Welcome to The Method: Meet your hosts, Charlie & Greg

Show notes

In this episode, you’ll hear how Greg and Charlie met (and how their friendship is largely kept alive through long WhatsApp voice notes), what healthspan really means and why it matters, and which guests and topics are coming up next. Consider this your teaser for what’s to come.

Transcript

Charlie: Right… I need to introduce myself.
Hi, my name is Charlie. Charlie.

Greg: You have to say four words. My name is Charlie.

Charlie: Piss off, Greg.

Greg: This is The Method, a podcast from Thriva about what health looks like in the real world. There’s a lot of health advice going around, but not all of it actually makes a difference to our lives. I’m Greg Potter,

Charlie: and I’m Charlie Edmondson. We’re here to figure out what works for our health, what doesn’t, and how to change our lives for the better.

Greg: Yes, that’s what the podcast is about — but right now, the podcast has barely even started. So where do we go from here?

Charlie: We thought it’d be fun to describe each other to begin with. Greg, you’re up.

Greg: If I had to describe Charlie in a sentence, it would be something like: Northern dog mum who earns her pints of Guinness by running around on broken bones.

Charlie: That’s… very accurate, isn't it. Okay, how would I describe myself?

Northern, dog, Guinness lover, runner. I live a fairly normal life — I have a regular nine-to-five, a hefty commute a few days a week, and I love being active. I love the outdoors, I love the mountains.

I was a triathlete for a period of time, I swam when I was younger, and now I’ve transitioned into endurance running — half marathons and marathons. I’m normally an annoying early-bird trainer: get up, get out, get it done. Otherwise, you'll see me procrastinate to professional levels to avoid exercising.

I love the community side of sport — meeting like-minded people, love a post-workout coffee… and also, world’s biggest crumpet lover.

Greg: In my mind, Charlie is a crumpet.

Charlie: Delightful, savoury, sweet, any time of day — perfect.

Greg: And very healthy, obviously.

Charlie: How would I describe you? Nomadic, nerd, generally my go-to for any health or science-related question. Lover of the sea… and ear infections.

Greg: I’m a huge fan of ear infections. I'm like an ear infection magnet.

If I had to describe myself: I'd first have to agree with you that I am a nerd. These days my work focuses on helping people make sustainable changes to improve their health and performance in the long term. To that end, I wear many hats at work — podcasting, public speaking, health and performance coaching, developing digital health platforms and dietary supplements, and publishing scientific research. And that's why some people call me a scientist.

I’ve been passionate about health and performance since I was very young. I hurt my back playing rugby, started going to the gym to rehab it, that led me to start lifting weights — and then I think like many young boys, frankly, teenagers, I succumbed to good marketing. I started reading men’s fitness magazines. Reading online forums about bodybuilding...there was some good information on some of those, but there was a lot of nonsense too.

That led me to study sport and exercise science, then exercise physiology for my master's, and eventually sleep, nutrition, and metabolism for my PhD. I’ve made loads of mistakes along the way. So my goal with this podcast is to help you lot listening work out what actually matters, what doesn’t, and what the science really shows — as opposed to how it gets spun out of shape by many people.

Outside of work, I enjoy pretending to be a fish while scuba diving, hiking, exploring new places, and spending a fortune on fancy coffees.

Charlie: I love that you introduce yourself like that, and I talk about Guinness and crumpets.

Okay — Greg, how did this podcast come about? Why are we here?

Greg: Fundamentally, we’re trying to help people cut through the confusion around health advice. Nowadays, we're all bombarded with misinformation, disinformation, and conflicting opinions. What we're trying to do here is not just be a nerdy podcast which is probably what I would do if I was left to my own devices.

Charlie: I mean, let's be honest.

Greg: Yeah, let's be honest. Charlie’s here to translate nerd-speak into English that people can actually understand. Each episode is going to explore a common question or challenge about health. For example, how can I sleep well during this particularly stressful time? And consider it through three lenses, one being the science. So what is the current state of high-quality research on the subject? One being the practice, which is about how you actually implement that science in your life. And then the other is the experience, and that entails stories of people who have tried and tested those interventions and the results they've had, the challenges they faced.

Charlie: Yeah, so I think in the early episodes, it's probably going to be mostly listener questions. So obviously, to anyone listening to this, we definitely want you to send in your stories. We want you to be a part of this. Also, something we've not said yet, but should mention is the format for this show was generally imagined by a company called Thriva. For those of you who don't know Thriva, they're a health platform that offers convenient and hyper-personalised blood testing. They help you track your health in a way that feels intuitive, insightful, and gives you the information that you really need to know. The whole point is not just to help people to live longer, but to actually feel better right now. So yeah, it's pretty much the whole reason we're here and doing the show, Greg, do you just want to give us a bit of insight into how you first came into contact with Thriva?

Greg: Okay, yes. Thriva asked me to host the podcast initially because a very good friend of mine, Dr. Tommy Wood, suggested me as a potential host. So my task then was to choose a co-host, and I have no idea why, but Charlie was one of three people that came to mind. So I'm still reflecting on how that came about, but she does ask me various messages about health from time to time.

Charlie: Yeah, normally, when I've injured myself or I am trying to find a hack, because I actually want to run a marathon and I don't want to do marathon miles, I ask my very nerdy friend who reads the science papers, who knows more about it than I do, to give me a very brief overview on how to do it,

[WhatsApp messages]

Greg: I would use the sauna definitely take advantage of that. I'm relatively convinced by the research on them. The one thing that I often get wrong is that I use them too much, because you've got to bear in mind that it is a stress.

It's never brief.

Charlie: It's never brief. No, I did find a voice note the other day that was 12 minutes. I think that might be our record. Put you on times two for that one

Greg: If you were training, and then you decided to throw in four 30 minute sauna sessions a week on top of that, that's a strong additional stimulus. So I would almost view them as being, like, relatively mild training sessions.

Charlie: Hello. That is absolutely fascinating. That sauna, so many people like, almost go, oh, sauna so like relaxing. And, you know, I suppose you assume, because it's in a spa environment a lot of the time, that it is relaxing, I would never even consider that it would be classed as a stress or high stress, or whatever. So, yeah, I'm just driving home from the office now. I'll report back if the sauna is any good. Oh yeah, that's what I was gonna say...

Charlie: Greg normally bookends my commute to work because we're on different time zones, and it's our way of staying up to date with each other, finding out what each other's up to through endless voice notes.

Greg: You gotta be careful listening to me on the way to work, because that could be quite sedative.

Charlie: Yeah, you are a very calming influence in my life. Greg is how I would describe it, as opposed to a sedative.

Greg: And so what are some of the things that you're interested in learning about on the show Charlie?

Charlie: I think it's going to depend on the guest really. I think the world's probably gone a little bit mad in terms of, do this, do this. If you do this for two weeks, you're going to get this benefit actually, just speaking to people who know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do, and hopefully coming away with some tips and tricks and stuff that I can introduce into my life to make some positive improvements and maybe stop doing some of the stuff that I'm doing now that might be negatively affecting me, and I actually have no idea, or I probably do know, but need some. On to tell me, quite categorically, I should stop doing that.

Greg: How would you respond if someone said that you need to reduce your crumpet consumption?

Charlie: I mean, they would never be invited back on the podcast again, and I think I'd probably have to request that the episode didn't air. I feel very strongly about the crumpet consumption. It's probably forms 75% of my diet,

Greg: And 25% Guinness?

So at this point, you might be thinking, well, what are they going to talk about, apart from crumpets, Guinness and fish oil. Well, a few things. But initially, how about that for transition? You're enjoying that Charlie.

Charlie: I can say that I loved it. It was seamless.

Greg: Initially, some key themes that we're going to cover relate to longevity and the science of how to age well, how you can sleep better in less-than-ideal circumstances, as most of us experience, and how to exercise to support healthy ageing. And those are all among my own personal main interests, because I think that they're hugely important to understand, but I also think that there's a lot of misinformation and confusion about those subjects. The good news is that many of the things that are most effective are actually fundamentally quite simple, and so you probably don't need to dramatically overhaul your lifestyle or spend loads of time on those areas to get good results. Charlie, are there any subjects there that pique your interest?

Charlie: I think, probably, from my point of view, it's just where you've said there. Obviously, there's the small improvements that can be made. How realistic are they? Like I've got a full-time job, I commute for three hours a day, two or three days a week, exercise a lot, probably in most people's eyes, training for a marathon at the moment. How realistic are these things to fit into what I would class as a normal person's life?

Obviously, everyone else sees their life as normal. But what I you know how, how realistic are these things to introduce? And also, what should you prioritise? You can't prioritise absolutely everything. And also interesting to see how, if I start introducing some of these things as the podcast goes on, how, yeah, what sort of improvements or changes I've seen in myself, juggling day to day, training, work, etc.

Greg: And all of this does actually relate to might have heard of, the term healthspan. Banded around a lot nowadays. People like sticking span on the end of words. Just an observation. I saw a paper the other day about joyspan.

Charlie: Joyspan?

Greg: Joyspan.

Charlie: What's Joy span?

Greg: Well, it's the period of your life that you're full of joy apparently, anyway, we'll put joyspan to the side. Returning to healthspan that's often roughly described as years of life lived in good health, but then that gets operationalised into years of life free from chronic disease. And I don't think the absence of chronic disease and good health are synonymous. For example, imagine that you are free from chronic disease, but you live half your life with a cold or some other upper respiratory tract infection. Would you consider that as a time of life in which you're healthy? Probably not.

Charlie, this isn't a trick question, but what do you think contributes to your healthspan? Just use your common sense.

Charlie: Um, diet, genetics, where you live, how much you exercise, probably? What you do for a job?

Greg: There's probably a few more that we can put in there. But the Thriva healthspan framework, it splits health related actions and exposures into a few categories, namely, rest and that subsumes both sleep, but other forms of rest too. For example, progressive muscle relaxation would go into that category.

Another is eat, which is synonymous with nutrition and does include crumpet consumption.

Charlie: Phenomenal.

Greg: Then there's move, and that is everything from non-exercise activity like fidgeting, standing up out of your chair, to structured exercise training, the kind of thing that you spend your free time doing, Charlie. Then there's connect, which you didn't mention, but I know that you know the importance of. So that's our social lives, communities, intimate relationships.

Charlie: I didn't think about that, but actually the importance of, yeah, surrounding yourself with positive people or friends and family or whatever brings you joyspan, you know.

Greg: Very good! Another is engage, and that really is about stimulating the brain in positive ways. And obviously some other things you do stimulate the brain, such as exercise. However, this could include things like learning a musical instrument or learning a language, picking up new skills that are unfamiliar and somewhat challenging.

Then there is balance, and I'm not talking about walking on a tightrope, but rather moderating your exposure to things that you might enjoy, but that could be harmful in excess. We could possibly put Guinness consumption in that category, unfortunately. But if it's only 25% of your diet, then that might be permissible. So maybe the Guinness isn't optimal in terms of your nutrition; however, it comes with spending time with your mate, and you make fond memories, and that's a really important part of your life.

Charlie: Yes, also, like extreme sport. Would that be in that? Do it sometimes, but not a lot, because you're probably going to get injured?

Greg: Are you thinking about starting a new career as a Red Bull athlete, Charlie?

Charlie: I mean, if they come knocking, Greg, I'm not gonna say, no. I'm not sure what sport they might come knocking for, but I'll give it a go. Yeah, by all means. Okay, so we had connect, balance. What else?

Greg: Then there is supplement. And obviously, that includes dietary supplements. So topping up nutritional inadequacies, but maybe that could include other forms of supplementation towards specific goals. So this could be playing with toys, such as light therapy, whatever it might be. There's some sort of deficiency in your life that's relevant to your health that you are adding in using interventions that you wouldn't necessarily experience in the wild.

And all these categories can be considered in relation to health and the function of different bodily systems. So we can think about how they relate to things like hormonal signaling, or your physical strength, or how strong your bones are, or your cognitive functions, your ability to pay attention and remember things, and so on. So Charlie, back to you, do any of those stand out as categories that you found to be particularly or surprisingly important?

Charlie: I mean, there was a lot there. I'll be honest. I was going to write it down, but that I didn't even really know how to spell it, so we just moved on. Just let you crack on.

No, I think supplements is interesting, because I don't take any supplements at all. I don't, I actually think partly because (we've had this conversation previously) where I actually listened back to a voice note the other day and you were talking about boron.

Greg: Boring you about boron?

Charlie: Honestly, I listened to it and I was like, oh, my God, I'm sure that was something in school that...is it not toxic? It's not toxic, though?

Greg: You'd have seen it on the periodic table once upon a time.

Charlie: Oh I love the periodic table. Yeah, but actually, having some advice on what levels or amount you need to take for it to actually be effective. If you look at anything that's, you know, it's got an additive, but actually the amount that's included in it is so small that it has zero impact. Yeah, I think it will be interesting to learn a bit more about that. Can you remind me of some of the other ones that you said?

Greg: Yeah, of course, you touched on the other ones. Although you didn't mention sleep. You did mention that recently, your sleep hasn't been quite as stellar as it has been historically.

Charlie: Yeah, I'm normally a very, very good sleeper. Like my parents always said, like, I used to ask to go to bed. Like, I have no issues falling asleep. I genuinely think I brush my teeth and start to fall asleep as I walk to my bed, and I'm asleep within 30 seconds. But I do notice, if I'm stressed at work, three o'clock on the dot every night, I will wake up. And it's like someone's flipped a switch and I'm wide awake.

Greg: And also, you might, like many people, have found that when you wake up in the night, you've got a strange ability to accurately predict the time of day that it is. You wake up and you just think it's 2:46, and it turns out there's 2:48

Charlie: Is that what you would call it, like your hidden talent?

Greg: Yes!

Charlie: Superpower.

Charlie: Party trick.

Greg: All right, guys, I'm going to sleep.

Charlie: What a wild party. God, give me an invite. Sign me up.

Okay, so I reckon we all know a little bit more about the healthspan now. This framework we've just talked about is grounded on mountains of research. So you know, going into these episodes that we're doing our homework. Greg, hopefully you a little bit more than me. So now, taking your science cap off, what are you interested to learn on the podcast?

Greg: Several things. So, one is just learning myself. I get that through preparing for podcast episodes, but also speaking with guests about areas of their expertise. And I know that I have some large gaps in my knowledge.

Another is better understanding what people are really interested in. I have a love-hate, mostly hate, relationship with social media, and so I don't actually feel like I've got my finger on the pulse of a lot of trends in subjects such as nutrition and exercise and sleep. I have people ask me about those from time to time, but I've been interested in this stuff long enough to see the trends come and go. And in many instances, it's like there's a 20-year cycle of what's popular at a point in time. You see that in particular with nutrition, low carb, low fat, etc, etc.

And then finally, I want to learn to meet people where they are. And so it's really difficult sometimes switching between asking questions, I think someone who is an expert in a field would find interesting, but then also asking the questions that the people listening have on their minds, because I'm not necessarily representative of some people, and I'm really interested in all the nuances.

Charlie: So yeah, I'm here to basically ask the questions that come into my brain very quickly that are probably what non-science people might ask.

So the idea of the show is obviously to sort of take listeners on a bit of a journey with myself and Greg as we speak to experts, and hope that at the end of each episode, we've all got something to take away, something we can try to implement into our lives. And yeah, hope that obviously listeners do the same in their lives and come back to us on if things have worked well, if they haven't. Yeah, build a community.

Greg: Connect is one of the pillars! So in terms of our early guests, our initial guests include Sophie Bostock. She is a sleep expert and longtime friend of Thriva. Filippo Ongaro: he's a doctor who's gone from working with astronauts to trying to help people age better. And Andrea Maier, who is a brilliant scientist. She studies the biology of ageing, and she focuses on which interventions are beneficial in the context of human ageing. Because a lot of that research is on mice and fruit flies and cells, and you can't necessarily translate it to us.

Charlie: No, doesn't seem that transferable, I'll be honest, but we'll figure it out. We'll find out. And whilst we've got questions to ask each of them, we'd love for you to send over any of your questions, so you can do that via voice note or email to the method@thriva.co. And if you enjoyed this episode of an intro with Greg and Charlie. Stay tuned, because there are more episodes dropping on your feed this week.

Greg: Right time for a crumpet?

Charlie: Time for a crumpet? Lovely to chat to you. Nice to see your face again, see you on the next episode!

Greg: Thanks for joining us today on The Method: Health in the Real World. This podcast was brought to you by Thriva, a health platform designed to optimise your well-being. So if you want to learn more, just head to thriva.co. That's thriva.co. And of course, if you love the show, subscribe on your favourite app.

Charlie: You can also leave a review or send us an email with your own health questions. We want to cover the topics on your mind, so go grab our email in the show notes, and please do get in touch.

Greg: Huge thanks to the Thriva team and to Lower Street for helping us bring the show to life. Content direction by Rich Cousins, Hamish Grierson, Tamar Loach and Katie Yockey. Production from Lise Lovati, with the help of Sam Datta Paulin. Sound design by Alex Rose.

We're your hosts, Charlie Edmondson and Greg Potter. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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