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Summary
On episode 596 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Dr. Brian King, a neuroscientist and psychologist who has spent the past decade touring as a comedian, presenting seminars on positive psychology and stress management by day and performing stand-up by night. He is the author of The Laughing Cure and Of Bears and Weight Loss, and has lost over 100 pounds himself.
Brian's argument: everyone already knows how to lose weight (eat less, move more), so the real work is understanding why the brain fights that plan. He breaks it down into two systems, the conscious prefrontal cortex and the unconscious, habit-driven nucleus accumbens, and shows how the second one quietly wins more often than people realize.
The conversation covers his own yo-yo dieting, an undiagnosed sleep apnea diagnosis that had been sabotaging his weight loss through chronic cortisol elevation, his famous Krispy Kreme donut story, and the different calorie-management strategies (fasting, exercise, medication, surgery) used by the other comedians he interviewed for his book.
Links
- https://drbrianking.com
Key Takeaways
- Weight loss is conceptually simple but behaviorally hard. Everyone knows the formula: eat less, move more. The actual challenge, Brian argues, is getting yourself to follow through, which is a behavior problem, not a knowledge problem.
- Two brain systems fight over every food decision. The prefrontal cortex handles conscious, rational planning. The nucleus accumbens operates unconsciously, based on reinforcement learned over a lifetime, and creates urges the conscious brain has to actively override.
- The Krispy Kreme story shows how habit can override intent. Brian describes driving toward donuts on autopilot despite consciously not wanting them, catching himself only after he'd already parked. It illustrates how deeply learned triggers can hijack a stated goal.
- Undiagnosed sleep apnea was sabotaging his weight loss. Interrupted breathing during sleep repeatedly spiked his cortisol, which drove cravings and blocked fat loss no matter how much he restricted calories. Getting fitted for a CPAP was, in his words, the first step that made everything else possible.
- “Shark mode” is real physiology, not weakness. Calorie deprivation itself functions as a stress signal to the body, raising cortisol and making people irritable. Brian argues you have to accept some hunger-driven crankiness as part of the process rather than treat it as personal failure.
- It took decades to build the habits, so change takes real time. Brian points out it took him roughly 45 years to learn the behaviors that made him overweight, so backtracking or plateauing isn't failure, it's an expected part of unwinding that many years of learning.
- Every path he documented was still calories in/calories out underneath. The comedians and friends he interviewed lost weight through intermittent fasting, exercise, medication, or gastric bypass, but every method still worked by reducing intake or increasing output; the method is just whichever version you can sustain.
- A compelling emotional “why” is what lets the rational brain win. Brian's daughter, born when he was 45, gave him a why strong enough to consistently beat the urge for donuts. Without a strong enough why, he says, the logical brain loses that argument almost every time.
- Dr. Brian King's three strategies to get and stay well: stay physically active (you don't have to be athletic, just move more), get good sleep, and above all, manage your stress, since he considers stress management the underlying piece that everything else, including happiness, depends on.
“It took me about 45 years to learn all of the behaviors that made me fat.”
Dr. Brian King
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 751 – How to Try Again and Finally Make Change Stick with Steve Kamb
Episode Notes
Podcast: 40+ Fitness
Episode: 596
Published: 2023-06-27
Host: Allan Misner (aka Coach Allan), author of The Wellness Roadmap
Guest(s): Dr. Brian King, trained as a neuroscientist and psychologist
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