-Royce, which I think most people think is the car company, but it's the aero engines. Wasn't massively interested in it, so I was looking for a way back into sport or some sort of health thing. And then fell into, like most people, personal training. And then my background in engineering never really made dieting make much sense to me. I could never understand why people were trying to eat less. 

Billy Craig:
It was very mechanistic at the time and it just didn't make any sense. So, I probably should have gone straight to uni. But I ended up in a gym and pretty much got in arguments with everyone because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. So, yeah. That was where the "What would Billy say?" tagline, because I was always doing everything different to anyone. And then if anyone got a problem, any of the trainers got a problem they didn't want to deal with, like somebody who couldn't walk like a 70 year old man with a double hip replacement, and someone that got cancer, they'd all just get sent to me, because they knew that I'd be quite interested in them. 

Jayton Miller:
That's awesome. What did you do after personal training?

Billy Craig:
I worked for a massive big gym, and they just starved me out of work, to be honest. They asked me to dumb down my programs, and I was more interested in teaching people, so I did decide to go and be a teacher. And then I realized that wasn't much better, because you couldn't adapt the curriculum when I wasn't happy teaching some of the things. Then went to university and did a degree, an undergraduate degree in some really weird stuff, like neuroscience and biochemistry. And then some stuff that was completely off at a tangent. I wasn't aiming for any specialization. I think I was basically just looking for a way through uni without doing anything that had got a typical examination. I was looking at things where I could argue and debate, rather than having to sit tests where there was structured answers. 

Billy Craig:
I was quite happy getting Cs. A couple of times I got As, I was quite proud of it. And then I think it, was it [Michael Passenger 00:03:40], who said the better students were like C grades? I just was aware that everyone was looking at outcomes, what was expected, and they were just doing anything to meet that. And I just wasn't happy doing it. I was quite happy getting into arguments with the dean about all sorts of random stuff. It was mainly just me dissenting really. 

Billy Craig:
Then moved onto a master's degree in psychology. By that time I got a wife, so she kept me on track for that and I came out with a distinction. They probably were like, "Why did he get that, and then he suddenly toed the line on this?" Probably because I got married. I ended switching to psychology because of this fascination with the brain. And wanting to understand more. And them my next thing was going to be a PhD, looking at caloric intake. And they'd got 20,000 participants for me to draw the data out from. And then right at the last minute, it turned out that it was a diet company called Slimming World, which is big in the UK. I think, is it in the US now?

Jayton Miller:
I haven't heard of it personally.

Billy Craig:
Yeah. It's quite local to me, but they put a £1 million into the local university. The guy who was going to be senior advisor then said to me, I can't remember what his name is, and then it was @slimmingworld.co.uk. And then he was started, "Well, we need you to change this hypothesis. We need you to start looking at ways to create adherence to the diet." They wanted me to build, they wanted me to work on app. It looked like what I was going to do, was probably going to make it look like their diet didn't work. I'll say, there was just a clash so I walked away and started doing like a PhD by publication where I was just writing lots to [inaudible 00:05:29], send it, and [inaudible 00:05:31] by someone, and do it by more deceptive means.

Jayton Miller:
Okay. Interesting. One of the things that you are well known for, is the 6,000 calorie diet. We were talking a bit before the podcast about it. What is your approach to nutrition on a general basis? And why do you support the no-diet diet approach?

Billy Craig:
Well, that's what we spoke about before. I think I'd probably maybe not classify it as a no-diet, because then people maybe think it's a massive refeed. When I did my 6,000 calories, I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's at that point. But if I knew anything about psychology at that point, I would've probably guessed. I'm not sure that I'd get that diagnosis anymore, because of certain things I've done. I'd still be obsessive about doing things, but not to that degree. But at that current point, if I was going to do something I would do it well. I was quite interested to do a little bit of a study, more of an engineer's idea of studying something. I did a year at the gym, four hours a day because I was injured from my sport. I did two hours of cardio, two hours of weights. 

Billy Craig:
I checked out on my personal training course, which one is the best way to go? Do you do cardio first? They didn't know. So I set that all out. I got to about 290 days of doing it every day. And I was splitting it around, so it wasn't that I was overtraining in certain things. I was working hard. And I think I lost four pounds in a year. There was a point where one of the trainers in the gym offered me a free personal training session. And I couldn't work out what he was going to do, it was an hour's personal training session, but he said he could do something. He underestimated my abilities as a former professional mountain biker. And it's not mountain biking as in loads of distances, and motor cycles as well. So it's, whilst I was tiny, I could lift more than most people, because I'm used to throwing a motorbike around. 

Billy Craig:
So he couldn't do anything, and so I carried on. Even did Christmas day, because it was a hotel gym. I think I did 395 days and I got it all recorded, lost four pounds. And just happen to be in the change room, and there was a really in-shape guy and he was, "Oh, it's all about nutrition." And then he just walked out. Then, I switched onto, it's all about nutrition, so I tracked and logged and recorded everything, just out of interest, for a period just to see what I was doing. And kind of looked at it, everything's upside down. And having a big dinner, and no breakfast, and a little lunch. So I started switching things around. And then just started playing with calories. 

Billy Craig:
Then struck upon a guy at Loughborough uni, which is where my wife's just finished her PhD. He was also hated by everyone else. And he was looking at caloric intake and resting metabolic rate equation, just a standardized formula. And he got three teachers that were in this book, I think it was a YMCA manual he was teaching from, and all three gave a different figure. And nobody else on the course, there were 30 people who were undergraduate students, none of them, they all wanted to know which one the correct one was. And there was only me that could get it, as an engineer. They just guessed it really, they just thought it was based on different formulas. So he got various ones. And they all went away, having passed, but they didn't understand it.

Billy Craig:
And that threw me into the, "Does it really matter what the figure is? Will your body just adapt to what it is?" So therefor if you're in a gym starving yourself, you're making yourself more efficient, which is the exact opposite of what most people want. They want to burn that fuel. They want to be inefficient. That threw me down to playing with different figures, which eventually ended up being 6,000 calories a day, which was slightly insane.

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. What did that look like on a daily basis as far as what you were eating and your frequency and stuff like that?

Billy Craig:
I used to get up in the night to eat. I've referred to it recently as being like a baby's diet, like an infant's diet. If you've got small children, you know that they wake up in the night. Maybe not if you bottle feed them because you can get a bit more in, but if they're breastfed, it's repetition. They've not got the ability to store food, they've been used to being in the womb and just taking glucose whenever they want. I've referred to it recently as the infant diet. And then if you look at the metabolic rate per unit mass, so per kilogram, that's the closest I've ever been in terms of metabolic rate to the metabolic rate in the womb, so probably pretty much that. 

Billy Craig:
But I was eating at about, I think it was 03:00. So I'll get up and have a massive bowl of bran flakes and I think, from memory, I've not got all the data. I did record it all, but I think it's probably up in the loft somewhere. I think it was something like half a box of bran flakes. And then I'd get up before I went to work, and I'd have another breakfast. And then I couldn't go longer than, I struggled to have a client for an hour. And I've still got one of those clients now and again. And she would confirm that at 45 minutes, and I was thinking about eating. Because I still used to ride my bike and do shows for various people in like night clubs, the bag of food that I would take with me just to go from say 09:00 till 01:00 in the morning, was insane. I couldn't go anywhere without food. 

Billy Craig:
And that's not going to work for most people, because if you've got to sit in an office and a boardroom, you can't be, you can't have a [inaudible 00:11:29] of food next to you. It was too far, but as an experiment it was good. Nobody believed it. Everyone thought I got an eating disorder and was starving myself. My mom kept making comments now, "Come on. You need to start eating." And I don't think it would work that quick for most people, because I've got no background in real dieting. I'd put weight on just through drinking. I'd never drank in my life, and when I got injured I kind of thought, well why not? I've not been drinking because I wanted to be world champion. I haven't got a reason anymore, so I kind of got into that. I just got fatter through, I don't know, maybe inactivity and depression, and just turning to drink. 

Billy Craig:
For most people if you've got, I don't know if you're in your forties and you've got a history of dieting, it's not your metabolism that's going to repair that problem. It's going to be a longer term project. I think the stage one, and I wouldn't want anyone to get up to 6,000 calories, it just ruled your life. It's upside, the opposite. It's still a disordered eating, you can't survive without food. And I think that's why metabolism has to decrease. So you're in the womb, pure glucose. And then you're born. And you cry and you get fed. And I think there's a problem around four. So around four, we typically go to school, and then you can't get fed whenever you want anymore. And maybe around four as well, if you start crying and you're hungry you get told to stop being naughty. Whereas when you're younger, you either get taken to the toilet, you get your nappy changed, get put to bed, or get fed. It's like an ideal world.

Billy Craig:
Once you get that little bit older and getting to school age, it becomes a behavioral problem. As you've got to get more physically active, you've got to slow down the metabolic rate a little bit. Make sure there's protein to grow muscles and fat to have a little bit of a buffer, so the growth in the brain dips a little bit, so the cognitive ability. There is some research I've been doing for a new book that, sort of like four or five is your peak of intelligence. You obviously do learn more things, but the size and for what you know, and that's where you peak. And then you actually never really get any cleverer than that after that. 

Jayton Miller:
Wow. 

Billy Craig:
And if you look at four and five, you ask loads of questions and they'll do stuff. And then by the time they're teenagers, they'll just, "Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it." Four or five year old kids are intuitive. They know they're hungry, they know what they want. They'll ask questions. They want to know the answer to why. Why does this happen? Why does that happen? Little bit older and it's, just do whatever they have to.

Jayton Miller:
Wow. That's interesting. One of the things that I've heard before is that, before the age of two, one of the reasons that people can't remember that part of the beginning stages of their life, is because their metabolic rate is so high, that they're almost in a psychedelic-like trance for their first two years of life. Just because the energy flow through the system is at such a high rate that their experiences, it's not really memorable because they get kind of pulled back down after those first two years.

Billy Craig:
I think that's definitely potential. Because if you look at dopamine and... say dopamine, if you've like a baseline dopamine and then a peak dopamine. If you look at that in children, that's why they've got no, they literally I look at that. And like my son, he's five now, and because of the way we feed him, and just like, "Just go for it. Just eat," he's still so passionate about something for 20 seconds and then he's like, another thing over there. 

Billy Craig:
And then as things change and diet change and serotonin comes up, and then you narrow down, you become a little bit more fixated on stuff, which is good because you see that thing more clearly, but you miss out on all the things before. And then you'd go too far, and you become OCD. And this is, "I'm fat. I'm fat. And this is all I can think of." If it was a kid, you'd the see the bigger picture and you're not fat. So yeah, I'd say that's definitely plausible. Not something I particularly... You've probably given me another chapter. I'm on 75 chapters already. That will be something, if I go and have another one. I keep not finishing, and I keep having more chapters to the biggest book in the world.

Jayton Miller:
You should definitely send me a link to where I can pre-order the book after the podcast. I'm super interested in that.

Billy Craig:
I did that with my first book. I put a pre-order thing on there, and then it just like... I'd never even thought about the stresses of publishing it. And it changed so much from the start. It was just literally going to be a diet book to start, about why you shouldn't diet. And then it ended up being about Alzheimer's and about how the brain tries to protect itself, so the fat is just an energy buffer. I very much view it, and still do now which is useful to people, that if you're overweight, it's just protecting you. It's protecting you from whatever you're showing it. If you want to show that things are safer over a progressive period of time, do everything safely. Dump in 6,000 calories then, when you've been on 1,500 isn't safe. That just says, our organs, my pancreas isn't big enough to deal with that. We've not had this for 20 years. What's going on? That's more stress.

Billy Craig:
If you do things progressively, understand where you are, build a scientific experiment. An old style scientific experiment. Not this new modern, "This is what we want. What are we going to do?" If you sit there, observe and hopefully measure, you could do it with a calorie formula. You could say, "This is where I am. This I how big I am. And I'm not happy with that. This is what that formula gives me. This is where I want to be. I want to be this weight. That's the difference between them. That's a massive gap. I'm not going to do that, because that would be a massive jump." I'm going to slow it down. That's why need [inaudible 00:17:30] metabolic carts to use, and before I knew they existed, I just used that formula and said, "Well, it's telling me this, this formula. This common theory says that I should have a deficit. I'm not going. I'm going to have 200 calories extra. It's not much. It's nothing [inaudible 00:17:48] really. And then after a period of time, I'll take it up another 200."

Billy Craig:
I just kept doing that. And then when I got metabolic carts, I'd get the reading off that. And I said, "Right, I'm going to do the same thing. And I'm going to take it up by 200. I'll test again in a month. And then go up, and go up, and go up." I think if people start with an objective measure of where they are, so they actually do old school science and observe nature, then perform the hypotheses. And it could still be, "I'm going to eat less, move more." It could be the opposite way around, but if you can't say what you're going to do, you can't measure it at the end. You can't objectively know whether you're going anywhere.

Jayton Miller:
Yeah. Now, whenever you're doing an approach like this, do you take into consideration nutrient density? Or to what degree do you think that that matters?

Billy Craig:
I did think it mattered quite a lot, but I've also seen a lot of people eating a lot of junk food. I think it matters where you are. And I think, like we were saying before, I think for most people if they start something, and they understand where they are and they've not just jumped onto some clean eating, fasting... if they understand where they are, and they start progressively trying to bring it back, by the time they've got there, their energy's increased, their ability to absorb nutrients has increased, their gastrointestinal tract is better. They don't really have to worry about getting particular things. Things just start improving. For, I don't know, 90% of people that do do the thing they want to when they come to me, we end up where everything's all right. We've done it progressively.

Billy Craig:
I think one of the problems in most worlds, in the refeed world is that people suddenly jump in, find out there's this orange juice and milk diet, dump it in, and then can't absorb it. They can't do anything with it, because their gastrointestinal tract has shrunken a little bit through starvation. The pancreas isn't good, so they can't use the sugar that well. They can't get things to the brain, so they end up with brain fog. It's just rushed. For most of the people I work with, when they do it slower over, even years some people, they say, "I understand I have dug a massive hole. I'm going to progressively get myself out of it." They don't really have to worry about it.

Billy Craig:
In some of my athletes, we look at all sorts of things. Well, some of the athletes that I did have. And the one that I'm working with now, we're not at that stage yet because we're looking at performance for him. Then yeah, but we'll be manipulating things and trying to change things around. At the moment we're just looking at baseline and getting that ready. But when he's in the car racing, we'll be manipulating all sorts of things to try and improve it and get things better. 

Billy Craig:
I think for your average person on the street, just increasing energy generation, as Ray would say, is enough to get them to where they are. There are people with specific things where we can look and say, "You need some more of this." And then it's like when you use in America, Cronometer. It's great to getting a good, it's horrible and clunky to use and it's painful. It's even worse than tracking calories normally, but as an occasional, "Every two months I'm going to drop into this and see where I am. Do any of those deficiencies link with what I am doing? Do I need to supplement them? Can I adjust things around? Is it because my gastrointestinal tract's not great? Are there reasons for it?" So, another good measure. I'm not keen on just dumping things in unknown.

Billy Craig:
And the same with carbohydrates. I'm more interested in... I had a lady come see me, was diabetic and everything looked good. And she was saying she [inaudible 00:21:43], so she drove to see me, which I think it was like 50 miles, which is nothing to American people, but it's quite a big journey for someone in Britain sometimes to come and see someone like me. And 50% of her intake was fat. And it had just slipped. She'd done stuff before, I'd met her before. And she was saying, "No. No, I'm still doing the same." And the butcher had just slipped up, which is great and there's nothing wrong with it. But she'd not been diabetic for several years. 

Billy Craig:
And just over time, she progressively, the macronutrients had just changed. And she was suddenly eating work a high fat diet. Just swapped it round again just by using Cronometer. I think I had to fill it in for her, because she was a certain age and was afraid of the technology. That literal session we just filled in a [inaudible 00:22:30] she was eating a lot of fat, [inaudible 00:22:32] work, so she was missing that meal. Changed it around. The next time she saw the diabetic nurse, everything was fine.

Jayton Miller:
Wow. Now with this progressive approach, how fast do you usually progress? Is that independent to the person?

Billy Craig:
Yeah. That's where psychology would come in for me. And I try and get an idea of, which is a bit woo, of where they are. And everyone will come in and say, "No, this is really what I want to do." I've had someone who comes back every year at the same sort of point. And I'm like, there's got to be something that's kicking this in their life. I don't know, I've always told myself is I'm not bothered if someone came and told me they're a murderer, and they wanted to sort their diet out, I'm literally not bothered as long as you've not murdered any of my family. 

Billy Craig:
People do tend to tell me some weird stuff, but I've [inaudible 00:23:30] into the psychology for that reason, not to counsel people, but I try and get an understanding of where they are. And most people tend to tell me the truth, or they're telling me some pretty outlandish stuff. And then from that, I will let them decide. And I will try educate them and say, "Are you sure?" There's people that come in and say, "Right. Now, I want to have one session with you." I'm not the best business person. "I want to have one session with you, and then I'll go it alone." And I'm like, "I'd rather you... I'll have one session with you. And can I have it in five minutes? And when you're on your way to your office, can you just call me and I'll just run some ideas past?" And it will be drip feeding in, because they just go off on their own. 

Billy Craig:
And partly because they get back into their old world with their old friends. I suppose it's like packing up smoking. If you keep going to the pub and hanging around with smokers, they're going to drag you back down. In that sort of world, you get people back doing stuff. It's always staged. I don't think anyone's going to come to me having just dieted for a couple of months. I think most people are right there, they're going to do all the other options before they find out about me. Though typically, I'm not the best advertiser. Even through lockdown, "I should this. And I should that." 

Billy Craig:
I just sit here writing controversial things and not even pacing it. Because I've just literally built up, I think about 350,000 words in a book, that's going. And really, I could've been posting on the internet and getting customers. And I've just been sitting typing away earning no money, obsessively. And no one sees it. And then seeing that, I'm thinking no one's even going to understand any of this. Sent it out to some people to proofread, and I don't even know if it's finished. Don't even know what some of it says, because it's that long ago. But I still like writing it. 

Billy Craig:
By the time people come to see me, they're going to have, they've got to have some sort of history of long-term disordered eating. I just think, having admitted that I rushed into it, because I'm desperate for change but I suffered, I always encourage people to just be in contact with someone. It doesn't have to be me, it can be you, it can be anyone. But get some sort of support network, because it's a different viewpoint really. The whole world's talking about starvation. And not just, they talk about longevity and fasting being good. Like that guy that lived in the biosphere, I wrote about him at one point, where he starved himself. And he was still adamant at his death, his arms were in slings to continue his work, because he's brain was suffering that bad, he was still adamant that he would've lived to 120. It was living in the biosphere that killed him, the nitric oxide or whatever. It was nothing to do with starving himself. 

Billy Craig:
The world's full of theories about eating less and doing all sorts of dietary things. I think it's a strange world and I think people are better doing things slowly, admitting that it's taken them 30 years to get that environmental problem. That the fat that got on them as a buffer, so if you loose it quickly, that just signals more stress. If you go and have that all chopped off, that's just going to send a message to your brain saying, "That energy buffer that we've created over 20 years because the environment's not great, has just been taken." So, slow things down even more.

Billy Craig:
In some people I've measured, they've got a very low metabolic rate per unit mass, but they're not fat. They're not overweight. They tend to be the ones in my research, that tend to have the brain degeneration. We've got like family histories of Alzheimer's, and dementia and things like that. And that is one of the things that happens in dementia. People might be plump or overweight which we know is protective in old age. It's good to have a little bit of fat, or some fat. And then prior to Alzheimer's being diagnosed, they seem to lose weight. And that happens in a lot of cachexia and muscle loss. 

Billy Craig:
Almost when I see somebody's who's overweight, it's almost to say, that no your body is protecting you. It's protecting your brain. It's creating this energy buffer. Yes, it's fine to lose the weight. We all want to do it, because we all want to look like the pictures we see in magazines or Instagram. But realize that it's an energy buffer, it's an emergency store. Do it properly. Take your time. The longer the better. And most people have messed up diets and on-and-off, and on-and-off. Generally people are there saying, "Well, this is the one I want to do properly. I'm past it." And everyone's always saying, "Oh, I dieted at 20. If I could look like I did at 20 now, it would be great." And then it's, "Oh, well. You're 50 now. You'll probably be saying this when you're 70, 'I wish I could look like I was when I was 50.'" It's a fine line between physiology and psychology really. Calming someone down a lot of the time. They're mad to come do 6,000 calories. I'm like, "No. No. You don't know where you are. It will be... you'll hate me. You'll go in the internet and slay me." 

Billy Craig:
There was some guy who did it. I think he tried to get me on his radio show. And luckily I said no, because he was a vegan. I can't remember what his name was now. But literally, "Ah yeah, come on my show," and I was just nervous about it, for some reason. It was on YouTube I think. And then he'd done a water fast, I think four weeks. And then the next thing he'd done was 6,000 calories, because he'd read it on the internet about me. And he wanted to debate that he'd put weight on. I'm like, "You're going to." It's not a fair scientific trial, is it? And it's not comparable. I did it for a year. Whereas, day two and everything. And I'd not done a water fast. Yeah, you'd not be able to repeat the results, you did it for a week. And you just cheated it beforehand.

Billy Craig:
Yeah, there's some bizarre ideas out there. I've got people come in, "I've read this thing. This seems like me." And I know, I did some stuff with Matt Stone before, and he did this Eat for Heat. And it's fine, it's right, but if it's going to cause that panic, then people are going to jump back off and go straight back to their old habits, aren't they?

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. Now, do you notice that whenever you're taking an approach like this and you begin refeeding, is there a significant difference between males and females whenever you're working with them?

Billy Craig:
Psychologically, yes. Some of the males are terrible. I shouldn't say that. Some of the males that have visited me in the past are terrible. I've had family members. Some of them, I don't know. But no, equally, I've had some males are great and are like, "I don't understand it. But I want to. And I need to see more." But yeah, there's been some women that have very low metabolic rates, like a history of severe eating disorder. And I have lied to a few, because I'm literally not telling you that number. I've done it, whereas I said I refed mine up by eating slightly higher. I've done with them, just like, "Ah yeah. It's this figure." But I've had businessmen, really intelligent people who you've said, "This is your metabolic rate. Here's all the data." "No. No. It's not. I'm not eating that much." 

Billy Craig:
One must've been about six foot four, and like, "You're a big guy." And. "No. No, I'm going to eat 2,000 because that's what..." there a doctor in the UK, "... Dr, Michael Mosley says." And I don't know, I think it depends on the person. I suppose sometimes if people have been sent by the partner to sort themself out and do it properly, they're not always that willing to do it. I think by the time most people come to me, they've read something about Ray Peat and then just family. And occasionally you get people who've read about metabolic carps, so they're obviously searching for it. And they find that I've got one. And then they find out I'm going to do it completely different to everyone else. I'm not going to give them a massive calorie deficit. 

Billy Craig:
I think the people I meet have already got an idea what I'm going to say. Most people are quite ready to do something. And generally if they're not, then I don't work with them. Particularly now, I haven't got the time. I'm far more interested in writing bits for a book that I've not published yet. And I think I've always had that, like I said, I'm not the best business person in the world. I'm not that driven to do it. I've got someone trying to make me a bit more passionate about it, so that I can live and survive and eat. And try and set something up online so that you can help more people. I always have that goal of, I use Patreon, and it was always a goal to get to where I could just survive on every one paying me a dollar, and I got a lot of people. And I could just do whatever, and speak to anyone whenever they needed it. And everyone only paid a dollar. I don't know, I suppose I wanted to be some healthcare socialist. 

Billy Craig:
But in reality, if people have got this far then I think they're willing to do something. And I think particularly in the UK, there's just no help anywhere for anyone. I've got someone whose family member is suffering, theoretically suffering with anaemia, and managed to get the basic thyroid test that they've got. And everything looks way off. And it's the first thing they'd ever heard about it. They're not in a position to pay me. I haven't really got the time. And I'm sitting back looking at it, and thinking this is a severe problem, because they have got no awareness that there is anything other than our health service. That's the way to do it. They don't know, they're of a [inaudible 00:33:18], they've got no awareness of anything, any discussion on the internet about thyroid health, they've got no awareness of anything. They're just literally sat there doing that.

Billy Craig:
Typically, if you found someone like myself, or you on the internet, if you listened to your podcast, you're aware that things aren't quite right. And you want to do something. In both men and women, normally, if they've made it here by normal means it's generally slowing them down and saying, "Back off that. Stop [inaudible 00:33:48] down thyroid. And get off all those vitamins. Let's slow it down and see where you are. And then choose what strategy you're going to do." Measure it, because a lot of people throwing a lot of things in. And like, how do you know what's working? How do you know what's not working? So, it's back off, do it one at a time, make it... basically teach people to be a scientist and do it on their own.

Billy Craig:
And then, I think if you do that, and if you can actually measure something, and you know you're testing it, then you're a bit more keen to stick with it. Because well, let's see what the outcome it. And then measure it and then change it, and do it again. And change things, put it up, it becomes a bit more exciting for people. 

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. What do you think are some of the most significant psychological tools that you've given people that are struggling to make that first step? They're struggling with the amount of calories that they're eating. They don't want to go above and beyond, because they're afraid of the physical repercussions from gaining fat. Or this image that they have in their head. What are some of the things that you give them to overcome those things?

Billy Craig:
Just science to be honest. Just tests. We've got a massive problem at the moment in the UK with behaviorists. And a lot of psychologists, I'm not actually a psychologist, because I didn't do a doctorate in it, but people like myself who are graduate psychologists and actual psychologists, a lot of high ones have wrote to the government and said, "Behaviorists shouldn't be handling a pandemic." We've done behavioral things. 

Billy Craig:
Every year I have to take out a subscription to be a member of the British Psychological Society. One year I think they're going to strike me off and say, "You're not coming in," because I had an interview for a psychology doctorate, to be a doctor of psychology, and then the interviewer was, what was my favorite bit of psychology? And I described psychology from years ago where physics was involved and chemistry was involved. It was more like bio-psychology. And they said what don't you like? And I said behaviorism. And this five year doctorate would basically have been behaviorism, on how to turn me around. 

Billy Craig:
I prefer to not use psychology. My only use of psychology is to try to understand where that person is now, and the impact it's having on their mental health, and the fear and the lack of glucose in the brain that's driving them towards that fear, so that they're literally acting through fear. I try to put evidence in the way, and then I'll debate them.

Billy Craig:
I worked with someone just before Christmas I think it was. And I gave her all the answers to the tests we'd done. And said, "These are the things that are cropping up, what do you think they mean?" That person wrote back and said, "Well, I think that means that." Because if I would've gone in and said, "Right, this is all this. And then Ray Peat says this, and this thing said that," she would've just nodded her head and said, "Ah, yeah great." I literally just lay it on like, "You tell me what you think this means, and then we'll debate. And I'll probably win. But you give me hell. You fight for what you do, and I'll disprove everything. And then at the end of it, if you win, I'll bow down and then you can teach me some stuff. But you just debate it with me, and question me and challenge me, I'll fight it with everything I've got, and then at the end of it, you tell me what you think you should so." 

Billy Craig:
At the end of it we'd have this hour long debate. And then she was like, "Oh, I need to get rid of that and do that." She understood it. Then she might have a little bit of a wobble, because, "I've done 20 years of this," but then she comes back and it's easier to then point her in a direction. I suppose it is behaviorism, but it's more the, "Let's have an argument about it. I'm going to win, because it's what I do. You don't do it, but we need to know what you know." 

Billy Craig:
And that's what, you go to see someone sometimes and it's, "I read this. It's great." And I'm just going to nod my head every time you say no, because I know you're good. And so it's a lot better to say, "Well, this is where this thing is cropping up to do with essential fatty acids. What do you think it means?" So they come back, "Well, I need more essential fatty acids than this." "Well actually, it's saying the other thing around. And it's also suggesting to me, given your lactate level and your metabolic rate, and the fact that we know you've got an eating disorder, that you're actually burning fat as a fuel, so that's not great." It gives a good basis for a good argument really, which I quite like.

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. What do you think are some of the most common things that people come to you with as far as like their confusion?

Billy Craig:
Obesity is the main one. People seem to think obesity, in the UK we've got this thing, that there's an obesity epidemic in children. And I literally stood in the playground at my child's school, and I can't remember what they said the figures were. And like, "Where are they?" And they were like, "Ah but, well they are here." And I'm, "Where?" In the playground there are some kids that are plump, and that could be the stress of academia pushing the brain and they're not being fed, like the kids at our school don't get an afternoon snack anymore, apart from my daughter because I argued, so she can have one. 

Billy Craig:
There's various things, but they come in with this idea that obesity exists and that it's going to kill you. Then you can kill that argument by saying, "Well, here are..." They said, the papers in this country paint it as, "It's a burden on society, it's a burden on the NHS, it's a burden on this." And I'm like, "Hang on a minute, you said they die earlier. How are they a burden on the economy? You say they're eating all the food, and they die earlier, so why are they a burden on the NHS?" And I did a graph with the actual figures of obesity's cost on primary care. And then when you put it in which like drunks on a Friday night, you couldn't even see the obesity. Why are you not picking on them? 

Billy Craig:
That's the biggest thing. They come in with this idea that they are obese. And then my idea is that they're not, they're just creating this safety energy buffer, therefor I quite often send them away to read, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. I've had quite a few clients that's like, "You can't book in with me. Go and read this book, because it's great. Then come back and then see if your perspective's changed." And they're like, "Oh, yeah. I get that." It's kind of like whatever they come in with. And they always think they're fat and they need to lose weight. And it's like a battle, "I know you're saying to eat more, but I need to limit fat," kind of checking where they are, which again I suppose is psychology. And then getting them to go away and do some work, which is probably because I'm lazy. And then they come back with a slightly changed perspective and, "I get where you're coming from now." 

Billy Craig:
It's about getting people to do their own work, which is one of the things that comes out in Ray's thing. Like people send him an email and, "He's not really answered it." And like, "Because he wants you to go and found the answer out. He'd pointed you in the right direction, and he's given you some things to kick your brain into gear. Get a little bit of sugar and it might work." I don't think there's any one... because I spread myself a bit thin. I've had cancer patients. And I get calls of people saying, "Do you do endometriosis?" I'm like, "It's not what I sit here doing, but you give me the problem and I'll do it." I'm quite happy to give my clients a way to get somewhere, because a lot of my clients end up [inaudible 00:41:30], or did do. 

Billy Craig:
It's quite a lot of people I've worked with. I'd quite happily send someone too, to do their baseline work. And then I'd rather just have someone new with something challenging that I've not worked with, because it makes me go and read. There's diseases and things I've had, and I've got no idea what this is, and they paid. They're like, "I've paid you because I think you can figure this out." And like, "I'll be back with you in a couple of hours, and then I'll go and read this, do that, and we'll both learn together." But obesity is the big one that people come in with this idea that they are obese, and they are a burden on society, and they're not as good as somebody else. That's the biggest one to dispatch normally.

Jayton Miller:
If you're trying to help someone who has, or who is, or under the impression that they are obese and they want to lose weight, what are some of the tactics that you do in order to allow that to happen?

Billy Craig:
It really depends on the individual, but there was a good example of a guy, I can't remember what weight he was, but fairly large by normal means. His sister was a dealer in diet shakes. She was quite hard onto him to become a customer. And then we tested his metabolic rate per unit mass, and it was something like 11 calories per kilogram. So just sat with him and said, "You literally can't afford to become more efficient." Mine's at 26. And there was some study done on people who live over a 100, and they concluded that they've got low metabolic rates, because they were tiny. And I think Matt Stone's done a sort of... Like an advert for Matt Stone, isn't it? He's done some work on the fact that small people live longer. These people had got what looked like a low metabolic rate, I can't remember the actual figures, but when you actually got it by their average weight, it worked out their metabolic rate was 26 calories per kilogram. 

Billy Craig:
They've got a metabolic rate, when you looked at it just per kilogram. If you looked at it... My mate is 130 kilograms, like big guy, you can't compare him against that and say, "Oh, he's got a high metabolic rate, they've got a low metabolic rate." My mate that I measured, who's a big rugby player, hell of a guy, he looks like, I don't know, he ends up having 3,300 calories and everyone's, "Oh, he's got a high metabolic rate." When you actually divide it by that and work out his unit mass, he's fairly efficient, whereas the little guys they're not eating a massive amount of calories, because they're tiny and they're a 100 years old, but they're getting through some energy at a rapid rate. 

Billy Craig:
Kids, it's like in the womb, it's a 100 calories per kilogram. It's accepted that the standard norm for an adult is 25. And you never see those. I don't know who worked that out. I don't even know where they worked it out from, whether it was elite athletes or something, but it takes me a lot of effort to keep mine at 26. And if I start working hard, working long hours, doing things for people abroad, and at both ends of the day then that gets knocked on the head quite quick and it drops.

Billy Craig:
My daughter was at 52 last time I tested her when she was six. I've just not gone around to testing them recently, but you're getting more efficient, where it's like, you're born. You're in the womb, it's a 100, and then it's down to 75, then 50. Then all of a sudden, it's like 18. And it's like 25, all the way through till you die 25. And like, you'd never see that. And obviously people who've come to see me aren't in a great state, but I've tested people in uni, and I've tested athletes. You don't see 25 very often. Mainly just me, and that's a lot of effort to be there. 

Billy Craig:
And I'm not suggesting you need to be 25. You don't have to be 26, not everyone wants to live to a 100. It's not a guarantee that you'll live to a 100, if you're 26. You just could get run over by a bus or anything. But if you're heading towards the higher end of that metabolic rate per unit mass, things start working better. You've got to be efficient, because you've got to have enough energy for muscles and movement and the brain's got to make sure it can survive. I do believe you have to get some level of efficiency, but if it keeps dropping like a stone, then things don't seem to go really nice. And life seems to get shorter. 

Billy Craig:
And particularly, and my thinking was if I can have a high metabolic rate, I may not live to be a 100, if you see how I crash motorcycles in competitions, I probably won't do. But I would like to be pleasant and not riddled with disease, dementia and basically just surviving. That was always my goal, not that there's any longevity guarantee, just that end of life can be pleasant and just off you pop, and that's it. 

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. I completely agree. Well, you are filled with information and I know you could probably sit here and talk to us for hours on end about, probably just about anything. But where can people find your work and all the stuff that you're up to currently?

Billy Craig:
Not been updating billycraig.co.uk for quite a while, mainly due to time. Try to go on to Patreon, to the link on my website to Patreon, because the goal was to just get to the point where it could just be a dollar each and everyone could just read stuff. I do tend to get to update that. Four books due, so one on coronavirus, one on the psychology of pandemics. One on CO2. And then one that's currently, the big one, which is 350,000 words and 75 chapters, which no one's ever going to read. I'll probably give an award if anyone reads it. That's currently a working title of Controlling Intuitive Appetite, which happens to be CIA as well, so will probably get banned on Amazon. That's due. 

Billy Craig:
There was some debate about whether I should just release it as chapters, which may happen just due to time to supply that book. Sections of that keep getting put on Patreon. Myself and Sarah Kennard do the podcast. All the coronavirus things we try to do for free, just to make it accessible for people. Facebook, I tend to get into debates, because I think it's good practice for if I ever have to do a viva to defend things, and I enjoy defending it. Probably not in real life, because I might get punched. But on the internet, it's all good.

Billy Craig:
And then if anyone's got any question, then I try to get back. I'm a bit busy now, because I've got this new project on, that's someone's taken me onto. But where I can, I don't know, I've always had this desire that if people can be helped, they should be. I try to get back to all the questions I can. If someone's polite and got a good question, and [inaudible 00:48:58] it spikes my inquisitive thing.

Jayton Miller:
Definitely. Well Billy, I really appreciate your time. For all those who listened, make sure to go check out his website. He has a really good Instagram and Facebook page as well, so make sure to check those out. And we'll talk again soon. Have a good one.

Billy Craig:
Great. Thank you. See you later.

Jayton Miller:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you haven't already, make sure to hit the like button, subscribe and leave a comment down below if you want us to cover a different topic.