When we eat a food that tastes delicious to us or that we associate with something nice, then we feel good mentally and physically. Whereas, when we eat something that gives us food poisoning or maybe even something that just doesn't taste that great or that we associate with a bad experience, we feel less good in the short term.
08:08
But I believe that very few people understand or are familiar with the fact that nutrition and our mental health interact in this very intimate, maybe even causal, way and that is something that occurs over long periods of time. Meaning, what I ate yesterday or the day before, maybe even 10 years ago, could be impacting the way that my brain and body are making me feel now.

Why would my professors lie to me? They knew what they were talking about. Low-fat diet was the thing to do. And the Atkins diet was clearly dangerous and reckless. But I had been trying the medical dogma for years, and it wasn't working for me. And so for whatever reason, I decided this is going to be my last attempt at something different.
12:29
And then I'll just bite the bullet and go on meds. So I tried the Atkins diet. I did my own special version of it. I still avoided red meat because I was terrified of red meat. I tried to do a healthy version, which it's probably more like the South Beach diet. This was before the South Beach Diet was invented.
12:50
But within three months, my metabolic syndrome was completely gone. ANDREW HUBERMAN: So blood pressure normalized, lipids normalized. Did your weight change? You mentioned that you were of healthy weight but that you had a bit of abdominal-- CHRIS PALMER: Yes. ANDREW HUBERMAN: --fat. CHRIS PALMER: I lost the abdominal fat.
13:08
I probably lost about 10 pounds through this process. But everything got normal. And when I went back to my doctor, he was shocked. He actually said, what the hell are you doing? ANDREW HUBERMAN: During the time before you switched to this new diet, how was your mental health, if you don't mind me asking? Because it sound like you're very clear that there was metabolic syndrome or you were headed towards more severe metabolic syndrome.

I was on Prozac for a long time. It totally messed up my sleep. And then the psychiatrist was like, you need pills to help you sleep now. And I'm-- I just-- I'm like, that doesn't-- that's not really resonating very well with me. And I'm now a psychiatrist. I'm in my psychiatry residency.