September 11, 2025 • 50 mins
When Eric Edmeades discovered that changing his diet could eliminate chronic infections, clear his skin, and help him lose 35 pounds in just 30 days, it sparked a lifelong mission: to understand how food and evolution shape human health.
In this episode, Eric reveals the evolution gap—the mismatch between our ancient biology and modern lifestyles. Despite living in the most comfortable era in history, we face epidemics of disease, depression, and disconnection. Why? Because we’re living out of sync with our natural design.
Through decades of research—including time with the Hadza tribe in Tanzania—Eric created WildFit, a revolutionary approach that has transformed over 150,000 lives. Instead of another restrictive diet, WildFit restores our natural rhythms of eating and living.
We dive into:
- The three natural metabolic states—and why most people are stuck in just one
- The hidden power of seasonal eating and extended fasting
- Why some foods give us freedom while others keep us trapped in cravings
- How reconnecting with nature can help us reclaim vitality and joy
✨ Ready to uncover your own evolutionary mismatches? Take the free assessment at gapfinder.com
.
📖 And stay tuned—Eric’s brand-new book, The WildFit Way, is coming soon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The more we've removed ourselves from our
natural habitats, the more we'reactually suffering,
existentially suffering on anindividual basis.
Wildfit is the exploration ofthat gap, what I call the
evolution gap, the gap betweenour evolved bodies and our
present realities, and WildFitseeks to close that gap from a
(00:25):
nutrition perspective.
So you can look at almost anyarea of suffering on earth and
you'll see this gap.
Wildfit addresses that gap asit relates to food and health.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the Super Soul Model series.
Today I've got a very specialguest on the show, an old friend
, eric Edmonds.
And Eric is a serialentrepreneur, an author, an
award-winning speaker andfounder of the WildFit program,
a revolutionary health programthat's transforming the way we
think about food habits andhuman potential.
(00:56):
Eric's lived quite a remarkablelife and we're going to go
through it in this episode andhe's survived hardship, from
being homeless when he was ateen to building businesses in
tech.
Hollywood special effects andwellness are also part of his
resume.
He's logged over 10,000 hoursas a professional speaker on
those global stages and hasshared platforms with people
(01:19):
such as Tony Robbins and RichardBranson.
He's even lived thehunter-gatherer life with tribes
in Africa.
So, without further ado, Iwould like to welcome this
week's guest, my old friend,eric Edmeades.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Hey, so glad to be here, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Excellent, eric.
We met probably about 20 yearsago in London and we were on the
personal development scene and,yeah, a lot's happened and
you've done a lot since thattime.
So it's been great to watch youfrom afar.
But let's go back to the originof your story.
I know the origin of your storywhen we met, but you know, a
lot changed, a lot of shapedwild fit has emerged and been
(01:58):
birthed and now has blossomed aswell as well.
So just tell us a bit about theEric story so we can then go on
to what you've been doing inall these different areas of
health, wellness, tech speaking.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You know, if we pick it up, around the time that we
met, which is, as you say, about20 years ago, I had started a
company in the UK and we wereselling wireless networking
systems, logistics management,barcode scanning, rfid tagging
tech stuff.
And I sold that business whileliving in the UK and around
(02:32):
about that time I had startedexperimenting with doing some
speaking and I already had adeep fascination with
nutritional anthropology andfood and stuff.
So most of my initial talksback at that stage were, you
know, were about food and foodpsychology let's call it the
pre-WildFit talks.
And I don't know if you knewDaniel Priestley in the UK.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I did know Daniel Priestley, but just
before he started doing whathe's doing now, I think this was
the you know the genesis ofwhat he's doing.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We both, in a sense, kind of started at the same time
.
I remember when he landed inthe UK and he started his, his
initial business there and thatled to Key Person of Influence
as well.
Well, one day I got a call fromhim asking if I would come and
speak.
And I wasn't really a speakerat that stage, but you know I
was.
I was starting to, I'd been toToastmasters and I'd done some
(03:24):
courses and and I see he said,would you come and speak?
And I was like, yeah, I'm downfor it.
And I got there and and he saidso you know, can you give me
some idea of what you're goingto cover so I can give you a
good introduction?
And I'm like, yeah, we're goingto talk about food and health.
And and he's like what?
And he goes no, no, this is anentrepreneur network Like these
(03:45):
are business owners.
They're here to talk aboutbusiness.
You sold your company.
You're here to talk about that.
I had no idea Because I was onlyspeaking at little clubs and
stuff about health.
I assumed that's why I wasinvited.
So suddenly, with about 15minutes notice, I have to
prepare a 90-minute presentationon business and
entrepreneurship and frankly, inmy opinion.
I had sold my company so Ididn't have to talk about it
(04:06):
anymore.
So I was like, what is this allabout?
But I did that talk and it waslife-changing for me.
I enjoyed it so much and I sawsome things.
And the one thing in particularI saw was that, as these young,
hungry entrepreneurs and when Isay young I don't mean in age,
I mean in that as these young,you know, hungry entrepreneurs,
and when I say young I don'tmean in age, I mean in their
(04:28):
entrepreneurial journey, becausethey were of all ages.
As they asked me questions andI was able to answer those
questions through the lens of myexperience, I watched their
stress dissolve, like they had a.
I was giving them a roadmap, Iwas giving, and I love that
feeling.
And funny thing happened is thata guy walked up to me and he
goes Eric, that talk wasfantastic and I mean I was, so I
(04:50):
barely remembered the thing, itwas just all adrenaline.
And he goes could you do thatsame talk, like next week in
Singapore?
And I'm like I don't evenremember what talk I gave, like
I really like.
But of course I go sure, and Izoom off to Singapore and I do
that talk and then a guy comesup to me, a guy named Kevin
comes up to me at that talk andhe goes Eric, that talk was
(05:11):
amazing, could you do that sametalk in Australia?
And so a week later I'm inAustralia, new, zealand, and
then Vegas and LA the week afterthat and I became an
international speaker byaccident, and that, that, that
kind of couple of weeks, led to,in a sense, everything I'm
doing today.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, Isn't that amazing how life can guide you
on a journey that you didn'teven think that you were going
to be a part of.
Yeah, no kidding.
And had you ever wanted to dospeaking when we were sitting
around the mastermind table?
That was never something Iheard from Eric's mouth.
It was never something you'dmentioned.
You were interested in,obviously, companies, but you'd
(05:51):
never really gone about thespeaking business.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
No, I was terrified of speaking.
I was properly public speakingphobic.
But there did come a point whenI had recognized some things
about health and food and weightloss and diabetes reversal and
that kind of stuff through myresearch that I started feeling
compelled to share those thingsand so the sense of
(06:16):
responsibility to share thosethings started to outweigh my
fear.
That's the same point.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
you just mentioned that because it sort of ties in
perhaps the audience don't knowis your initial journey with
food, because that saved you,didn't it?
Yeah, and that also gives youmore like leverage to say I want
to share this because it's beenimportant.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
If you've been in pain and taken yourself out of
pain, then when you see otherpeople in that same pain at
least for me it activates thatin me and makes me want to
change it.
And that's really what happened.
In fact, my wife invented aword for this.
You know, she, she invented aword, she, we were talking about
something one day.
And she says she goes well, Ihave scariosity about that.
(06:57):
And I said what do you?
What do you mean?
Scariosity?
And?
And?
Because she's Estonian and shespeaks Russian and she speaks
some Finnish and she'smultilingual, sometimes she just
like uses the logic of alanguage to make a word, but
this is not a word.
And I said to her Kirstie, asfar as I can tell, that's not an
actual word.
I mean, I can't pretend to knowall the English words, but if
that was a word, I feel like Iwould know it.
(07:17):
And she goes well, what do youthink it means?
And I said well, scariosity isprobably like the juxtaposition
between your fear andapprehension about something and
your curiosity about doing it.
She goes see, it's a perfectlygood word, but the funny thing
is it actually is a really goodword.
And what the truth is is that Idid have curiosity about public
(07:39):
speaking.
That is to say that I had a lotof fear and apprehension, but I
also had this curiosity andwhen my curiosity got stronger
than my fear, I started.
I started saying yes toopportunities and that was a big
moment for me.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That's quite similar with me in the podcast.
You know, initially I was likeso reluctant.
I was like I'm not going toshare my story, I'm not going to
share this.
You know why me?
Why does the world need anotherpodcast person?
Why does the world need anotherexecutive coach to help lead us
?
I was like, well, why not?
You have something to say thatshould be said and it would be
(08:12):
better that you say it than dieby not saying it.
And I remember hearing so manythings about people who've gone
to the edge and going I wish I'd, I wish I'd and I thought I'm
not going to be one of thosepersons.
I'm going to go for it.
And it sounds exactly like thatscary, scary-osity.
Yeah, it is exactly that.
It's like I'm going to do itanyway because my curiosity is
(08:34):
stronger.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So could you just back a little bit, just briefly,
and tell that story to theaudience, about what happened to
you when you were a kid and thefood was so powerful for you,
because then that turns intoyour mission then, when you've
healed from, yeah, yeah, yeah,that that was really big.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I, I, um, uh.
I had a normal relationshipwith food, you know, I I didn't
have what we would consider tobe, say, an eating disorder or
something like that.
I was mildly overweight and butI was suffering with, you know,
I had terrible cystic acne.
I had chronic throat infections, so terrible that my tonsils
(09:13):
were constantly bleeding.
I couldn't breathe through myown sinuses, and this was just
my life.
And I came from a medicalfamily, so you know my
grandfather and some of myuncles, and so of course there
was no end of opinions aboutwhat to do.
And of course my parents sentme to go see doctors and they
(09:33):
prescribed pills and inhalantsand injections and even surgery
that I luckily avoided andnothing helped, like nothing was
helping.
And I then a buddy of minetalked me into going to a Tony
Robbins seminar this is 1991.
And I went there because I wasthere to learn how to make more
money.
I mean, I was 21.
That was my focus in life atthe time.
(09:55):
And I went to this program andI mean, you know Tony's magical,
he does all kinds of incrediblestuff and I learned fabulous
things and things that haveimpacted my life beyond the
health piece.
But on the last day of theprogram he started talking about
food and health and it reallymade me think.
I started thinking about someof the things he shared.
(10:17):
And I went home and I starteddoing some reading and I decided
to do an experiment.
And so for 30 days I justcleaned things up a bit, I cut
out some reading, and and I Idecided to do an experiment, and
and and so for 30 days I I justcleaned things up a bit, I cut
out some stuff and I added somestuff, and 30 days later I had
lost 35 pounds.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Wow that is what's that in kilograms?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's, it's, it's it's two stone, it's, it's, it's a
serious yeah 14 kilograms orsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, it's a serious.
Yeah, what is it?
14 kilograms or something yeah,and I also.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My sinuses opened up for the first time in years, my
acne went away, my throatinfections, my digestive
problems ended, like I became anentirely different human being.
In fact, I went to the doctor'soffice because I was still
scheduled to have this surgery.
They were going to take mytonsils out, this throat surgery
(11:08):
, and I got there and I kind ofexpected them to notice, you
know, like I'd lost 35 pounds.
I looked distinctly different.
My mother, my mother, didn'trecognize me when I met her at
the airport, like she, she, sheliterally didn't see me.
My face had changed so much inthe process.
So I kind of expected that whenI went into the doctor's office
they would see this, they wouldnotice that my numbers had
changed so much in the process.
So I kind of expected that whenI went into the doctor's office
they would see this, they wouldnotice that my numbers had
changed, my weight had changed,my composition had changed.
(11:28):
They didn't say a thing.
All they did was try to confirmthe surgery.
And when I told them I didn'twant the surgery anymore,
they're like oh, but the painwill be back.
Like you know, it's like it was.
It was really.
I found it really odd and, atone point, odd.
And at one point I asked mydoctor, um, yeah, how long he
had been to medical school?
And he told me it was like sixyears.
And and I said, and in that sixyears, how much that time did
(11:49):
you spend studying medicine?
Or studying studying food?
And I was absolutely shocked tohear him say none, yeah, like
none and for.
For, for a moment I thoughtmaybe this is the one doctor who
, you know, managed to ski, youknow skate his way through
medical school and avoid all thenutrition classes.
And no, I now know that this isabsolutely consistent the
(12:11):
doctors, the only doctors, thatstudy food as part of their
medical training, are thedoctors who choose those courses
as an elective, which is liketo me suggesting that there are
pilots out there that couldlearn to become a pilot.
But you know, landing is anelective.
You don't have to study thatpart.
I was blown away by that andthat, right there, that couple
of weeks, changed the course ofmy life forever, because at that
(12:33):
point I realized if they're notgoing to study this, I'm going
to study it.
And so that's what started myinitial dive into nutrition,
which led to nutritionalanthropology, evolutionary
biology, and then, of course,food psychology, and all of that
, of course, led to WildFit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Okay, so thank you for sharing.
By the way, has the doctorschanged anything about that food
?
Learning about food these days,like you know what, 30 odd
years later?
No, no.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I mean, you know, some have don't get me wrong.
I mean, if you follow me onTwitter or X, I have a thing
called Doctors.
I Trust it's a list that youcan go to and there's some
doctors there and there's noquestion, there are some doctors
who have, you know, recognizedthat preventative medicine is
the answer Dr Mark Hyman, forexample.
You know in functional medicine.
(13:22):
He wrote the forward for ourbook post-diabetic, and so
there's no question, there aredoctors that are that are that
are becoming proactive aboutthat.
But at a medical school level,I I mean, I think it's
unconscionable that you couldget through medical school
without studying nutrition.
That's insane.
I understand that Kennedy islooking at, or that Trump and
Kennedy are, for you know I'mnot making a political statement
(13:42):
about whatever I'm just saying.
My understanding is that theyare looking at changing that in
the American medical educationsystem that doctors will have to
study nutrition.
Now that's a good step, but theproblem is that even
nutritional education in Americahas been hijacked by the food
industry, which is, you knowwhere you get the upside down
food pyramid and the old fourfood groups and that kind of
(14:04):
stuff.
So step one is they're going tostart teaching doctors
nutrition.
They're going to teach themterrible nutrition.
Step two will probably takeanother five or six or 10 years
before they actually startteaching them really truly solid
nutrition, but at least we'reon the road.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah Well, optimism is what we require here.
You know, this has definitelybeen part of my journey and
before we go into understandingwhat WildFit really is because
that's really basically your youknow your baby on being able to
show people how to create thathealthy nutrition relationship
(14:40):
you know in my own experience,like I started meditating and
then was guided to the rightfood, I thought that was a
really unusual way.
I never heard it and neverdiscovered it.
I didn't even know whatmeditation was.
But when I was guided, this isthe right food for me, James,
these are the types ofingredients you need.
You need this amount of waterevery day.
I was absolutely fascinatedthat somehow the biology and my
(15:06):
intuition, my instinct, wasguiding me to foods, and I've
been blessed to be well for sucha long time and I put it down
to being in tune.
So let's go into understandingwhat WildFit is, because I think
it's something very similar atthe basics of who we are.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, I think before that I would say this that
WildFit is a chapter in a largerconversation, and what I mean
by that is that the largerconversation starts with a
really interesting question, andthat question is we are
currently living in what have tobe, from an individual human
experience, the single besttimes ever to have been alive.
(15:44):
We live with the greatest levelof personal certainty that has
ever existed.
We live with the greatest levelof food, food security that has
ever happened.
We live with shelter.
We, we, we, we are living inthe very best times to be alive.
I don't care what cnn, fox orsky news says, we are living in
the very best times to be alive.
I'm not saying there aren'tsome problems there are still
(16:05):
many more problems to fix butthere's less poverty today than
there's ever been.
There's less violence againstchildren.
Less people die in naturaldisasters now than ever before.
There's more parity between menand women in education than
ever before.
We are living in the very besttimes to ever have been alive,
but there's a really starkcontrast, and that is that we've
never been less healthy.
We've never been less happy.
(16:27):
We have more depression, moreanxiety, more suicide, more
heart disease, more cancer, morediabetes than ever in history.
So it's like, as technology andcivilization has developed to
make things easier and betterfor us, we are wilting under the
ease of our current existences,and that's something that I
think a lot about, and it fallsin a category of something
(16:48):
called evolutionary mismatch oryou might say, nature
deprivation syndrome.
The more we've removedourselves from our natural
habitats, the more we'reactually suffering,
existentially suffering on anindividual basis.
Wildfit is the exploration ofthat gap, what I call the
evolution gap, the gap betweenour evolved bodies and our
(17:10):
present realities, and WildFitseeks to close that gap from a
nutrition perspective.
So you can look at almost anyarea of suffering on earth and
you'll see this gap.
Wildfit addresses that gap asit relates to food and health.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
And so you've created the program how old is WildFit
now?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I think.
Officially, I guess it's about11 or 12 years old.
I started research back in theearly 90s.
I started doing my first talkson human diet and ancestral
living in the mid-90s, but as anactual brand, as a company, as
a formulated program, it's about11 years old now.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And how many people have you helped through this
program?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
You know, I think about 150,000 people have gone
through the core program.
Is this the one on Mindvalley?
It's on Mindvalley, it's alsoat getwildfitcom.
You know people do it throughboth platforms.
And then we've had severalmillion people go through
masterclasses and and freeworkshops and all that kind of
stuff, and so you know it.
(18:11):
It's been, I James.
The funny thing is, I mean, thereason I didn't get involved in
this earlier, despite my passion, was I just didn't see a
business model.
You know I'm at heart abusiness guy and I've been
involved in a lot of interestingbusinesses and industries, but
I just didn't see this as beinga business model.
And when I started it I startedit very much as a hobby and the
(18:34):
word of mouth just magnified it.
And the next thing, you knowit's like we had maybe 100
clients a year through my littlehobby, coaching practice.
Mostly I had other businessinterests and I was teaching
business and that kind of stuff,but without any marketing.
I didn't even have a website.
Suddenly we went from 100clients a year to 5,000 clients
(18:54):
a year like that.
And you know we now haveclients in over 100 countries
around the world.
We have 500 coaches.
The Canadian governmentsummoned me to Ottawa to give me
a medal in the Senate, like youknow, for my hobby yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I love it.
I mean that's properly being intune with yourself and your
mission.
Yeah, very much.
I love the way that yourmission seemed to have happened
by accident.
Do you think that that would beexactly the same for everybody
else?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think you know, I think a lot about like, say,
stages of life.
You know, as a young man inyour 20s, it's really all about.
You know sex and money.
You know you're trying tofigure out how to get both right
, you know.
But then there comes a pointwhere deeper things start to
matter more.
If you're maturing obviouslysome people don't they stay
(19:44):
trapped in that model.
I was quite fortunate in thesense that I started my first
business when I was 27 or so,and I did well enough that I was
able to sell it and, and so bythe time I turned my attention
to my hobby, I didn't need tomake money, and that's not a
place that a lot of people willever arrive at.
(20:06):
And I'm very grateful that Iarrived at that place, because
what it meant was that I was ina position to devote a lot of
time to this thing withoutneeding to worry about making
money on it, and I was able tolook at the business model
without worrying about theprofitability of it, and that
freedom allowed it to grow intowhat it needed to grow into,
(20:26):
which, in an ironic twist, endedup becoming very profitable.
So you know, no, I don't thinkit's a natural thing that that
happened.
I think I was very lucky.
I think I the combination ofdoing the you know, of having
the right level of passion andputting in the right work and
also some fortune, some beinglucky.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Were you surrounded with people that could help you.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yes and no, I've never been.
You know, the asking for helpthing is something that I've
really only recently become morecomfortable with.
You know, what I was very luckywith is, about 15 years ago I
was invited to join a privatemastermind, and it was a
mastermind that was created byjack canfield, you know of
(21:08):
chicken soup for the soul andsuccess principles and so on and
um, and it's a it's a membersonly, invite only mastermind, so
you can't like buy in you, you,you, you know someone's going
to invite a member has toaccommodate you, yeah, and and
so I got nominated and I joinedand immediately I found myself
amongst, you know, some of theogs of the entire personal
(21:29):
development industry stewartemery, who was the ceo of s
training that, of course, becamelandmark, and and, um, uh, you
know, uh, john gray, who wrotethe the mars venus books, and,
of course, jack and mariannewilliamson, and just some
phenomenal people.
And so as I started building, I,even when I wasn't asking
directly for help, I was throughosmosis around people that had
(21:52):
created phenomenal influence andhad launched incredible
programs and books and so on.
So that really, I think thatwas an incredible stroke of luck
that I was invited into thatfamily and they're still family
for me.
I've been a member now forsomething like 15 years.
We just came from our lastmeeting with them in in in, in
near Montreal, and and I, I, uh,I'm really grateful for that.
So, yeah, definitely I had that.
(22:14):
That.
That was a big advantage to me.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So I always believe that if you've got the right
mission, you've got the rightpassion, I think all of those
things will come together.
I'm thinking of the people likelistening to your story, to
think, you know, if you have gotthe passion, I think sometimes
you know, life will put you inthe right position, around the
right people.
It sure seems like that'sexactly what happened to you.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I heard something really cute the other day and it
was like if you look around,you'll see a bunch of people
that have guardian angels, butmost of their guardian angels
are, like, unemployed.
And this is the idea is thatyour guardian angels only really
jump in and help you if you'redoing something extraordinary,
if you're taking risks.
(22:57):
And if you're not taking risks,then your guardian angels are
just sitting around watchingflixwith you and and they don't
need to step up.
So you're not even really aware.
And this is a silly metaphor,but I'm reminded.
You know, I I spent a lot oftime around alcoholics anonymous
, because I had relatives in theprogram and such, and they have
an expression in a that godseems to look after dogs,
children and alcoholics, and andand I realize it's because god
(23:21):
well you know children, dogs andalcoholics take risks all the
time, so somebody's got to belooking out for them, yeah, and
so I think there is something inthis that if you want the
universe to have your back, youhave to be doing something
interesting enough for theuniverse to need to have your
back yeah, yeah, exactly, youknow, gabriel bernstein wrote
that book, but at the same time,mark dooley, who I've been a
(23:43):
big fan of for like 20 odd years, you know, he's like saying you
know, you've got to just walk,keep moving, keep moving, keep
moving and be messy in yourmovement and then something will
come along if you have thepassion, and I think that's
really, really important.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I accidentally discovered podcasting and
speaking to amazing peoplearound the world who are doing
incredible things, just as aresult of thinking I've got
something to say, I've got astory to share.
And when you try and understandthat you've got a story to
share, that also there are otherpeople who've got amazing
stories to share.
That's when the magic happens.
(24:19):
So it's really all aboutcollaboration in one way or
another.
It's like how can we help eachother?
And I believe the universealways comes from the stance of
a win-win, and I feel like thewild fit program and all the
other things that you've beendoing have been a way to create
win-wins of health and vitalitythat can spin off and create
those wonderful ripples.
If we go back to the wild fit,you talked about that evolution
(24:41):
gap and you spent a lot of time,uh, with a tribe in africa.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I believe it's east africa but correct me if I'm
africa.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah and they're called the hadza tribe.
Tell me what you learned aboutthem and how that relates and
how you take that into yourmodern day life.
You know you're a businessman.
You know you've got businessman.
You know you've got lots ofprograms.
You've got your hands in aserial different entrepreneurial
businesses.
But how are you taking whatyou've learned from this really
nomadic tribe and taking it?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
today.
One of the one of the best waysto demonstrate that comes from,
uh, an experience I had withthem where I went to go visit
them for the first time over 15years ago and now you can kind
of book a tour and go and seethem.
It's become a bit Disney-fied,but it was very different 15
years ago.
And on one of my subsequenttrips maybe the third trip my
(25:35):
guide, he said why are you backhere again?
Like when scientists come, theycome and they do their study
and we never see them again.
Like you keep coming back.
Why do you do that?
And I explained to him thisidea of evolutionary mismatch.
I explained to him this thingthat I call the evolution gap
and that is that our biology andour instincts evolve for that
(25:56):
environment.
And now we're out of thatenvironment and I think there's
things that we can learn.
And he said well, like whatspecifically?
And I said well, take a look atthe way they eat.
You know we eat in a verydifferent way.
We're suffering with a bunch ofdiseases.
They're not, so maybe we couldlearn.
Years later, years later, gasper, my guide, he starts telling me
about this school that he'sbuilt, and I don't like this
(26:19):
part of the story because thetruth is, I didn't want to hear
about the school that he built,because I've climbed Kilimanjaro
seven times and every porterand every guide has a school or
an orphanage or a library orsomething that they claim to be
involved with, and they're just.
You know, they're just tryingto scam for tips and I'd rather
just give them their tips.
I don't need to play the game.
And so he's like oh, you got to, I got this school.
And I'm like I've alreadyvisited schools, I've literally
(26:39):
built schools with my own handsin Tanzania Like I don't want
him to tarnish our friendshipwith this.
Manipulation is kind of how I'mfeeling, right?
Anyway, one day I'm looking atour travel itinerary in the
country and I noticed there's abig gap between our departure
and our arrival.
And I know the drive time isnot that long.
And I go Gasper, what's goingon here?
And he goes oh, my Eric, you'reright, that's quite a big gap.
(27:01):
He goes, you know what?
I know somewhere that we canstop for lunch, and I said where
?
And he goes my school.
So I'm like oh, I see why heleft the gap right.
So I'm like fine, gasper, we'regonna go and see your.
So we drive out and his schoolis on the foothills of Mount
Meru and he's telling us thestory.
His grandfather left him thisbeautiful piece of land and he
(27:23):
decided to build a school and hebuilt it himself.
Like he went and raised themoney he took.
We got there and I was blownaway.
Now I have visited governmentschools I've missed.
I visited private schools.
I visited local Masai schoolsand wherever I go, here's what I
see Kids that don't lookparticularly healthy.
They're grateful to have theopportunity in school, but many
of them are being sent to theschool because their parents
(27:45):
can't afford to feed them.
So they're being sent to theschool because there's food
there.
Like it's a tough environment.
But at Gaspar School the kidslooked amazing.
They looked healthy and active.
There was none of thatyellowness in the eyes, didn't
have these little distended bell.
They were healthy.
And so I went to gasper and Igo gasper, your kids look
(28:05):
amazing.
What's the why?
And he goes.
You don't remember and I'm like, what am I supposed to remember
?
And he goes the conversation wehad by the fire, gasper.
We've had many conversations bythe fire over years.
Which conversation he goes.
And he starts telling me aboutthe time when he asked me why I
keep coming back and that I hadtold him that there are things
(28:26):
we could learn from the hods ofpeople, that if we were to apply
those lessons to our modernlife, we'd create modern, and he
said so.
When I heard you say that, Idecided that at my school I
would mimic as closely aspossible their diet, because
otherwise they're just eatingcornmeal and wheat meal like
every other school, which is whythey don't look so good.
So his kids get meat two orthree days a week, they get
(28:46):
vegetables, they get fruit.
It changed everything.
Now those kids are healthy andit will change the entire
direction of their lives thatthey get to grow up like that.
And my general message is thisthere are hundreds more examples
like that where we are dealingwith this mismatch, where we
produce adrenaline for the wrongevents.
We are, our emotions aremismatched with our realities,
(29:09):
and if we can learn to closethose gaps with food and other
things, we can improve ourquality of life.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
So how many kids were at that school?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
About how many kids?
About 100, I think, about ahundred or so.
Wow, yeah, and we now, likewe've we've been, we've been
sponsoring, I think, 20 of themfor the last, maybe close to
maybe as much as 10 years,putting them through, you know.
But yeah, it costs about 300.
It costs about a dollar a dayto educate, clothe and feed a
(29:38):
child and, and so I think wesponsor about 20 of them there,
for we have, for a number ofyears, I like your quote.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You say something like food is your door to
freedom.
What do you mean by that?
You know, because I like this.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's a dichotomy, and that is that food is either a
doorway to freedom or it's atrap, and unfortunately, for
most people in the developedworld these days, it's a trap,
and unfortunately, for mostpeople in the developed world
these days, it's a trap.
There are foods that we eatthat are empty of nutrition and
full of addictive substances,stimulating substances and what
have you, and that are basicallydesigned to trigger appetite,
(30:13):
and so there are certain foodsthat take your freedom away.
If you eat this, you will behungry.
If you eat this, you will wantmore.
Once you pop, you can't stopright.
It's like by design, and sothose foods are specifically
designed to take your freedomaway.
But when you eat foods that areevolutionary matched you know
that are part of our historicalhistory you are eating foods
that buy you freedom, and areally great example of this is
(30:36):
the current GLP-1 or GLP-CRAZEthis whole ozempic govi and what
have you?
Those miracle weight loss drugs, nevermind the side effects
like blindness and stuff thatthey can create.
Those miracle weight loss drugsare mimicking the natural
freedom that certain foodscreate for you when you eat them
(30:57):
.
As an example, if you're not avegetarian and you go out and
you have a ribeye steak, you canonly eat so much, because, as
you eat it, your body producesGLP-1 peptides and tells you
that you're satiated and nowyou're free.
On the other hand, if you eatthe garlic bread and the pasta,
(31:18):
you definitely need to have thetiramisu for dessert, because
those foods are activating yourappetite, and so the point is,
some foods are designed to robyou of freedom, and other foods
can give it back to you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
There's a.
I used to say this to myfriends like years ago once you
have an apple, you don't reallyneed another one.
One's enough, right?
You don't crave another appleafter you've had a really good,
juicy, delicious, wholesomeapple.
And I was like, why is thatI've?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I've just pushed back a little yeah, push back a
little and I'll say this that,um, uh, an apple which you know
is a fine thing to eat, um, isis heavy in carbohydrates.
And so what'll happen when youeat an apple is that you might
not immediately want to eat oneat that moment, because apples
(32:07):
now are very big.
Remember that apples used to beabout that big so you would
need to eat like six or seven oreight of them, but now they're
quite big, so they do.
They can fill a good chunk ofyour stomach.
But as you eat that apple, yourblood sugar begins to come up a
little and your pancreas startsproducing insulin.
So to deal with the blood sugar.
And then, once the blood sugarhas been brought down, you're
(32:28):
left with a little bit of aninsulin surplus, which triggers
a low blood sugar alarm, whichmakes you hungry.
And so somebody who eats anapple will almost certainly want
to eat something.
Maybe it's not another apple,but they'll almost certainly
feel snacky a little bit later.
It will trigger this.
(32:48):
Now, this is not because we'reflawed.
It's because apples are anautumn food.
They are present before thewinter comes, and so when you
eat carbohydrates, your body isgetting this message.
Listen, you better top upwinter's coming man, and so
apples are designed to actuallymake you hungry.
So, yes, you can eat one andyou don't immediately feel, wow,
(33:08):
I need another apple, but halfan hour later it's quite
possible your body goes whatelse is there?
What else is there?
Because in the fall seasonyou're actually supposed to eat
like that, you're supposed tofat, fatten up, whereas somebody
who goes out and has, you know,an omelet or a steak or
something super high proteinlike that, that is automatically
satiating.
And so what happens when theydo that is that they produce
(33:30):
glp1 internal peptides and theydon't have any blood sugar and
they literally are done that youcouldn't make them eat again I
really like this.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I've got a question um if, question, if everything's
seasonal but you live in thetropics, how about what happens
then?
Well, I don't live in thetropics, but you know I'm in a
very hot country and they prettymuch grow most things here.
So you've lived in theDominican Republic, you've been
(33:59):
in the tropics, you've been inTurks andics, you've been in
Turks and Caicos.
That's a tropical area.
What food would be right forthe body then?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So I want you to imagine that we take a bear from
the Cascade Mountains who liveswith normal seasonal changes
right In the the fall the salmonare running and the berries are
everywhere and it eats allthose things and it fattens up
and then it hibernates for thewinter and then over the winter
it burns all its fat stores asit's hibernating and then the
(34:30):
spring comes along and it startsthe cycle again.
What should that bear do if wemove that bear to the tropics?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
yeah, but the question is are you the?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
bear.
You are, yeah, but the questionis are you the bear?
You are Okay, and that's mypoint.
You are that bear.
You are not where you live.
You are where your geneticheritage comes from, and I don't
mean your genetic heritage ofthe last 10,000 years.
Look, you're Northern European.
I don't need Sherlock Holmes tofigure out that your most
recent genetic contributions areNorthern European.
(34:58):
But 99% of your DNA evolved inSub-Saharan Africa.
Those are the seasons that yourmetabolism evolved for, and so
it doesn't matter if you go,move to Yellowknife and you're
dealing with Canadian winter oryou move to the tropics.
That is your environment.
But your biology requires asclosely as possible that you
(35:20):
match the way you evolved.
So if you live in the tropicsand and there's like fruit is
available year-round, greatthat's that.
You know, fabulous.
Except that's not good for youbecause it's not what you
evolved for.
You know, if we take that bear,and even if we don't move the
bear to the tropics, but let'ssay somehow we take that bear
and we trap it in the fallforest in the Cascade Mountains,
(35:44):
then it's going to be stuckwith fall foods and if it eats
fall foods for like six years,it's going to get fat and it's
going to develop like insulinsensitivity problem, maybe even
diabetes, and nobody's evergiven it seed oils or glyphosate
.
It's simply in the wrong seasonfor too long.
And so now, if we take thatbear and we put it in a zoo, one
of the things we have to learnto do is make sure that it has a
(36:06):
seasonal rotation to its eatingpatterns.
Well, we are now in the zoo.
Your DNA largely evolved forthe seasonal fluctuations of
sub-Saharan Africa and then yourrelatives left there and you
picked up some tiny littlemutations, small things, your
skin color changed and that kindof stuff, but ultimately you
still have the same metabolismas somebody from from
sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Okay, so basically eating seasonal is the way
forward, and organic.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yes, yes, but not seasonal to where you're living
seasonal to your DNA, basicallylet's just say this there are
three metabolic modes fatburning, sugar burning and
protein burning.
And if you were living in anatural life, if you were living
with the Hadzabe people, youwould naturally go through all
(36:53):
three of those metabolic statesat various times in the year and
at various times in a givenweek you might be in pure fat
burning mode and stumble upon abeehive and you would suddenly
become a sugar burner until youfinished eating that honey and
then you would resume your fatburning cycle.
So you would have all three ofthese.
Now the average person livingin Marbella or New York is stuck
in one season.
(37:14):
They burn only carbs, and whenthey burn only carbs, they
create a number of challenges,including marching themselves
toward Alzheimer's disease,potentially creating insulin
sensitivity problems,potentially putting on weight,
developing diabetes and so on.
These are not diseases in mymind.
They're repetitive stressdisorders.
They are I'm, out of balancewith what my body's really
(37:35):
looking for.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Okay, so in order to stay in balance, what is Eric's
tips from WildFit?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I mean, you know.
Tip number one, of course, iseat nutritionally appropriate
foods.
Eat the foods that human beingshave been eating since the
beginning of time.
There's no mystery about thehuman diet, as much as the food
industry would like to confuseyou, or what have you?
There is no mystery about that.
So step number one is goodnutrition, and step number two
is mimicking to some degree whatwe call ancestral food rhythms,
that is to say, to recognizethat there were times when
mother nature came along andsaid no more carbs for you.
(38:11):
They're gone.
They're not in season, that'snot an available situation, you
can't have any, and so you mightnot have liked that, but you
didn't have to use willpower togo on a diet.
Mother nature just came alongand took them away.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I heard that the Hadza people sometimes have to
fast because they don't haveaccess to food and then once
they.
Is that the case?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Well, think of the grammar you said.
Sometimes they have to fast.
That makes it sound like it's adecision that they're making.
No, sometimes mother natureimposes fasting on them.
Yeah, it's just it.
Just you know, that's justthat's.
That's living in nature, whenyou don't have Uber eats and
whole foods.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But we don't have that problem.
Yet Fasting is still healthyfor the body.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's the difference .
Is that because we evolved withmother nature controlling our
dietary cycles like that, thoseare optimal conditions for us.
But now we're living incaptivity and we have steady
food supply, so we're notrunning those cyclical routines
anymore, we're not living withthat balance anymore and we're
suffering the consequences.
So now what we have to do isbring our consciousness to that
(39:19):
conversation and we have to sayyou know what, if I was living
in nature, there would be fooddeprivation at times.
And now I need to go into afast.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So how often do you fast, given the WildFit program,
and if that's something thatyou advocate, and also how long
for Okay and and also how longfor All?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
right.
So I, I'm not a big fan of theum, of the of, say, the
traditional intermittent fastingor what they call mimicking
fasting thing.
I, I, I agree with some of thecore principles.
For example, a hunter, gatherer, starts the day without
breakfast because, guess what,there's no food.
They have to go get it.
And they end the day withouteating because, guess what, once
the sun goes down, it's toodangerous to go looking for food
(40:00):
.
So in a sense, thatintermittent fasting window
mimics a, let's say, ancestralfood rhythm.
But when we're talking aboutproper fasting, the real magic
happens after 48 hours.
The real magic kicks in after48 hours.
In the first instance, motherNature did not make food
available.
You weren't a successful hunter, you weren't a successful
(40:21):
hunter, you weren't a successfulgatherer and you didn't find
any food that day.
So you ran a calorie deficit Atfirst.
Your body goes okay, well, I'mgoing to have to get some energy
from somewhere because I've gotno sugar left and I've got no
glycogen left.
I've got.
I'm going to have to burn someof my fat.
(40:45):
But something happens around the48th hour where the body goes.
I don't want to burn all my fat.
I don't know how long this isgoing to last and your body
starts looking around forsomething else to burn and what
it looks for is old, brokenproteins and amino acids and
collagen, and it looks foruseless material and it burns
that.
This is called autophagy orprotein autophagy.
So your body is now burningbroken, old proteins and
cleansing them out of you, andthat that's a super important.
Like I, I would say that thattype of fasting is maybe the
(41:05):
most important anti-cancerprotocol anybody could follow
okay, so it's after 48 hours aswell that that begins.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Right, that's right.
That's right.
So one is so, it's three.
One is not useful, okay.
So day two you're just gettingthrough it, burning the last
bits of maybe even the fat orkicking into the fat, and then
that last section there from daythree onwards yeah, is this
just a-?
That's when the magic happens.
That's when the magic happens,right?
That's when it starts to kickinto the Okay, interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
And so you asked how often I've gone through
different versions of this.
Many, many years ago In fact,not long after you and I
originally met I had gotten intofasting at that point and I did
.
I made all the traditionalfasting mistakes.
I went to fasting centers wherethey were ideological about the
way they did fasting.
For example, they're like well,give up all meat and eat only
(41:56):
fruit before you go into thefast and then break the fast
with fruit Absolutely incorrect,like just not correct at all.
And, as an example, if youwould like to have a major
candida explosion in your body,break your fast with fruit.
That would be really useful.
But there were some things likethat that I went through like
five and seven day fasts andtried those different methods.
What I've now been working on,and for many years at this point
(42:20):
, is mimicking fasting in a waymuch more similar, to, say, the
way natural fasting happened forhunter-gatherers, and so what I
will typically do is three days, and by three days I mean that
I break the fast at mid-morningon the fourth day so that I get
that full 24 hour cycle ofcleansing out.
(42:41):
But sometimes I'll go into thefourth, fifth or even into the
sixth day.
But I recommend to our, werecommend to our clients that
you really shouldn't do thatfourth, fifth, sixth day unless
you're supervised.
You shouldn't be driving carsand operating heavy machinery
and that kind of stuff whenyou're, when you're going that
long my favorite cycle for thisI haven't been doing't been.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Is it just water that's happening in the fast?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
just water, yeah, yeah, water, and maybe some like
very pure uh um, uh, likeherbal tea, but no lemon juice
and all that kind of stuff, likejust water, you know.
And and then, from a cycleperspective, about two years ago
, I experimented with doing thisonce a month.
So I was going in WildFit.
(43:23):
We talk about seasons, and sowe have spring, which is a,
let's say, protein based season,a keto season, and then we've
got winter, which is the fast,and then we have autumn, which
is a carb season, and so what Iwas doing is running a model
where I would do three weeks inin, uh, three weeks in spring,
(43:43):
and then I would do two or threedays in fall and then I would
go into a three day fast andthen begin again with spring.
And I did that for about a yearand it was life changing for me,
there's no question about it.
It's it's tough because you'retalking about three days of
fasting every single month andthat's socially difficult.
Everybody wants to meet aroundfood and all that kind of stuff.
But my body changed, my mindchanged, my mental focus changed
(44:04):
and so on, and so I've done aversion of that now where, like
last year, I probably did abouteight months, like there were
eight months that I did a fastlike that, and the year before
it was basically almost the fullyear.
But now, as you and I aretalking, I'm beginning to think.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
I haven't done one in about two months, so it's
probably about time to do thatagain.
So I'm thinking one that'sabout to kick in, you know?
Uh, I've done a two week fast.
I went to thailand to do it,but it was an absolute cleanser.
Why, whilst I did lose weight,I noticed the amount of energy I
had was phenomenal.
The light behind my eyes waslike I remember someone coming
to me going your eyes are likeheadlights, so the cleansing
that's happening from within isso powerful.
Um, no question.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And I have a question for James.
You said that you'replant-based, so are you like
plant-based or are you vegan?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
No plant-based, so I don't drink milk but I, I, I, I
use, like oat milk and almondmilk, Um, but I like the
occasional bit of ice cream andI like the occasional bit of
cheese on pizza.
And what about meat?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I don't eat meat.
All right, we'll have thatconversation maybe another week.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
This is something that I wanted to challenge you
because I love what you're about.
I love the WildFit way and thething is, whilst everybody's
different and I believe all ofus are different because I used
to eat meat I used to drinkalcohol this wasn't something
that I just said I'm going tostop.
This was just something thathappened naturally.
We talked earlier about yourmission found you.
(45:30):
Naturally.
This is exactly what happened tome and I'm not advocating
anybody do what I do.
It just happened that when Ibegan to meditate, close and
quiet my mind, my natural energybegan to rise and when it did,
I was guided to what was goodfor me.
And I've been doing that for Idon't know over two decades now,
daily, and if it's stillworking for me and I look great
(45:51):
and I feel great and I've gotincredible energy and I can run
up mountains very comfortablyand run down them, I've got an
insane amount of energy.
Why is that?
It's only because I'm listeningto the instinctive voice that's
coming from within that'sguiding me and I believe deep
down, that's what we're alltrying to return to, and I think
WildFit and what you're doingthere is a beautiful way of
(46:13):
being able to help people resetand come back to who they are
because they've forgotten, and Ithink that you explain that
beautifully, and you've got yournew book coming out called the
Wildfoot Way, so tell us alittle bit about that, because
that's coming out, actually, atthe end of this month.
Yeah, yeah, it's coming outquite shortly.
I have all the links for thathere, guys, so you want to be
reading this.
It's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
It's funny.
When I first created Wildfoot,I had a number of people pushing
me to do books.
You know, you should do a book,you should do a book, you
should do a book.
And I, I, just I.
I was um really reluctant to dothat.
Because there are so many dietbooks, why add another diet book
to the shelf?
You know it doesn't I like it,you know because you did the
pre-diabetic book.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
What was the other?
Speaker 1 (46:53):
yeah, and the book the evolution gap, yeah, but the
the uh, um.
But when I first createdWildFit, I decided to do it
multimedia because I wanted tobe psychologically
transformative, and I'm gladthat we did that.
And then my publisher camealong and said they want a book
about WildFit.
And so the WildFit way isn't adiet book in the traditional
(47:14):
sense at all.
It is a book of principles.
And so what it really does isit describes why WildFit is so
effective.
We have an 85 completion rate,and when people are pulled years
after the program, they'restill on track, and that's not
consistent in the diet industryat all.
And so the book really givespeople organizing principles for
taking command of theirrelationship with food.
(47:35):
I'm I'm really excited about it, so I'm glad it's coming out
shortly.
Yeah, it's coming out where.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, it's coming out .
Well, it's going to Kindle, Ithink, on the 30th of September
and hardback on the 5th ofOctober.
So, guys, you've got to getthis.
Just one last tip for theaudience.
If there's something that Ericcould say with your golden
knowledge and the wisdom thatyou've accumulated, what would
it be?
To help people on their healthjourney.
What one tip you give.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'll give a tip and a resource.
When you take wild animals andput them in a zoo, their
outcomes are almost always bad.
They don't do well in zoos.
Great white sharks can't lastfor more than about two weeks in
an aquarium before they die.
You know elephants live longerin forest slave conditions than
they do in zoos, and elephantsliving in the Kruger National
Park, where they're being huntedand poached and they're dealing
(48:21):
with droughts and fires, theylive longer there than they do
in zoos.
When we're in our naturalenvironment, we are happier, we
are healthier in every possibleway, but we don't live in our
natural environment anymore, andso one of the things that I
would challenge people to do isto look at their lives and
identify where they could bringmore nature to their lives.
(48:42):
You know there are some obviousexamples, but like avoiding
escalators and walk movingsidewalks, like when I go
through the airports I almostnever take those things.
I want to get the steps inbecause in nature you had to.
Equally, if you're living in acountry like England where
there's no sun, then you need tofigure out a solution for that.
It might be a travel agent, aconvertible or a red light
(49:08):
system in your house Like.
The idea is to close those gaps, and the resource that I would
offer for that is that atgapfindercom, we've created this
evaluation.
It's an evolutionary mismatchevaluation where you can go and
assess your life againstevolutionary principles and then
it produces a comprehensivereport and prescription for what
you can do to close the gaps inyour environment, in your
(49:28):
health, in your relationships,in your family.
It really it's supercomprehensive and I think it
gives people a really greatroadmap to do exactly what
you're asking.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Amazing.
Well, we'll make sure that thatlink is available so you guys
can check out, because I thinkthat's really important.
I love the tip, eric, thank youso much.
It's been insightful and veryenjoyable speaking with you.
Eric, thank you so much.
Make sure you check out his newbook, the Wild Fit Way, which
is coming out really soon.
This week's super soul model isEric Edmeans, thank you, thanks
so much for having me, thanksfor tuning into the show and if
(49:59):
you enjoyed it, please rememberto follow, rate and share it
with someone who'd love it too.
Until the next time, wishingyou green lights ahead.
The more we've removed ourselves from our
natural habitats, the more we'reactually suffering,
existentially suffering on anindividual basis.
Wildfit is the exploration ofthat gap, what I call the
evolution gap, the gap betweenour evolved bodies and our
present realities, and WildFitseeks to close that gap from a
(00:25):
nutrition perspective.
So you can look at almost anyarea of suffering on earth and
you'll see this gap.
Wildfit addresses that gap asit relates to food and health.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the Super Soul Model series.
Today I've got a very specialguest on the show, an old friend
, eric Edmonds.
And Eric is a serialentrepreneur, an author, an
award-winning speaker andfounder of the WildFit program,
a revolutionary health programthat's transforming the way we
think about food habits andhuman potential.
(00:56):
Eric's lived quite a remarkablelife and we're going to go
through it in this episode andhe's survived hardship, from
being homeless when he was ateen to building businesses in
tech.
Hollywood special effects andwellness are also part of his
resume.
He's logged over 10,000 hoursas a professional speaker on
those global stages and hasshared platforms with people
(01:19):
such as Tony Robbins and RichardBranson.
He's even lived thehunter-gatherer life with tribes
in Africa.
So, without further ado, Iwould like to welcome this
week's guest, my old friend,eric Edmeades.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Hey, so glad to be here, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Excellent, eric.
We met probably about 20 yearsago in London and we were on the
personal development scene and,yeah, a lot's happened and
you've done a lot since thattime.
So it's been great to watch youfrom afar.
But let's go back to the originof your story.
I know the origin of your storywhen we met, but you know, a
lot changed, a lot of shapedwild fit has emerged and been
(01:58):
birthed and now has blossomed aswell as well.
So just tell us a bit about theEric story so we can then go on
to what you've been doing inall these different areas of
health, wellness, tech speaking.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You know, if we pick it up, around the time that we
met, which is, as you say, about20 years ago, I had started a
company in the UK and we wereselling wireless networking
systems, logistics management,barcode scanning, rfid tagging
tech stuff.
And I sold that business whileliving in the UK and around
(02:32):
about that time I had startedexperimenting with doing some
speaking and I already had adeep fascination with
nutritional anthropology andfood and stuff.
So most of my initial talksback at that stage were, you
know, were about food and foodpsychology let's call it the
pre-WildFit talks.
And I don't know if you knewDaniel Priestley in the UK.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I did know Daniel Priestley, but just
before he started doing whathe's doing now, I think this was
the you know the genesis ofwhat he's doing.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We both, in a sense, kind of started at the same time
.
I remember when he landed inthe UK and he started his, his
initial business there and thatled to Key Person of Influence
as well.
Well, one day I got a call fromhim asking if I would come and
speak.
And I wasn't really a speakerat that stage, but you know I
was.
I was starting to, I'd been toToastmasters and I'd done some
(03:24):
courses and and I see he said,would you come and speak?
And I was like, yeah, I'm downfor it.
And I got there and and he saidso you know, can you give me
some idea of what you're goingto cover so I can give you a
good introduction?
And I'm like, yeah, we're goingto talk about food and health.
And and he's like what?
And he goes no, no, this is anentrepreneur network Like these
(03:45):
are business owners.
They're here to talk aboutbusiness.
You sold your company.
You're here to talk about that.
I had no idea Because I was onlyspeaking at little clubs and
stuff about health.
I assumed that's why I wasinvited.
So suddenly, with about 15minutes notice, I have to
prepare a 90-minute presentationon business and
entrepreneurship and frankly, inmy opinion.
I had sold my company so Ididn't have to talk about it
(04:06):
anymore.
So I was like, what is this allabout?
But I did that talk and it waslife-changing for me.
I enjoyed it so much and I sawsome things.
And the one thing in particularI saw was that, as these young,
hungry entrepreneurs and when Isay young I don't mean in age,
I mean in that as these young,you know, hungry entrepreneurs,
and when I say young I don'tmean in age, I mean in their
(04:28):
entrepreneurial journey, becausethey were of all ages.
As they asked me questions andI was able to answer those
questions through the lens of myexperience, I watched their
stress dissolve, like they had a.
I was giving them a roadmap, Iwas giving, and I love that
feeling.
And funny thing happened is thata guy walked up to me and he
goes Eric, that talk wasfantastic and I mean I was, so I
(04:50):
barely remembered the thing, itwas just all adrenaline.
And he goes could you do thatsame talk, like next week in
Singapore?
And I'm like I don't evenremember what talk I gave, like
I really like.
But of course I go sure, and Izoom off to Singapore and I do
that talk and then a guy comesup to me, a guy named Kevin
comes up to me at that talk andhe goes Eric, that talk was
(05:11):
amazing, could you do that sametalk in Australia?
And so a week later I'm inAustralia, new, zealand, and
then Vegas and LA the week afterthat and I became an
international speaker byaccident, and that, that, that
kind of couple of weeks, led to,in a sense, everything I'm
doing today.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, Isn't that amazing how life can guide you
on a journey that you didn'teven think that you were going
to be a part of.
Yeah, no kidding.
And had you ever wanted to dospeaking when we were sitting
around the mastermind table?
That was never something Iheard from Eric's mouth.
It was never something you'dmentioned.
You were interested in,obviously, companies, but you'd
(05:51):
never really gone about thespeaking business.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
No, I was terrified of speaking.
I was properly public speakingphobic.
But there did come a point whenI had recognized some things
about health and food and weightloss and diabetes reversal and
that kind of stuff through myresearch that I started feeling
compelled to share those thingsand so the sense of
(06:16):
responsibility to share thosethings started to outweigh my
fear.
That's the same point.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
you just mentioned that because it sort of ties in
perhaps the audience don't knowis your initial journey with
food, because that saved you,didn't it?
Yeah, and that also gives youmore like leverage to say I want
to share this because it's beenimportant.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
If you've been in pain and taken yourself out of
pain, then when you see otherpeople in that same pain at
least for me it activates thatin me and makes me want to
change it.
And that's really what happened.
In fact, my wife invented aword for this.
You know, she, she invented aword, she, we were talking about
something one day.
And she says she goes well, Ihave scariosity about that.
(06:57):
And I said what do you?
What do you mean?
Scariosity?
And?
And?
Because she's Estonian and shespeaks Russian and she speaks
some Finnish and she'smultilingual, sometimes she just
like uses the logic of alanguage to make a word, but
this is not a word.
And I said to her Kirstie, asfar as I can tell, that's not an
actual word.
I mean, I can't pretend to knowall the English words, but if
that was a word, I feel like Iwould know it.
(07:17):
And she goes well, what do youthink it means?
And I said well, scariosity isprobably like the juxtaposition
between your fear andapprehension about something and
your curiosity about doing it.
She goes see, it's a perfectlygood word, but the funny thing
is it actually is a really goodword.
And what the truth is is that Idid have curiosity about public
(07:39):
speaking.
That is to say that I had a lotof fear and apprehension, but I
also had this curiosity andwhen my curiosity got stronger
than my fear, I started.
I started saying yes toopportunities and that was a big
moment for me.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
That's quite similar with me in the podcast.
You know, initially I was likeso reluctant.
I was like I'm not going toshare my story, I'm not going to
share this.
You know why me?
Why does the world need anotherpodcast person?
Why does the world need anotherexecutive coach to help lead us
?
I was like, well, why not?
You have something to say thatshould be said and it would be
(08:12):
better that you say it than dieby not saying it.
And I remember hearing so manythings about people who've gone
to the edge and going I wish I'd, I wish I'd and I thought I'm
not going to be one of thosepersons.
I'm going to go for it.
And it sounds exactly like thatscary, scary-osity.
Yeah, it is exactly that.
It's like I'm going to do itanyway because my curiosity is
(08:34):
stronger.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So could you just back a little bit, just briefly,
and tell that story to theaudience, about what happened to
you when you were a kid and thefood was so powerful for you,
because then that turns intoyour mission then, when you've
healed from, yeah, yeah, yeah,that that was really big.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I, I, um, uh.
I had a normal relationshipwith food, you know, I I didn't
have what we would consider tobe, say, an eating disorder or
something like that.
I was mildly overweight and butI was suffering with, you know,
I had terrible cystic acne.
I had chronic throat infections, so terrible that my tonsils
(09:13):
were constantly bleeding.
I couldn't breathe through myown sinuses, and this was just
my life.
And I came from a medicalfamily, so you know my
grandfather and some of myuncles, and so of course there
was no end of opinions aboutwhat to do.
And of course my parents sentme to go see doctors and they
(09:33):
prescribed pills and inhalantsand injections and even surgery
that I luckily avoided andnothing helped, like nothing was
helping.
And I then a buddy of minetalked me into going to a Tony
Robbins seminar this is 1991.
And I went there because I wasthere to learn how to make more
money.
I mean, I was 21.
That was my focus in life atthe time.
(09:55):
And I went to this program andI mean, you know Tony's magical,
he does all kinds of incrediblestuff and I learned fabulous
things and things that haveimpacted my life beyond the
health piece.
But on the last day of theprogram he started talking about
food and health and it reallymade me think.
I started thinking about someof the things he shared.
(10:17):
And I went home and I starteddoing some reading and I decided
to do an experiment.
And so for 30 days I justcleaned things up a bit, I cut
out some reading, and and I Idecided to do an experiment, and
and and so for 30 days I I justcleaned things up a bit, I cut
out some stuff and I added somestuff, and 30 days later I had
lost 35 pounds.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Wow that is what's that in kilograms?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
It's, it's, it's it's two stone, it's, it's, it's a
serious yeah 14 kilograms orsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, it's a serious.
Yeah, what is it?
14 kilograms or something yeah,and I also.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My sinuses opened up for the first time in years, my
acne went away, my throatinfections, my digestive
problems ended, like I became anentirely different human being.
In fact, I went to the doctor'soffice because I was still
scheduled to have this surgery.
They were going to take mytonsils out, this throat surgery
(11:08):
, and I got there and I kind ofexpected them to notice, you
know, like I'd lost 35 pounds.
I looked distinctly different.
My mother, my mother, didn'trecognize me when I met her at
the airport, like she, she, sheliterally didn't see me.
My face had changed so much inthe process.
So I kind of expected that whenI went into the doctor's office
they would see this, they wouldnotice that my numbers had
changed so much in the process.
So I kind of expected that whenI went into the doctor's office
they would see this, they wouldnotice that my numbers had
changed, my weight had changed,my composition had changed.
(11:28):
They didn't say a thing.
All they did was try to confirmthe surgery.
And when I told them I didn'twant the surgery anymore,
they're like oh, but the painwill be back.
Like you know, it's like it was.
It was really.
I found it really odd and, atone point, odd.
And at one point I asked mydoctor, um, yeah, how long he
had been to medical school?
And he told me it was like sixyears.
And and I said, and in that sixyears, how much that time did
(11:49):
you spend studying medicine?
Or studying studying food?
And I was absolutely shocked tohear him say none, yeah, like
none and for.
For, for a moment I thoughtmaybe this is the one doctor who
, you know, managed to ski, youknow skate his way through
medical school and avoid all thenutrition classes.
And no, I now know that this isabsolutely consistent the
(12:11):
doctors, the only doctors, thatstudy food as part of their
medical training, are thedoctors who choose those courses
as an elective, which is liketo me suggesting that there are
pilots out there that couldlearn to become a pilot.
But you know, landing is anelective.
You don't have to study thatpart.
I was blown away by that andthat, right there, that couple
of weeks, changed the course ofmy life forever, because at that
(12:33):
point I realized if they're notgoing to study this, I'm going
to study it.
And so that's what started myinitial dive into nutrition,
which led to nutritionalanthropology, evolutionary
biology, and then, of course,food psychology, and all of that
, of course, led to WildFit.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Okay, so thank you for sharing.
By the way, has the doctorschanged anything about that food
?
Learning about food these days,like you know what, 30 odd
years later?
No, no.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I mean, you know, some have don't get me wrong.
I mean, if you follow me onTwitter or X, I have a thing
called Doctors.
I Trust it's a list that youcan go to and there's some
doctors there and there's noquestion, there are some doctors
who have, you know, recognizedthat preventative medicine is
the answer Dr Mark Hyman, forexample.
You know in functional medicine.
(13:22):
He wrote the forward for ourbook post-diabetic, and so
there's no question, there aredoctors that are that are that
are becoming proactive aboutthat.
But at a medical school level,I I mean, I think it's
unconscionable that you couldget through medical school
without studying nutrition.
That's insane.
I understand that Kennedy islooking at, or that Trump and
Kennedy are, for you know I'mnot making a political statement
(13:42):
about whatever I'm just saying.
My understanding is that theyare looking at changing that in
the American medical educationsystem that doctors will have to
study nutrition.
Now that's a good step, but theproblem is that even
nutritional education in Americahas been hijacked by the food
industry, which is, you knowwhere you get the upside down
food pyramid and the old fourfood groups and that kind of
(14:04):
stuff.
So step one is they're going tostart teaching doctors
nutrition.
They're going to teach themterrible nutrition.
Step two will probably takeanother five or six or 10 years
before they actually startteaching them really truly solid
nutrition, but at least we'reon the road.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah Well, optimism is what we require here.
You know, this has definitelybeen part of my journey and
before we go into understandingwhat WildFit really is because
that's really basically your youknow your baby on being able to
show people how to create thathealthy nutrition relationship
(14:40):
you know in my own experience,like I started meditating and
then was guided to the rightfood, I thought that was a
really unusual way.
I never heard it and neverdiscovered it.
I didn't even know whatmeditation was.
But when I was guided, this isthe right food for me, James,
these are the types ofingredients you need.
You need this amount of waterevery day.
I was absolutely fascinatedthat somehow the biology and my
(15:06):
intuition, my instinct, wasguiding me to foods, and I've
been blessed to be well for sucha long time and I put it down
to being in tune.
So let's go into understandingwhat WildFit is, because I think
it's something very similar atthe basics of who we are.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, I think before that I would say this that
WildFit is a chapter in a largerconversation, and what I mean
by that is that the largerconversation starts with a
really interesting question, andthat question is we are
currently living in what have tobe, from an individual human
experience, the single besttimes ever to have been alive.
(15:44):
We live with the greatest levelof personal certainty that has
ever existed.
We live with the greatest levelof food, food security that has
ever happened.
We live with shelter.
We, we, we, we are living inthe very best times to be alive.
I don't care what cnn, fox orsky news says, we are living in
the very best times to be alive.
I'm not saying there aren'tsome problems there are still
(16:05):
many more problems to fix butthere's less poverty today than
there's ever been.
There's less violence againstchildren.
Less people die in naturaldisasters now than ever before.
There's more parity between menand women in education than
ever before.
We are living in the very besttimes to ever have been alive,
but there's a really starkcontrast, and that is that we've
never been less healthy.
We've never been less happy.
(16:27):
We have more depression, moreanxiety, more suicide, more
heart disease, more cancer, morediabetes than ever in history.
So it's like, as technology andcivilization has developed to
make things easier and betterfor us, we are wilting under the
ease of our current existences,and that's something that I
think a lot about, and it fallsin a category of something
(16:48):
called evolutionary mismatch oryou might say, nature
deprivation syndrome.
The more we've removedourselves from our natural
habitats, the more we'reactually suffering,
existentially suffering on anindividual basis.
Wildfit is the exploration ofthat gap, what I call the
evolution gap, the gap betweenour evolved bodies and our
(17:10):
present realities, and WildFitseeks to close that gap from a
nutrition perspective.
So you can look at almost anyarea of suffering on earth and
you'll see this gap.
Wildfit addresses that gap asit relates to food and health.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
And so you've created the program how old is WildFit
now?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I think.
Officially, I guess it's about11 or 12 years old.
I started research back in theearly 90s.
I started doing my first talkson human diet and ancestral
living in the mid-90s, but as anactual brand, as a company, as
a formulated program, it's about11 years old now.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And how many people have you helped through this
program?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
You know, I think about 150,000 people have gone
through the core program.
Is this the one on Mindvalley?
It's on Mindvalley, it's alsoat getwildfitcom.
You know people do it throughboth platforms.
And then we've had severalmillion people go through
masterclasses and and freeworkshops and all that kind of
stuff, and so you know it.
(18:11):
It's been, I James.
The funny thing is, I mean, thereason I didn't get involved in
this earlier, despite my passion, was I just didn't see a
business model.
You know I'm at heart abusiness guy and I've been
involved in a lot of interestingbusinesses and industries, but
I just didn't see this as beinga business model.
And when I started it I startedit very much as a hobby and the
(18:34):
word of mouth just magnified it.
And the next thing, you knowit's like we had maybe 100
clients a year through my littlehobby, coaching practice.
Mostly I had other businessinterests and I was teaching
business and that kind of stuff,but without any marketing.
I didn't even have a website.
Suddenly we went from 100clients a year to 5,000 clients
(18:54):
a year like that.
And you know we now haveclients in over 100 countries
around the world.
We have 500 coaches.
The Canadian governmentsummoned me to Ottawa to give me
a medal in the Senate, like youknow, for my hobby yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
I love it.
I mean that's properly being intune with yourself and your
mission.
Yeah, very much.
I love the way that yourmission seemed to have happened
by accident.
Do you think that that would beexactly the same for everybody
else?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I think you know, I think a lot about like, say,
stages of life.
You know, as a young man inyour 20s, it's really all about.
You know sex and money.
You know you're trying tofigure out how to get both right
, you know.
But then there comes a pointwhere deeper things start to
matter more.
If you're maturing obviouslysome people don't they stay
(19:44):
trapped in that model.
I was quite fortunate in thesense that I started my first
business when I was 27 or so,and I did well enough that I was
able to sell it and, and so bythe time I turned my attention
to my hobby, I didn't need tomake money, and that's not a
place that a lot of people willever arrive at.
(20:06):
And I'm very grateful that Iarrived at that place, because
what it meant was that I was ina position to devote a lot of
time to this thing withoutneeding to worry about making
money on it, and I was able tolook at the business model
without worrying about theprofitability of it, and that
freedom allowed it to grow intowhat it needed to grow into,
(20:26):
which, in an ironic twist, endedup becoming very profitable.
So you know, no, I don't thinkit's a natural thing that that
happened.
I think I was very lucky.
I think I the combination ofdoing the you know, of having
the right level of passion andputting in the right work and
also some fortune, some beinglucky.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Were you surrounded with people that could help you.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yes and no, I've never been.
You know, the asking for helpthing is something that I've
really only recently become morecomfortable with.
You know, what I was very luckywith is, about 15 years ago I
was invited to join a privatemastermind, and it was a
mastermind that was created byjack canfield, you know of
(21:08):
chicken soup for the soul andsuccess principles and so on and
um, and it's a it's a membersonly, invite only mastermind, so
you can't like buy in you, you,you, you know someone's going
to invite a member has toaccommodate you, yeah, and and
so I got nominated and I joinedand immediately I found myself
amongst, you know, some of theogs of the entire personal
(21:29):
development industry stewartemery, who was the ceo of s
training that, of course, becamelandmark, and and, um, uh, you
know, uh, john gray, who wrotethe the mars venus books, and,
of course, jack and mariannewilliamson, and just some
phenomenal people.
And so as I started building, I,even when I wasn't asking
directly for help, I was throughosmosis around people that had
(21:52):
created phenomenal influence andhad launched incredible
programs and books and so on.
So that really, I think thatwas an incredible stroke of luck
that I was invited into thatfamily and they're still family
for me.
I've been a member now forsomething like 15 years.
We just came from our lastmeeting with them in in in, in
near Montreal, and and I, I, uh,I'm really grateful for that.
So, yeah, definitely I had that.
(22:14):
That.
That was a big advantage to me.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So I always believe that if you've got the right
mission, you've got the rightpassion, I think all of those
things will come together.
I'm thinking of the people likelistening to your story, to
think, you know, if you have gotthe passion, I think sometimes
you know, life will put you inthe right position, around the
right people.
It sure seems like that'sexactly what happened to you.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I heard something really cute the other day and it
was like if you look around,you'll see a bunch of people
that have guardian angels, butmost of their guardian angels
are, like, unemployed.
And this is the idea is thatyour guardian angels only really
jump in and help you if you'redoing something extraordinary,
if you're taking risks.
(22:57):
And if you're not taking risks,then your guardian angels are
just sitting around watchingflixwith you and and they don't
need to step up.
So you're not even really aware.
And this is a silly metaphor,but I'm reminded.
You know, I I spent a lot oftime around alcoholics anonymous
, because I had relatives in theprogram and such, and they have
an expression in a that godseems to look after dogs,
children and alcoholics, and andand I realize it's because god
(23:21):
well you know children, dogs andalcoholics take risks all the
time, so somebody's got to belooking out for them, yeah, and
so I think there is something inthis that if you want the
universe to have your back, youhave to be doing something
interesting enough for theuniverse to need to have your
back yeah, yeah, exactly, youknow, gabriel bernstein wrote
that book, but at the same time,mark dooley, who I've been a
(23:43):
big fan of for like 20 odd years, you know, he's like saying you
know, you've got to just walk,keep moving, keep moving, keep
moving and be messy in yourmovement and then something will
come along if you have thepassion, and I think that's
really, really important.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I accidentally discovered podcasting and
speaking to amazing peoplearound the world who are doing
incredible things, just as aresult of thinking I've got
something to say, I've got astory to share.
And when you try and understandthat you've got a story to
share, that also there are otherpeople who've got amazing
stories to share.
That's when the magic happens.
(24:19):
So it's really all aboutcollaboration in one way or
another.
It's like how can we help eachother?
And I believe the universealways comes from the stance of
a win-win, and I feel like thewild fit program and all the
other things that you've beendoing have been a way to create
win-wins of health and vitalitythat can spin off and create
those wonderful ripples.
If we go back to the wild fit,you talked about that evolution
(24:41):
gap and you spent a lot of time,uh, with a tribe in africa.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I believe it's east africa but correct me if I'm
africa.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, yeah and they're called the hadza tribe.
Tell me what you learned aboutthem and how that relates and
how you take that into yourmodern day life.
You know you're a businessman.
You know you've got businessman.
You know you've got lots ofprograms.
You've got your hands in aserial different entrepreneurial
businesses.
But how are you taking whatyou've learned from this really
nomadic tribe and taking it?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
today.
One of the one of the best waysto demonstrate that comes from,
uh, an experience I had withthem where I went to go visit
them for the first time over 15years ago and now you can kind
of book a tour and go and seethem.
It's become a bit Disney-fied,but it was very different 15
years ago.
And on one of my subsequenttrips maybe the third trip my
(25:35):
guide, he said why are you backhere again?
Like when scientists come, theycome and they do their study
and we never see them again.
Like you keep coming back.
Why do you do that?
And I explained to him thisidea of evolutionary mismatch.
I explained to him this thingthat I call the evolution gap
and that is that our biology andour instincts evolve for that
(25:56):
environment.
And now we're out of thatenvironment and I think there's
things that we can learn.
And he said well, like whatspecifically?
And I said well, take a look atthe way they eat.
You know we eat in a verydifferent way.
We're suffering with a bunch ofdiseases.
They're not, so maybe we couldlearn.
Years later, years later, gasper, my guide, he starts telling me
about this school that he'sbuilt, and I don't like this
(26:19):
part of the story because thetruth is, I didn't want to hear
about the school that he built,because I've climbed Kilimanjaro
seven times and every porterand every guide has a school or
an orphanage or a library orsomething that they claim to be
involved with, and they're just.
You know, they're just tryingto scam for tips and I'd rather
just give them their tips.
I don't need to play the game.
And so he's like oh, you got to, I got this school.
And I'm like I've alreadyvisited schools, I've literally
(26:39):
built schools with my own handsin Tanzania Like I don't want
him to tarnish our friendshipwith this.
Manipulation is kind of how I'mfeeling, right?
Anyway, one day I'm looking atour travel itinerary in the
country and I noticed there's abig gap between our departure
and our arrival.
And I know the drive time isnot that long.
And I go Gasper, what's goingon here?
And he goes oh, my Eric, you'reright, that's quite a big gap.
(27:01):
He goes, you know what?
I know somewhere that we canstop for lunch, and I said where
?
And he goes my school.
So I'm like oh, I see why heleft the gap right.
So I'm like fine, gasper, we'regonna go and see your.
So we drive out and his schoolis on the foothills of Mount
Meru and he's telling us thestory.
His grandfather left him thisbeautiful piece of land and he
(27:23):
decided to build a school and hebuilt it himself.
Like he went and raised themoney he took.
We got there and I was blownaway.
Now I have visited governmentschools I've missed.
I visited private schools.
I visited local Masai schoolsand wherever I go, here's what I
see Kids that don't lookparticularly healthy.
They're grateful to have theopportunity in school, but many
of them are being sent to theschool because their parents
(27:45):
can't afford to feed them.
So they're being sent to theschool because there's food
there.
Like it's a tough environment.
But at Gaspar School the kidslooked amazing.
They looked healthy and active.
There was none of thatyellowness in the eyes, didn't
have these little distended bell.
They were healthy.
And so I went to gasper and Igo gasper, your kids look
(28:05):
amazing.
What's the why?
And he goes.
You don't remember and I'm like, what am I supposed to remember
?
And he goes the conversation wehad by the fire, gasper.
We've had many conversations bythe fire over years.
Which conversation he goes.
And he starts telling me aboutthe time when he asked me why I
keep coming back and that I hadtold him that there are things
(28:26):
we could learn from the hods ofpeople, that if we were to apply
those lessons to our modernlife, we'd create modern, and he
said so.
When I heard you say that, Idecided that at my school I
would mimic as closely aspossible their diet, because
otherwise they're just eatingcornmeal and wheat meal like
every other school, which is whythey don't look so good.
So his kids get meat two orthree days a week, they get
(28:46):
vegetables, they get fruit.
It changed everything.
Now those kids are healthy andit will change the entire
direction of their lives thatthey get to grow up like that.
And my general message is thisthere are hundreds more examples
like that where we are dealingwith this mismatch, where we
produce adrenaline for the wrongevents.
We are, our emotions aremismatched with our realities,
(29:09):
and if we can learn to closethose gaps with food and other
things, we can improve ourquality of life.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
So how many kids were at that school?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
About how many kids?
About 100, I think, about ahundred or so.
Wow, yeah, and we now, likewe've we've been, we've been
sponsoring, I think, 20 of themfor the last, maybe close to
maybe as much as 10 years,putting them through, you know.
But yeah, it costs about 300.
It costs about a dollar a dayto educate, clothe and feed a
(29:38):
child and, and so I think wesponsor about 20 of them there,
for we have, for a number ofyears, I like your quote.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You say something like food is your door to
freedom.
What do you mean by that?
You know, because I like this.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's a dichotomy, and that is that food is either a
doorway to freedom or it's atrap, and unfortunately, for
most people in the developedworld these days, it's a trap,
and unfortunately, for mostpeople in the developed world
these days, it's a trap.
There are foods that we eatthat are empty of nutrition and
full of addictive substances,stimulating substances and what
have you, and that are basicallydesigned to trigger appetite,
(30:13):
and so there are certain foodsthat take your freedom away.
If you eat this, you will behungry.
If you eat this, you will wantmore.
Once you pop, you can't stopright.
It's like by design, and sothose foods are specifically
designed to take your freedomaway.
But when you eat foods that areevolutionary matched you know
that are part of our historicalhistory you are eating foods
that buy you freedom, and areally great example of this is
(30:36):
the current GLP-1 or GLP-CRAZEthis whole ozempic govi and what
have you?
Those miracle weight loss drugs, nevermind the side effects
like blindness and stuff thatthey can create.
Those miracle weight loss drugsare mimicking the natural
freedom that certain foodscreate for you when you eat them
(30:57):
.
As an example, if you're not avegetarian and you go out and
you have a ribeye steak, you canonly eat so much, because, as
you eat it, your body producesGLP-1 peptides and tells you
that you're satiated and nowyou're free.
On the other hand, if you eatthe garlic bread and the pasta,
(31:18):
you definitely need to have thetiramisu for dessert, because
those foods are activating yourappetite, and so the point is,
some foods are designed to robyou of freedom, and other foods
can give it back to you.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
There's a.
I used to say this to myfriends like years ago once you
have an apple, you don't reallyneed another one.
One's enough, right?
You don't crave another appleafter you've had a really good,
juicy, delicious, wholesomeapple.
And I was like, why is thatI've?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I've just pushed back a little yeah, push back a
little and I'll say this that,um, uh, an apple which you know
is a fine thing to eat, um, isis heavy in carbohydrates.
And so what'll happen when youeat an apple is that you might
not immediately want to eat oneat that moment, because apples
(32:07):
now are very big.
Remember that apples used to beabout that big so you would
need to eat like six or seven oreight of them, but now they're
quite big, so they do.
They can fill a good chunk ofyour stomach.
But as you eat that apple, yourblood sugar begins to come up a
little and your pancreas startsproducing insulin.
So to deal with the blood sugar.
And then, once the blood sugarhas been brought down, you're
(32:28):
left with a little bit of aninsulin surplus, which triggers
a low blood sugar alarm, whichmakes you hungry.
And so somebody who eats anapple will almost certainly want
to eat something.
Maybe it's not another apple,but they'll almost certainly
feel snacky a little bit later.
It will trigger this.
(32:48):
Now, this is not because we'reflawed.
It's because apples are anautumn food.
They are present before thewinter comes, and so when you
eat carbohydrates, your body isgetting this message.
Listen, you better top upwinter's coming man, and so
apples are designed to actuallymake you hungry.
So, yes, you can eat one andyou don't immediately feel, wow,
(33:08):
I need another apple, but halfan hour later it's quite
possible your body goes whatelse is there?
What else is there?
Because in the fall seasonyou're actually supposed to eat
like that, you're supposed tofat, fatten up, whereas somebody
who goes out and has, you know,an omelet or a steak or
something super high proteinlike that, that is automatically
satiating.
And so what happens when theydo that is that they produce
(33:30):
glp1 internal peptides and theydon't have any blood sugar and
they literally are done that youcouldn't make them eat again I
really like this.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I've got a question um if, question, if everything's
seasonal but you live in thetropics, how about what happens
then?
Well, I don't live in thetropics, but you know I'm in a
very hot country and they prettymuch grow most things here.
So you've lived in theDominican Republic, you've been
(33:59):
in the tropics, you've been inTurks andics, you've been in
Turks and Caicos.
That's a tropical area.
What food would be right forthe body then?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So I want you to imagine that we take a bear from
the Cascade Mountains who liveswith normal seasonal changes
right In the the fall the salmonare running and the berries are
everywhere and it eats allthose things and it fattens up
and then it hibernates for thewinter and then over the winter
it burns all its fat stores asit's hibernating and then the
(34:30):
spring comes along and it startsthe cycle again.
What should that bear do if wemove that bear to the tropics?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
yeah, but the question is are you the?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
bear.
You are, yeah, but the questionis are you the bear?
You are Okay, and that's mypoint.
You are that bear.
You are not where you live.
You are where your geneticheritage comes from, and I don't
mean your genetic heritage ofthe last 10,000 years.
Look, you're Northern European.
I don't need Sherlock Holmes tofigure out that your most
recent genetic contributions areNorthern European.
(34:58):
But 99% of your DNA evolved inSub-Saharan Africa.
Those are the seasons that yourmetabolism evolved for, and so
it doesn't matter if you go,move to Yellowknife and you're
dealing with Canadian winter oryou move to the tropics.
That is your environment.
But your biology requires asclosely as possible that you
(35:20):
match the way you evolved.
So if you live in the tropicsand and there's like fruit is
available year-round, greatthat's that.
You know, fabulous.
Except that's not good for youbecause it's not what you
evolved for.
You know, if we take that bear,and even if we don't move the
bear to the tropics, but let'ssay somehow we take that bear
and we trap it in the fallforest in the Cascade Mountains,
(35:44):
then it's going to be stuckwith fall foods and if it eats
fall foods for like six years,it's going to get fat and it's
going to develop like insulinsensitivity problem, maybe even
diabetes, and nobody's evergiven it seed oils or glyphosate
.
It's simply in the wrong seasonfor too long.
And so now, if we take thatbear and we put it in a zoo, one
of the things we have to learnto do is make sure that it has a
(36:06):
seasonal rotation to its eatingpatterns.
Well, we are now in the zoo.
Your DNA largely evolved forthe seasonal fluctuations of
sub-Saharan Africa and then yourrelatives left there and you
picked up some tiny littlemutations, small things, your
skin color changed and that kindof stuff, but ultimately you
still have the same metabolismas somebody from from
sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Okay, so basically eating seasonal is the way
forward, and organic.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yes, yes, but not seasonal to where you're living
seasonal to your DNA, basicallylet's just say this there are
three metabolic modes fatburning, sugar burning and
protein burning.
And if you were living in anatural life, if you were living
with the Hadzabe people, youwould naturally go through all
(36:53):
three of those metabolic statesat various times in the year and
at various times in a givenweek you might be in pure fat
burning mode and stumble upon abeehive and you would suddenly
become a sugar burner until youfinished eating that honey and
then you would resume your fatburning cycle.
So you would have all three ofthese.
Now the average person livingin Marbella or New York is stuck
in one season.
(37:14):
They burn only carbs, and whenthey burn only carbs, they
create a number of challenges,including marching themselves
toward Alzheimer's disease,potentially creating insulin
sensitivity problems,potentially putting on weight,
developing diabetes and so on.
These are not diseases in mymind.
They're repetitive stressdisorders.
They are I'm, out of balancewith what my body's really
(37:35):
looking for.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Okay, so in order to stay in balance, what is Eric's
tips from WildFit?
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I mean, you know.
Tip number one, of course, iseat nutritionally appropriate
foods.
Eat the foods that human beingshave been eating since the
beginning of time.
There's no mystery about thehuman diet, as much as the food
industry would like to confuseyou, or what have you?
There is no mystery about that.
So step number one is goodnutrition, and step number two
is mimicking to some degree whatwe call ancestral food rhythms,
that is to say, to recognizethat there were times when
mother nature came along andsaid no more carbs for you.
(38:11):
They're gone.
They're not in season, that'snot an available situation, you
can't have any, and so you mightnot have liked that, but you
didn't have to use willpower togo on a diet.
Mother nature just came alongand took them away.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I heard that the Hadza people sometimes have to
fast because they don't haveaccess to food and then once
they.
Is that the case?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Well, think of the grammar you said.
Sometimes they have to fast.
That makes it sound like it's adecision that they're making.
No, sometimes mother natureimposes fasting on them.
Yeah, it's just it.
Just you know, that's justthat's.
That's living in nature, whenyou don't have Uber eats and
whole foods.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
But we don't have that problem.
Yet Fasting is still healthyfor the body.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
That's the difference .
Is that because we evolved withmother nature controlling our
dietary cycles like that, thoseare optimal conditions for us.
But now we're living incaptivity and we have steady
food supply, so we're notrunning those cyclical routines
anymore, we're not living withthat balance anymore and we're
suffering the consequences.
So now what we have to do isbring our consciousness to that
(39:19):
conversation and we have to sayyou know what, if I was living
in nature, there would be fooddeprivation at times.
And now I need to go into afast.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So how often do you fast, given the WildFit program,
and if that's something thatyou advocate, and also how long
for Okay and and also how longfor All?
Speaker 1 (39:40):
right.
So I, I'm not a big fan of theum, of the of, say, the
traditional intermittent fastingor what they call mimicking
fasting thing.
I, I, I agree with some of thecore principles.
For example, a hunter, gatherer, starts the day without
breakfast because, guess what,there's no food.
They have to go get it.
And they end the day withouteating because, guess what, once
the sun goes down, it's toodangerous to go looking for food
(40:00):
.
So in a sense, thatintermittent fasting window
mimics a, let's say, ancestralfood rhythm.
But when we're talking aboutproper fasting, the real magic
happens after 48 hours.
The real magic kicks in after48 hours.
In the first instance, motherNature did not make food
available.
You weren't a successful hunter, you weren't a successful
(40:21):
hunter, you weren't a successfulgatherer and you didn't find
any food that day.
So you ran a calorie deficit Atfirst.
Your body goes okay, well, I'mgoing to have to get some energy
from somewhere because I've gotno sugar left and I've got no
glycogen left.
I've got.
I'm going to have to burn someof my fat.
(40:45):
But something happens around the48th hour where the body goes.
I don't want to burn all my fat.
I don't know how long this isgoing to last and your body
starts looking around forsomething else to burn and what
it looks for is old, brokenproteins and amino acids and
collagen, and it looks foruseless material and it burns
that.
This is called autophagy orprotein autophagy.
So your body is now burningbroken, old proteins and
cleansing them out of you, andthat that's a super important.
Like I, I would say that thattype of fasting is maybe the
(41:05):
most important anti-cancerprotocol anybody could follow
okay, so it's after 48 hours aswell that that begins.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Right, that's right.
That's right.
So one is so, it's three.
One is not useful, okay.
So day two you're just gettingthrough it, burning the last
bits of maybe even the fat orkicking into the fat, and then
that last section there from daythree onwards yeah, is this
just a-?
That's when the magic happens.
That's when the magic happens,right?
That's when it starts to kickinto the Okay, interesting.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
And so you asked how often I've gone through
different versions of this.
Many, many years ago In fact,not long after you and I
originally met I had gotten intofasting at that point and I did
.
I made all the traditionalfasting mistakes.
I went to fasting centers wherethey were ideological about the
way they did fasting.
For example, they're like well,give up all meat and eat only
(41:56):
fruit before you go into thefast and then break the fast
with fruit Absolutely incorrect,like just not correct at all.
And, as an example, if youwould like to have a major
candida explosion in your body,break your fast with fruit.
That would be really useful.
But there were some things likethat that I went through like
five and seven day fasts andtried those different methods.
What I've now been working on,and for many years at this point
(42:20):
, is mimicking fasting in a waymuch more similar, to, say, the
way natural fasting happened forhunter-gatherers, and so what I
will typically do is three days, and by three days I mean that
I break the fast at mid-morningon the fourth day so that I get
that full 24 hour cycle ofcleansing out.
(42:41):
But sometimes I'll go into thefourth, fifth or even into the
sixth day.
But I recommend to our, werecommend to our clients that
you really shouldn't do thatfourth, fifth, sixth day unless
you're supervised.
You shouldn't be driving carsand operating heavy machinery
and that kind of stuff whenyou're, when you're going that
long my favorite cycle for thisI haven't been doing't been.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Is it just water that's happening in the fast?
Speaker 1 (43:02):
just water, yeah, yeah, water, and maybe some like
very pure uh um, uh, likeherbal tea, but no lemon juice
and all that kind of stuff, likejust water, you know.
And and then, from a cycleperspective, about two years ago
, I experimented with doing thisonce a month.
So I was going in WildFit.
(43:23):
We talk about seasons, and sowe have spring, which is a,
let's say, protein based season,a keto season, and then we've
got winter, which is the fast,and then we have autumn, which
is a carb season, and so what Iwas doing is running a model
where I would do three weeks inin, uh, three weeks in spring,
(43:43):
and then I would do two or threedays in fall and then I would
go into a three day fast andthen begin again with spring.
And I did that for about a yearand it was life changing for me,
there's no question about it.
It's it's tough because you'retalking about three days of
fasting every single month andthat's socially difficult.
Everybody wants to meet aroundfood and all that kind of stuff.
But my body changed, my mindchanged, my mental focus changed
(44:04):
and so on, and so I've done aversion of that now where, like
last year, I probably did abouteight months, like there were
eight months that I did a fastlike that, and the year before
it was basically almost the fullyear.
But now, as you and I aretalking, I'm beginning to think.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
I haven't done one in about two months, so it's
probably about time to do thatagain.
So I'm thinking one that'sabout to kick in, you know?
Uh, I've done a two week fast.
I went to thailand to do it,but it was an absolute cleanser.
Why, whilst I did lose weight,I noticed the amount of energy I
had was phenomenal.
The light behind my eyes waslike I remember someone coming
to me going your eyes are likeheadlights, so the cleansing
that's happening from within isso powerful.
Um, no question.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And I have a question for James.
You said that you'replant-based, so are you like
plant-based or are you vegan?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
No plant-based, so I don't drink milk but I, I, I, I
use, like oat milk and almondmilk, Um, but I like the
occasional bit of ice cream andI like the occasional bit of
cheese on pizza.
And what about meat?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I don't eat meat.
All right, we'll have thatconversation maybe another week.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
This is something that I wanted to challenge you
because I love what you're about.
I love the WildFit way and thething is, whilst everybody's
different and I believe all ofus are different because I used
to eat meat I used to drinkalcohol this wasn't something
that I just said I'm going tostop.
This was just something thathappened naturally.
We talked earlier about yourmission found you.
(45:30):
Naturally.
This is exactly what happened tome and I'm not advocating
anybody do what I do.
It just happened that when Ibegan to meditate, close and
quiet my mind, my natural energybegan to rise and when it did,
I was guided to what was goodfor me.
And I've been doing that for Idon't know over two decades now,
daily, and if it's stillworking for me and I look great
(45:51):
and I feel great and I've gotincredible energy and I can run
up mountains very comfortablyand run down them, I've got an
insane amount of energy.
Why is that?
It's only because I'm listeningto the instinctive voice that's
coming from within that'sguiding me and I believe deep
down, that's what we're alltrying to return to, and I think
WildFit and what you're doingthere is a beautiful way of
(46:13):
being able to help people resetand come back to who they are
because they've forgotten, and Ithink that you explain that
beautifully, and you've got yournew book coming out called the
Wildfoot Way, so tell us alittle bit about that, because
that's coming out, actually, atthe end of this month.
Yeah, yeah, it's coming outquite shortly.
I have all the links for thathere, guys, so you want to be
reading this.
It's brilliant.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
It's funny.
When I first created Wildfoot,I had a number of people pushing
me to do books.
You know, you should do a book,you should do a book, you
should do a book.
And I, I, just I.
I was um really reluctant to dothat.
Because there are so many dietbooks, why add another diet book
to the shelf?
You know it doesn't I like it,you know because you did the
pre-diabetic book.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
What was the other?
Speaker 1 (46:53):
yeah, and the book the evolution gap, yeah, but the
the uh, um.
But when I first createdWildFit, I decided to do it
multimedia because I wanted tobe psychologically
transformative, and I'm gladthat we did that.
And then my publisher camealong and said they want a book
about WildFit.
And so the WildFit way isn't adiet book in the traditional
(47:14):
sense at all.
It is a book of principles.
And so what it really does isit describes why WildFit is so
effective.
We have an 85 completion rate,and when people are pulled years
after the program, they'restill on track, and that's not
consistent in the diet industryat all.
And so the book really givespeople organizing principles for
taking command of theirrelationship with food.
(47:35):
I'm I'm really excited about it, so I'm glad it's coming out
shortly.
Yeah, it's coming out where.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yeah, it's coming out .
Well, it's going to Kindle, Ithink, on the 30th of September
and hardback on the 5th ofOctober.
So, guys, you've got to getthis.
Just one last tip for theaudience.
If there's something that Ericcould say with your golden
knowledge and the wisdom thatyou've accumulated, what would
it be?
To help people on their healthjourney.
What one tip you give.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'll give a tip and a resource.
When you take wild animals andput them in a zoo, their
outcomes are almost always bad.
They don't do well in zoos.
Great white sharks can't lastfor more than about two weeks in
an aquarium before they die.
You know elephants live longerin forest slave conditions than
they do in zoos, and elephantsliving in the Kruger National
Park, where they're being huntedand poached and they're dealing
(48:21):
with droughts and fires, theylive longer there than they do
in zoos.
When we're in our naturalenvironment, we are happier, we
are healthier in every possibleway, but we don't live in our
natural environment anymore, andso one of the things that I
would challenge people to do isto look at their lives and
identify where they could bringmore nature to their lives.
(48:42):
You know there are some obviousexamples, but like avoiding
escalators and walk movingsidewalks, like when I go
through the airports I almostnever take those things.
I want to get the steps inbecause in nature you had to.
Equally, if you're living in acountry like England where
there's no sun, then you need tofigure out a solution for that.
It might be a travel agent, aconvertible or a red light
(49:08):
system in your house Like.
The idea is to close those gaps, and the resource that I would
offer for that is that atgapfindercom, we've created this
evaluation.
It's an evolutionary mismatchevaluation where you can go and
assess your life againstevolutionary principles and then
it produces a comprehensivereport and prescription for what
you can do to close the gaps inyour environment, in your
(49:28):
health, in your relationships,in your family.
It really it's supercomprehensive and I think it
gives people a really greatroadmap to do exactly what
you're asking.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Amazing.
Well, we'll make sure that thatlink is available so you guys
can check out, because I thinkthat's really important.
I love the tip, eric, thank youso much.
It's been insightful and veryenjoyable speaking with you.
Eric, thank you so much.
Make sure you check out his newbook, the Wild Fit Way, which
is coming out really soon.
This week's super soul model isEric Edmeans, thank you, thanks
so much for having me, thanksfor tuning into the show and if
(49:59):
you enjoyed it, please rememberto follow, rate and share it
with someone who'd love it too.
Until the next time, wishingyou green lights ahead.
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Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com