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Discussion thread: METABOLISM episode is live (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-01 00:58:41
Imported:
2026-06

Content

This week’s episode: METABOLISM! Duke University Evolutionary Anthropologist Dr. Herman Ponzter let me ask him approximately one million questions about human history, hunter gatherer diet and activity, the weird ways scientists have tracked metabolism, Brazilian butt lifts, why crash dieting can change your metabolism, perspectives on sticky medical terms, isotope magic, BMI controversies, busted diet myths, genetic factors that influence metabolism, and how to look at your body as an extraordinary machine. Also: some ways you can look after your mental health – and what NOT to do.

https://www.alieward.com/ologies/evolutionaryanthropology

Loved this one and I hope it helps you marvel at the mechanisms that kept your ancestors alive. I wonder what modern snacks would have been their favorite…

Okay, bon appetit on this feat of facts,

Your father Alie Ann Ward

Files

Evolutionary Anthropology (METABOLISM) with Dr. Herman Pontzer - alie ward

Let's debunk some "dieting" myths by exploring our human machinery. And talk about Brazilian butt lifts. Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and metabolism researcher Dr. Herman Pontzer gives us the data on mitochondrial backstories, muscle mass and hormones, our expanding brains, the flaws of th

Comments

Kayla

Aubrey Gordon ♥️

Raja

Listened to it, learned from it, loved it!!

Alie Ward

Thanks so much! We tried to work hard on it and I hope it's informative and helpful. I've already examined how I treat my body, what I prioritize and made some changes with activity for my mental health and blood sugar. It's not easy, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it and feeling much better.

Alie Ward

Indeed! Wanted to represent a lot of different lived experience and thoughts.

Alie Ward

Great! His book is really interesting and details what his field work involves...

Bassist Ex Machina

Excited to share that BMI is a little flim-flammy with my colleagues at work. Too many friends get down on themselves about their score and I’m hoping this will bring a little more positive body image to the party.

Alie Ward

Yes! And honestly, smash your scales. Water weight and muscle mass and body composition and health is SO much more than one number.

Susan G

Just a question, how likely is this episode to trigger people with a history of disordered eating? It's me, I'm people. Thinking it might be safer to give it a miss?

Alie Ward

There is a content warning up top but I do briefly share my struggles with restriction and rebound snacking, and we talk about our perceptions of calories in vs. actualities. We also talk about myths in diet culture, harmful stigmas, mental health strategies and how a lot of our struggles are caused by companies profiting off of our evolutionary mismatch to environments. So if it’s risky for you, you have my blessing to pass. ❤️❤️❤️

Sleepy John

So the harder you try to lose weight, the more desperate your body becomes to hold onto it? I *KNEW* the game was rigged! Good luck to everyone anyway.

Scott Hanley

Super important topic to get facts nailed down, brilliant work. ❤️

ScienceInTheArt

So wish you had a video of smashing your scale. I was imagining a sledgehammer. Or a good heave ho.

Lynette Dávila

I wish I would have joined Patreon sooner. I would have love to hear his thoughts on chronic fatigue syndrome.

Noel Dietz

I was in a weight loss study years ago that required me to weigh myself daily. For me, it was helpful to see that I could fluctuate quite a bit day-to-day, no matter how I was eating. I stopped freaking out about the number except as a general guideline.

Annmarie Everhart

So interesting! I thought the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis was fascinating and it got me wondering, at some point in the faraway future could our bodies evolve to better tolerate our change in diet? Are there any indicators this could happen (or is already slowly happening), or would it be too far off in the future to even be considered right now?

Kate Gatton

Thank you so much for approaching this topic with sensitivity and for asking for the lived experiences of people living in larger bodies! It was, as always, a fantastic episode. I do wish that he had acknowledged the documented implicit biases of medical professionals and their neglect of care/actual harm done to fat people and not just suggesting that fat people (including myself) are reluctant to seek care. Thanks again, Alie!

Susan Baker

Any info on peri and menopausal metabolisms - what to/not to do would be amazing!

Rachel

Was a little bummed they didn't talk about how the BMI is racist in it's roots and that all the health correlations it makes don't hold water when looking at folks who aren't white.

Spencer Parks

I especially liked how he emphasized the differences between diet and exercise to the health of your body. Exercise is great, especially for conditioning your muscles, stretching, and all that...but there's a reason we have the phrase "you are what you eat". Fill it with crap, it's not going to work great, to put it simply.

Nathalie Jones

I’m having an adhd phase where music is boring (whee) and so I’ve been listening to ologies while I run so (yet again re crabs) I had a meta experience with this ep. Thanks for blowing my mind at the gym father!

Elise Kaplan

just finished listening and also have a history of disordered eating - and specifically orthorexia in its latest iteration (which i am blissfully free from)! i didn’t find it triggering per se but i definitely wish it had touched a bit more on how over-analyzing food consumption can unknowingly be a very slippery slope for many people… Alie talked about her own experiences with restricting certain foods which was great. I would also say that there wasn’t much talk about how larger body size doesn’t mean that someone over-engages in unhealthy eating habits. Dr. Potzner absolutely made clear that genetics play a large role in metabolism, etc. but i think especially for larger folks who eat healthy diets and people who have recovered from eating disorders into bigger bodies, they might not feel hugely seen in this episode.

Carolyn Viscosi Shirley

Super interesting!! Thanks you both. In studying the Hadza, did Herman compare metabolisms of senior Hadza, who are active, with those of inactive western seniors? I am curious since he mentioned that staying active may be a way to stave off metabolism slowing with aging. As I understand, he also said Hadza metabolic rates are comparable to western ones even though the Hadza are more active, and that studies show adding new/additonal exercise only temporarily boosts metabolism. To me, these findings suggest maybe staying active won't keep metabolic rates up with age (though it will help in many other ways).... Thoughts?

Connor they them

Another great episode Alie! There's an episode of the BBC podcast Crowd Science where they talked about the hunter gatherer group in Tanzania. They mentioned the fact that the group burns the same number of calories as the average westerner. It's astounding. That's one of my favorite facts. Also I was listening to the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish earlier this week and they mentioned a fact about height's relation to diet over human history that I think you will find interesting. Hunter gatherer homo sapiens were the same average height we are now. The average height for hunter gatherer males was 5ft 10 in. When we developed agriculture our diets and exercise changed and caused our average height to shrink. Over the last few hundred years the average height has been increasing again. We finally achieved the average height of 5ft 10in for people assigned male at birth again in 2022. Thought you would find that interesting.

Sydney Koenig

Thanks for including Aubrey Gordon’s work!! She’s just the best 🤍

Merryn Lush

Great episode! For real BMI was so heartbreaking. In grade 7 I remember the teacher making everyone in our (co-ed) health class line up and get weighed and told our BMI in front of everyone. On a lighter note, Ghrelin is one of my favourite words because it sounds exactly like the name you would use if you were to personify it as a character. Like some grumbling troll under a bridge, asking for a bagel or like a handful of mixed nuts to let you cross. Like oh don’t go that way, you’ll have to feed Ghrelin the hungry troll and he’s a real dick.

Joyclyn Vincent

I have been hesitant to listen to this episode because I wasn't sure if it was safe but if Aubrey Gordon's work is included, I might give it a go. That the title of the ologist's book included "stay healthy and lose weight" was a red flag for me.

Kai Kishimoto

There were still aspects of this episode I found frustrating - like the fact that discussion of fat stigma had to be preceded by reiterating that being fat is bad for you. I was waiting for the narrative of fat=bad to be complicated by discussions of the protective nature of subcutaneous fat, or the statistics of the overlap of metabolic disease and weight (1/3 overweight people are metabolically healthy, 20-40% of non-overweight people are metabolically unhealthy). There was mention of the role of adipose tissue in the body, and how fat-shaming is counterproductive to health, but I felt like there could have been more. (more reading: https://www.science.org/content/article/obesity-doesn-t-always-mean-ill-health-here-s-what-scientists-are-learning)

Sydney Koenig

I definitely agree, there could have been more! I appreciated Alie bringing a more balanced perspective to the Ologist’s view with some current work

Brenden O'Donnell

Absolutely. This! It gets so close to doing this when it mentioned that fat is an ORGAN (loved this part!). But I was super disappointed by his “suggestions.” He literally suggests intermittent fasting. Yikes.

Gabriella Galvan

Hi friend! I loved this episode a bunch! Just a FYI, this was kind of hard to listen to w headphones because the volume difference between Herman and your sections. Could’ve been my headphones as well, just wanted to share :-) thanks for all your hard work!

Melissa Wise

Maybe I need to listen to it again, but did he say anything us petites can do? 1200-1500 calories a day just to maintain our weights SUCKS. I'm not even going to go into trying to lose weight. So if exercise doesn't allow us to eat more calories or raise our BMR, what do we do?

Levin Dotimas

I’m a dietitian so I really enjoyed this episode! Yay metabolism!

Sam

Hi, I thought the part about how exercise doesn’t change the number of calories you’re burning every day to be really interesting, but also at odds with my lived experience. I played college volleyball for 4 years, and to properly fuel myself I had to eat WAY more food than I have had to eat since I finished playing. Our team’s nutritionist recommended that we eat something every 3 hours, or we wouldn’t have enough fuel to burn. If I wasn’t burning more calories at that time, why is it that I needed to eat so much food to be properly fueled? Why has the amount of food I’ve needed to eat since adjusted?

Samwise

This was a very interesting episode. I think it would be interesting to talk to a metabolism expert who has struggled with weight and weight loss or existing in a larger body. I could tell listening to his language and the way he approached the topic that he had never struggled with his weight. I felt very satisfied at the end when he admitted it was never a problem for him. If we increase our muscle mass for our size, wouldn’t that mean that we burn more calories? He said it applied to MAB humans so would it not apply to FAB bodies that decide to get into weight lifting? Doesn’t lifting weights increase calories burnt during rest? I still have so many questions after this episode.

Kelly Moran

So relieved I wasn’t the only person who had a “yikes” moment when intermittent fasting came up 😬

Sweet Chili

Interesting, why yikes? I find that I naturally do intermittent fasting, and now that it’s a *thing*, i feel validated about not having to eat at certain times whether I’m hungry or not. I’m neurodivergent though, and that could have something to do with that. In which case - disregard lol.. that’s a whole other thing entirely and maybe has nothing to do with typical eating schedules. However, if it might be *hurting*, then I would like to know about that!

Drtymgrty

I think he meant that your body's resting metabolic rate doesn't change. That's the number of calories you need just to pump your blood, for your kidneys to filter, etc. Any exercise on top of that will use more calories, but exercising every day won't change the base amount of calories your body uses just by existing. If someone who needs 1500 calories a day at a basal level stays in bed all day, they'll still need 1500. If they do 500 calories of exercise, they need 2000. That basal level is not changed by the exercise, however, it stays fairly constant.

Erin Everton

When this post first went up I knew there was something I wanted to say but forgot what it was, then was reminded when I opened Spotify today it was that I had also added Drop Dead to my liked songs that week haha! Does Dad Ward follow all new indie on Spotify?

JenFoosh

#this. I was an obese kid. I'm an obese adult. I get that it's food and not exercise, but it wasn't "my brain" when I was 8 (because my parents very carefully curated my food choices), and I'd argue it isn't my poor choices now. I really appreciated learning about the science, though, and I can fully understand how someone who hasn't had my experience wouldn't have any sense that this experience exists. For people with more control over their weight maybe choices make more of a difference?

K8 Rouse

Currently listening to this episode while struggling with newly onset thyroid issues (the organ that produces the hormones that control your metabolism). This episode was fascinating from an evolutionary biology perspective, I would love to hear more from an endocrinology perspective about how your whole endocrine system impacts metabolism. I already listened to the 2-parter on diebetology and learned a ton! From what I've learned so far thyroid issues are super common, especially in women and people who carry babies (mine started after my pregnancy with my son). I have alternating hypo and hyperthyroidism and gained and lost 30 lbs. From my own experience, having a metabolism that's too high or too low can both be rough.

Miranda Garniss

I almost cried hearing the secret at the end of the episode. I've been fighting to find a new adhd med after some heart problems, and knowing that not only was I not alone, my internet dad was struggling with the same thing, made the whole thing feel less impossible. Hope you get yours figured out soon. Thanks dad

Kai Kishimoto

I think it’s more a matter of implying that intermittent fasting is something everyone can try. There aren’t many health recommendations that can be applied to all bodies. For certain populations (growing teens, elderly ppl, pregnant/lactating ppl, ppl with eating disorders) intermittent fasting can be hazardous to physical/mental health. For other people, it might just not be a good lifestyle fit. But if it works well for you, by all means continue!

Jennifer R.

I agree! I couldn’t finish this one because of the misleading way he talked about the risk of weight and not being clear on correlation NOT causation. I highly, highly, highly recommend Maintenance Phase and their episode on calories. Alie did her best, but this one was disappointing.

Jennifer R.

THIS. Confusing correlation and causation? Ugh.

Darrah

Only got around to listening to this now and really appreciate the episode. I used to be an exercise fanatic and saw a dietician a few years ago. Since then I have been still working out, especially walking very large distances every day but have learned that I definitely have to use some mechanisms to control how much I am eating. Just counting how many servings I eat each day and holding myself accountable has allowed me to maintain my weight for the first time in my life. If I had heard him talk about this three years ago, it would have been much harder for me to hear. I really appreciated the voice overs done in the episode that acknowledged people's struggles (then the 'fat" Vs "obese" discussion which landed very differently than on the allusionist episode on the same topic. I think Allie did a great job of quickly showing that the use of these words is extremely complaining). Very difficult episode and love what you did with it