#149: Lifestyle Brand Sapiens, Healthy Living, Live-streaming in Chinese Market and Empowered Mindset with Ellen Chen
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Kia ora, ni hao and hello. Welcome to the Chewy Journal Podcast. I'm your host, Camilla Yang. My guest today is Alan Chen. Alan is a good friend of mine, and she is the co-founder of a lifestyle brand, Sapiens. With a background in biomedicine and bioengineering, Alan also serves as a science communicator, connecting with a broad online audience in China market.

In today's episode, we talk about Aileen's business, Zipiens, tips on healthy living, her live streaming experience in Chinese market, and empowered mindsets. We hope you enjoy the show.

Welcome, Ellen. Welcome to my show. Thanks for having me, Kemi. We did two episodes in Chinese before, and one of the episodes was the most popular and most listened one. We talked about Lex Freeman and Milan Kundera and so many different topics. And so I think today would be honored to have you on my English podcast. Then we just chat about lifestyle,

and cultural diversity between the East and the West. Would you mind giving us a brief introduction about yourself? Tell us about your background in biology and how did you become who you are now? Sure, yeah, it's my honor to be here chatting with you.

Kia ora everyone. Greetings from Auckland. This is Ellen Chang from Sapiens. I'm the co-founder of the brand Sapiens. That's the main thing I'm doing, the main business I'm doing at the moment.

So about my educational background. So I received my Bachelor of Engineering back in China. And I majored in bioengineering. If anyone wonders what it is, it's just half biology and half engineering. I can say it's a pain in the ass. It wasn't easy. It wasn't an easy one. And obviously, it's not an easy major to get your A.

a good job. So I decided to keep on studying, but transferring from engineering to something I'm more interested in, which is biology. So I came to New Zealand for post-grad studies. I've done some post-grad courses, post-grad search, and then I received my master's degree in biomedical science

from the University of Auckland and specialised in cancer biology, which is my absolute interest back

back that time. So yeah, that's my educational background. It was during the post-grad study that I came across with some nutrition and sports science courses. So, you know, just to earn the points. Just to earn the points, but I found it quite interesting because it's different from what I thought that there's a disease and we try to cure the disease.

But with nutrition and with some sports science that you realize there's something upstream of the diseases, like from clinical nutrition, nutrition to support disease treatments, and also the nutrition in diabetes and such as just basic nutrition. They have a role in disease preventions.

So this is like opening a door for me. It's not something I considered as a career path back then, but it's like planting a seed in my heart that, okay, so there's more than just curing the disease. So there's something like diabetes and cancer. The more you study about them, the more that you realize they could, to some degree, be prevented.

Like there are so many things contributing to that. And I'm not saying all of that, but some of that you can not absolutely preventing that, but to reduce the risk of that. So it's all about lifestyles and the environment factors that we talk about. This gives me the, like the sight of separating the environmental factors from the genetics that I thought. I thought disease are all about genetics, but then it's,

environmental factors as well. It's a complex set of factors. I didn't realize, but then now I look back, I think there was a report that actually changed me without me noticing. It was the second expert report. The name of that is Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Cancer.

So it's like linking your lifestyle to cancer. It's a global perspective report done by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute of Cancer Research.

So it's a very important report. It summarizes some of the nutritional, some of your lifestyle, and some of the environmental factors that you probably didn't even notice before. They rated these factors from highly convinced or seems possible. So they rated the contribution of these factors to

to cancer risks. So that was a mind-opening moment for you. Oh, wow. I know cigarettes are bad. Alcohol is bad. But it turns out some other, or say you didn't notice, but body fat is something affecting cancer as well. So there's a linkage maybe between diabetes and cancer.

and also some red meat. It's not like high risks, but it contributes a little to that. And also, I'm not sure if you know this plant that people chew. Ah, bean lung. I don't know the name of it. It's called bean lung. Let me look into it. I just realized it's bean lung.

And then there's also a thing that is how people drink the yerba mate tea. It's not the tea itself, it's how they drink it in hot water. That will cause you another cancer as well. So there's lots of things and the list of these factors. And it got me wondering, what if some of the cancer patients, they knew about this?

20 or 30 years ago, and they started to do something to prevent this. Could they be saved?

I started to wondering that this is just like a small idea in my head. But back then, I was still looking for some career path in the academic field. Because that's what you study for. You want to become a scientist. But it was my master project that defeated me. And I had a painful time writing my thesis.

And I was like, is this what I'm good at? Or is this the path I should choose? And then, because I was never a...

straight A student. We are Asian, we always get an A. I'm Asian. I always get like B or B plus at the most, you know. Sometimes I get A minus. I'm not a straight A student. I don't got a feeling that I can contribute a lot in this field. And there are so many talented people in this field already, you know.

So I tried to think, maybe can I work in the pharmaceutical industry? But then I realized there's not much opportunities in New Zealand unless I want to go overseas. So when I chose my career path, between maybe getting a job in some industry or maybe continue with this and do a PhD, and then

listing all the pros and cons and my own capability and also the painful memory from writing the thesis and

and doing their experiments in the lab and that all got me into, so you need to just get a job and build a career there. So there's a field of the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical as well. So get to build a career in this field instead of getting a PhD. So yeah, that's why I got into the nutraceutical industry because that's what New Zealand was famous for,

the natural supplements yes it was back then it was like a rising industry and that's why I got into the nutraceutical industry so I worked as a I worked in the supply chain and also the MPD department later on so I got to know more about the

the ingredients, the raw materials and how you formulate these products and most importantly the cost of them. You know the cost like what ingredients are actually expensive, how to formulate your product to be more profitable. So this is what I've learned in this industry.

And there's another important position that I've made, which was because now I'm working with stable income and I have regular working hours. So, you know, from nine to five, sometimes six, yeah, nine to six. And the fact that I was working

turning 30. It was like the last few months of my 20s. So these factors combined together, I've got the money, I've got the leisure time, so I became a gym goer.

So that was the most important decision I've made for myself before I turned 30. It was just with the concept that I think I should do something. And New Zealand naturally got the environment to encourage people to go to the gym. I mean, Les News is doing a very encouraging thing.

for people to join the gym. They've got a group fitness. I didn't hear of the group fitness before. I was brought to the gym by my friend. So this was the

I'll say the most important switch or like it opens a larger door because now I myself got into the healthier lifestyle. And with my background, I started to think, how could these products actually fit into someone's lifestyle?

life for pursuing a better health. And as a user myself, because now I have a demand. With this demand, when I look for the suitable products on the market, especially for protein powders, I couldn't find any that I am happy

to use like on a daily basis. I was told I need that, but I couldn't find a product that satisfied me. That is a turning point. Well, you didn't know that until like maybe you look back and you will notice that that was the turning point. You become a user and a user with the knowledge of the background and also with the demand of a good product. So these things just naturally add together.

So I was thinking, now I have the access with some of the ingredients, you know, with some of the ingredients and I have some, like, with the flavorings and now I know what I need for the nutrition part. Can I try to make things for myself? It wasn't for, like, for business. It was like, can I make something for myself? Can I make a protein powder? Like, is there a better protein powder that

that suits people like me who are lactose intolerant. That was the main issue. That was the main issue because majority of the protein powders I tried on the market, they all gives me protein parts. Yeah, true. Because I noticed that I might be lactose intolerant. So I was looking for something

pure. Yeah, a lot of Asians got this problem. So for me, so we need that. Back then, I didn't find anything. Maybe it's fine for the Kiwis, but for Asians, you might not notice this before.

So when you see other people using this protein powder and you go to try the popular one, it doesn't suit you. Yeah, I even got a protein poison, need to go to hospital. Oh my God. Because I'm such a tiny one and I drank the dose for adult, grew up adult guy. Plus the lactose intolerance. It was like shh.

oh damn oh damn yeah but anyway back to you yeah so that that was the um that was the turning point i would say and um also it it was back back in that time i met my business partner it's very important as well it's the third third critical um point yeah so because she is she's got a

business mind, I should say. She's got a business mind and she could turn ideas into business. It's really different when you have a good product that you find it really good, but how are you going to put it onto the market? How you position that? What's the price that you're going to sell at? These are the things that I would not think of, thought about because I

I don't have that mindset or business mind back then. I'm learning from her now. So just gradually learning from her. She's very good at it. She has a brilliant mind. So now we have ideas for products.

we noticed that there are girls like us, Asian girls who love weight or who wants to look better and who got this need for some sports supplements.

but what they can find on the market maybe are all for different groups of users. So they're not specifically for us. Maybe we have maybe our own meat preference on the flavoring as well. So now we have an idea, we turn into the business that was the start of our own brand.

It's called Sapiens. What was the meaning behind it? Why did you pick up this name? What's the mission you want to achieve? I don't know. It just naturally came into my mind. I think we should call it Sapiens. I think it means a lot. It's a name that could have lots of meanings. The most important one is Sapiens.

I want people to notice that we are all sapiens. There's only one homo species left on this planet and we might have some differences, but we actually have way more in common, I mean, physiologically, way more in common than differences. So this is something that we tend to bring people together

with what we have in common as a homo sapiens. Also, it was a thank to Yuval Harari. - Oh yeah, he wrote the book. - The book, yeah. - Homo sapiens. - If you tell people that we are homo sapiens, I'm not sure if you watch this episode from Friends,

When Ross introduced the homo sapiens or something, when he introduced the study on homo sapiens, and Rachel and Joey were sitting down there listening to that and laughing on the word homo. Oh, okay. So previously, not much people noticed that species-wise,

We are just one species. We will maybe emphasize a lot on skin colors, on countries, like nationalities, but we are actually just one species. So those two emphasize that we are all sapiens. And we focus, the brand tend to focus more on the basic need as a sapiens brand.

Without any sociological, without any other factors, but back to the basics. What we need as homo sapiens, the nutrition we need, the exercise we need. This is why I think the brand name sapiens could mean a lot.

So that's why we chose that. And also maybe a final reminder before we get into the digitalized world, the digital world. Yeah, upload our thoughts and ideas to the cloud. Yes, the metaverse actually. The conversation between Lex and Zuckerberg. That surprised me a lot in the metaverse. I know.

When I listened to that, I was like, okay, whatever. But when I watched the video, what are you guys doing? Well, you can't tell maybe just by the video, you can't tell that they are actually thousands of miles away. Fortunately, probably the nutrition and physical health

It's the last thing that we can ditch before getting into metaverse. We need a good body to last long enough we can go to the next.

Yes, we can do lots of things in the digital world, but we still need something to neutralize ourselves. So, you know, there is a very different beauty standard between Asia and the Western countries. Before I moved to New Zealand, I thought, yeah, I need to look very pure white, skinny,

Yeah, so it's such a shift for me because, you know, now I do CrossFit. A lot of my Chinese friends, they couldn't understand, like, why do you want to build muscle and get a tent? But I feel like I'm more healthier and more happier than ever before. Because before, I always followed that Asian beauty standards. So I was starving myself. And every time...

I got my period. I was like, oh, such a painful thing. But since I joined the group fitness, let's melt and now I do CrossFit. I never had any day. I feel such a painful during period. And, uh,

from my daily life. I just feel so energetic. How did you make this shift? Because, you know, you grew up in China and you also know the Asian girls. They all like that kind of beauty standard. But in Western culture is more different. It's actually...

correlated with what we are doing as as sapiens it's correlated as we started with supplements and functional food but it's during the process of like during the cells we we noticed that we have to keep explaining that why you need this product and we notice lots of asian girls

they don't realize they need us, even they are going to the gym, their gym goal is even they do exercise, so that they don't realize that they need nutrition, not necessarily building muscles, but they don't realize that they need nutrition to support that. And also, like you said, the target, the body image target between Eastern and Western people

I won't say hugely different, but there is a difference as I experience or as I can see. Even I study bioengineering, it's something that I'll say I'm an engineer, you know, because I got an engineering degree. I'm an engineer and I focus more on how it works and

how we perform, how the system performs. So this is what I focus on and that's how I evaluate my body, the appearance or the functionality of it. That's why I started going to the gym because I think I feel something. It's not a disease, but you just don't feel energetic like you said, not energetic. And the pain, that's something that

pushes me into the gym. It wasn't like I want a flat tummy or I want to slim down my thigh. That wasn't me. It's only because I was most of the time, I don't reckon as, I don't think of myself as

you are an Asian girl, Asian woman, that's what you should do. I don't limit myself with that. So that's one of the reasons that I don't give an F of how artists think about my body image. But it is an issue in China for Asian girls. And the more we sell our products to Asian girls, the more we notice. So

Instead of saying that you should gain some muscles, what we try to do is you can be slim, but at the same time, very athletic.

you know, some, you know, there are some, the endurance athletes, they're very slim, but they're also athletic, right? So you could be slim and there are many types of healthy body types. So if we can't change that, if we can't change the mindset, they want to look slim. Can we change the way they pursue the body shape? You know, that's, that's, that's where we found we could, what we could do. It's along with the products, we could do content.

and education. I remember talking to you like five years ago that we were sitting in a cafe in Auckland. I told you the next step of Sapiens is education. And now we are doing that. A lot of Chinese women are facing the criticism from

I don't know, from the internet, you know, every time you post a photo, people will say that your legs are big or maybe your tummy is out. It's a very toxic environment. Yeah, it's the only acceptable body image for, even for celebrities, is skinny and white. I don't understand why you have to look white.

you know, yellow is a good color. It's skin color. It's the only acceptable, it's the only popular body image. But it's changing now. It's not just because of us, obviously. It's because of the lots of people who have seen the world, enjoyed or grown up in the environment without such a body shaming. So they...

came to China they telling people you don't have to do this you don't have to be like that so it's the information that yeah open the door to yeah communication that opens the options for for the for those girls so that's that's the situation in um

in China. But what I think there's something I'm quite concerned about, maybe not in New Zealand, but from social medias in the Western countries, like I'll say America, from social media information, that body positivity has become something that doesn't allow people talking about the body size.

So it's become something else. So in China, it's like there's only one body type to follow, but now it's opening other options. I'll say one downside of that is people now tend to look...

They know that they want an athletic body figure, but the image that they pursue is from, say, an IFBB Pro bikini athlete. And so it's another type of body image. So it's just shifting from one body image into another, you know.

But the point is to have differences, to allow difference. But it's getting better. There are other options coming in, but some people are taking a new option as a new standard, which

which I don't think is the right way to do, but that's why I think the Sapiens community is so important because we keep telling girls that, we keep telling our members that

Within the range, with a healthy lifestyle, with a good health, you can look whatever you like. You don't have to look like a bikini athlete. You don't have to look like a bodybuilder, a IFBB pro. You don't have to grow big muscles if you don't want to. Slimmer is good, slimmer is not.

wrong. It's just pursuing the slimmest with the wrong method is wrong. So it's not the body type itself is wrong. But on the other hand, in the Western society, it becomes like you can't even talk about losing weight or

you know, cutting your waistline. It's becoming something so sensitive. Very extreme. Yeah, something so sensitive. And I think it should be separating what is the scientific health suggestions from some body shaming. Because it does, it is a personal choice.

that you want to be or not. But it could be that lots of people didn't realize the harm or the risk factors or the risks they are facing. Or maybe they are looking for help, but it was covered by the voice of being body positive.

I'm not a sociologist. So I can't speak too much on this topic. We will be cancelled if we speak too much. All I can say is there is a so-called standard. It was because it's based on so many studies that we found, not we, but scientists found linkage between a social

overweight situation and with some diseases. Like I said, higher body fat is linked with cancer risk. So maybe many people don't realize this. I think it's not either or, right? I think we can have both. You could be happy about your own body, but at the meantime, you could do something to make it healthier. There's no conflict.

So that's something I think in the Western society that not bothers me. I think it's something that we could talk about or we could discuss about or pay attention to when we talk about the body imaging or the body positivity. That's what Sapien is trying to do in China is to introduce body

body positivity in a healthy way. You know, the Sapiens Club, you wrote a lot of educational content. I know how hard it is to turn scientific papers into a

kind of a casual or easy to understand language. How do you, like, so what's your process of absorbing those hard science papers then turn it into a public, easy to understand knowledge to your members? Okay, so you want to know my secret recipe? Yes. It's no secret. It's just what I've been trying to,

to do during my master's, my post-grad studies. That's what I've been trained to do, to read papers and to summarize them and to write reviews and evaluate and write some reviews on that. So that's what I've been trained to. So I won't say it's easy for me because

I didn't. So when someone asked me about a topic or when I realized people are discussing on a topic, but they see there seems to be some confusions in there. So I then I will do research on that specific topic. For example, should you do research?

faster cardio, like, you know, how long should you be fasting for? Or say, should you build muscle first or lose fat first? Or, you know, things like those. And then people ask during the, in our community that you, you will realize people are still, um, confused about these concepts. And then I will do some scientific research on those mainly on the, um,

The research I used mainly were the systematic reviews or meta-analysis. These are the, not sure if I should say this, is the highest level of evidence

So it summarizes all the related studies. So the scientist has already summarized something for me. All I need to do is just read what they've done and found some other similar systematic reviews and put them together and what they have in agreement and what is still controversial.

So I summarized that what we know from what we don't know yet and what we know. And then also maybe I will introduce some suggestion of guidelines from some official associations and then combine them together and to answer the initial questions. Answering a question with questions, say what it is.

what the evidence now is saying and what should we do? So it should all turn into a practical suggestion. That's the purpose of that. And that's the purpose of us building the community of sapiens as well, is just transferring the scientific studies into a more practical advice that we could apply to our daily life.

Some are still at the early stage and it's not something that you can use as a practical thing. Maybe the only effort I put into, besides doing the research, is to finding the linkage

I remember there was one topic I realized people talk about a lot is do you lose muscle if you do cardio? It's a common question, yeah. Will you lose muscle if you do cardio? So it's like a question that when you see the question, you don't have a scientific idea on that. So I did some research and then I

So what I put into this article is the first is the concept. So I try to explain the concept of losing muscle. That's what I try to answer first. So there's a difference. There's a fundamental difference between making less profit margin

and having an actual financial loss. So that applies to your muscle as well. So there's a difference. You are not gaining as much muscle as you wish or you are actually losing muscle. It's different. One is not having a maximum gain and one is possibly a disease what we call sarcopenia.

So that's the loss of muscle. So that's the first thing I addressed. So that's not something that you can find from any scientific research, but that's something that you need to transfer from a question into a scientific question. And then what I looked for is, so what I'm looking for is, would cardio affect the effect of your resistance training?

So that will make it like,

like easier, like that makes the topic easier to adapt to a scientific idea, which is concurrent training, that you train cardio and stress together, then that's where I could find scientific evidences to address the question. So it takes a process to translate a common question into a scientific question

by maybe defining some definitions, like clarifying some definitions and then finding something, how to address the issues

in a more scientific way, that's how you can find evidences for that, to support that or to prove that or to prove it wrong. So that's the part my effort was. I didn't do the research. I didn't do the studies. I didn't do the studies. I'm not the one who

did the search of multiple RCTs and then putting them all together in the system at a review. I'm not the one doing that. I'm just adapting their results and comparing their results. But I'm the one translating from daily questions to scientific questions and then translating it back. So what you can

pick up from these the result of these studies and they're telling you that if you separate them apart with at least six hours

then the effect could be reduced. And if you're separating them with 24 hours, then they've got a minimum effect as long as you're doing resistance training. I mean, if your time of cardio affects your time or efforts on the resistance training, then it's not the cardio that affects your gain. It's the fact that you reduced your resistance training effort that affects your gain. But again, a

affecting your game does not necessarily mean creating a loss, having a loss. So I think that kind of clarifies this question and idea. And that was, I remember talking, like after writing this article and telling them these findings, I remember lots of them were very, very useful.

And now every time if anyone asks, can I do cardio after, or can I do cardio if I want to gain muscles? Because girls gain muscles mainly for glutes, for hips. So we still want to gain muscles.

And when someone asked that and someone else would tell them that you just need to separate them for six or maybe 24 hours, then you can still do some cardio. Just don't be too much, you know, focus on what you try to, what you're trying to do. And lots of girls who's even during the muscle gains that they still do some cardio exercises.

trainings because they know this is good for their cardiorespiratory health. So it's got, it comes to the pros and cons. And once you understand the underlying mechanism or you understand the facts that it will help you with your choices,

on your training or maybe on your daily nutrition. So I think that's something that I found very rewarding, you know, all your hard work

turn it into their practical guidelines and they will benefit out of that. That's very rewarding. I feel like you are like a Chinese version of Andrew Huberman. He's also doing kind of a similar thing is to turn the very hardcore science studies into a daily knowledge so people can take away from his podcast and put into practice.

He inspired me, I have to say. He inspired me a lot on how to translate science into daily useful tools for better health. The difference is he is a scientist and I'm merely just a science communicator.

or trying to summarize what scientists have done and just doing my part translating that to the audience. So just maybe trying to copy what he has done for his audience. So that is my goal as well. And I...

What I appreciate is I learn through this process as well because I don't have all the answers to all the questions, but through the process, I learn as well. And that's very important as whether you're a scientist or in any field. If it only depends on the knowledge that you've learned before,

then it's going to run out one day. So you need to keep on learning. Yeah, so I learned a lot from Huberman. I was actually, I remember I was actually one of the earliest translator of his podcast. Yeah, I remember. Three or four years ago, before he turns so big. Yeah, it was after his talk with Lex.

round one or round two and then I started to summarizing and translating the the the notes I took from his podcast and then um into Chinese and then pop and then um

just posting onto my, my social media. I, I stopped doing that when I realized there are people, um, taking his videos and then just translating that with AI. Yeah. That saves you a lot of time. Yeah. That saves a lot of time. And I was like, oh,

okay so yeah so they don't need me anymore but and and I could spend the time um on other topics that um maybe maybe the sapiens girls will be more interested in and from our daily lives that's where I got the um I got the

questions from, to summarize from their daily questions. I think it's really good to have a community that you will directly link to your users or your members. You know what they are doing every day, the problems or the questions they're facing every day. So that's very...

It's communication. It's not one way of information giving. That's what I found very interesting.

That's the rewarding part of this business. Apart from using written contact to communicate with your members, you also do live streaming. I know so many people are very curious about how you become a live streaming host. What was your experience like?

We have two different accounts now. One is for the live streaming selling, like sell products with the live stream. My business partner is running that account that she hosts a live stream every day.

on a daily basis every day it's very huge amount of work that she selects so she started that to at the beginning is to sell sapiens products um but then since you're doing that and why not just

make the best out of it you know so so we selected some other products as well not competitors not direct competitors but products that sapiens girls from like sapiens girls from our community they what they they need not just for supplements they probably need um healthy snacks you know

The most important thing is gym gear, outfits, skincare. They all relate with not a healthier lifestyle. It's what you need in your life. So we have an account that's running live stream on a daily basis, introducing and selling different products to not just our members, but to all the followers.

So these members, so the members that I'm talking about are the core members of Sapiens, but we still got lots of followers for on our account. And the live streaming I'm doing is on a weekly basis. And yeah, I copied that from Cuban lab on a day on a weekly basis. It's,

It's simply because it requires more time to prepare. I'm not a famous scientist with years of experience and with lots of knowledge in my head. So I need to prepare before that. So it's like a live stream that... Because I wrote articles before.

And then we run a like a seminar of the particular topic in our community. But, you know, talking in, you know, typing, it's low efficient. It's not efficient at all. So I was like, why don't we just move it to the live stream to answer these questions and to address the contents of the article?

of the research I have just done, you know, or maybe we can talk about some new topics or new trends on the social media. So that's why we started to do a knowledge sharing live stream.

At the beginning, it was for our members to better understand the concept, the diet, the exercises in the Sapiens community, and also to better understand some articles that I've written, the concept, some misunderstandings, some misconceptions, or some questions. And now it became a regular weekly

live stream to answer questions and also to explain concepts, scientific concepts. So that's how we... And I found it's a very efficient tool to communicate with the users, not just the members, but the users. It's a big internet out there. There are lots of people out there. But with the proper content,

you will attract proper users, the audience. Yeah, I remember I was invited by you at the New Year about cultivating habits. Yes, yes. Yeah, a diary, writing a journal.

can be record your daily input of food or doing exercise. So yeah, cultivate some good habits. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I love the members from your community.

they have a very positive attitude and are eager to try different methods to improve their life quality. Yeah, that's what I appreciate because our members, it's like you're gathering a group of people with the same value

it's very hard so we build it up from from doing fat loss camps in 2018 because that that's that's the you know you know that's something that attracts people but then you'll realize that some people come and go but some people will stay and listen to you and these are the people that we value so these are the became the core members and we started with just a

a few dozen and maybe into a 100, 200. And now we have nearly 500 core members of our community. But we have nearly 100K of followers. It's like on the edge of our member community. So that's what I appreciate is that they share the same

they stay because they share the same value and then because we share the same value and we can we group grouping together we are we are stronger we we re-emphasize on the importance of this core value of sapiens

and then we expand that to more. And the best time I have from this community is when a member tells us that I introduced these methods to my family, and now they gain a better health, like better improvement on blood glucose, better improvement on the fat content.

And also, some girls will tell us that people around her change their perception on her, even her husband.

So like the closest of her family, they changed the perception of her. They noticed that she's been more independent, stronger, more energetic, more positively thinking, you know, more passionate about doing her own things and very persistent on gaining a, like on training, on exercising. And so that's something very important.

rewarding and that's yeah i i think that's the most valuable thing of this community is we having a core value and then people more people with the same value will join us it might it might be slow but it's it's tight

That's what I think. Yeah. I joined one of the camps in 2019. I did intermittent fasting and doing daily exercise. And also my cousin saw my transformation.

So she lives in China, so she kind of influenced by those different beauty standards. But ever since she noticed my transformation, then she started doing exercise as well. I find it's very rewarding. You don't need to tell people what you do. You just show them, okay, I changed. And they found, oh, you're becoming more happier and more energetic. I want to follow your path as well. Yeah.

And my mom likes to watch Summer, your co-founder, live stream and buy some nutritional products, which is great. Because, you know, there's so many fake or dishonest products in the nutritional world. So it's very important to find a trustworthy product.

person to follow than just buy from. Reputation is something we value the most for building a brand. Sometimes it might get in the way of making some profit but it's something that

If you lose that, you lose the brand. So I'm curious to know, what's your daily routine like? Because you are like an entrepreneur and you need to take care of your health. How do you balance your time and energy? I'm still not quite comfortable calling myself entrepreneur, you know.

I'm just someone doing what I like and hoping others will like what we do. But there's still some work I need to do on a daily basis to run the company.

and also to run the community. So my role is still in the research and development and also technical director. Previously, I do daily workout plans.

for the community and now it's handled it's passed on to other trainers that the trainers were trained under our system that was something I was very proud of that it's not just me it's

it's me and we trained some trainers within our system who can implement the idea and the concept to help others. And so, yeah, so I passed it on. But now I am more focused on getting new customers

like courses running. Some are short-term, some are long-term, and some are like the courses that we train the trainers, or like we said, the teachers, the trainers. My main role is like running this part. And my daily routine is not much of like a routine. I basically do whatever I need to do. But on a daily basis, I have to finish the course

I have to finish my reading of the day. That's very essential. I look into different scientific topics, sometimes just randomly, you know, sometimes just randomly browsing on the internet saying, what's new? Let me see. And sometimes it's just when a question pops in my mind,

And I was like, yeah, that's a question. And why? And then I would start doing some research. That could take like a whole morning of that because sometimes it's random without a purpose. But sometimes if I got more things, other things to do, then I would just limit that to one or two hours. And then there's a MyPath.

Quite critical or essential for me is my daily training. Sometimes I train in my home gym. Sometimes I go to the gym. It's just to...

keep my eyes open for outside the community. So to see other demands or possibilities out there. So that's quite important for me. But I normally train at night. So it's like I have a whole day to deal with what I need to do on that particular day. And all the time,

from finishing my article reading to starting my daily training, these are the time allocated for work. Because I don't think the reading part is a work. It's more like a habit.

it's more like keeping myself sane and updated. That's something that I enjoy. So that's just part of that. And after training, sometimes I have meetings, but sometimes I don't. And if I don't, that's my leisure and reading time sometimes.

listening to a book or just browsing on the internet for random things. Yes. And sometimes scrolling on the phone to see what's going on on the social media and to sometimes to surprise myself or shocking, to get shocked. Trending topics on Weibo is just mind-blowing. Yes.

Yeah, and sometimes just writing something to debate with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to sharing some facts or just to telling others that this is not the case, you know. It could be very, it could get, you know, you sometimes get very stressed from these. I don't get stressed from work. I probably get, I get stressed from social media and from responding to,

to others yeah i think you should learn from joe rogan just not look at it yeah that's what i told you the other day like like never look back to your poops yeah true that's just my my daily routine so like job gym reading reading in science and reading in just random random books that's that's basically my my daily life and feeding my cat as well yes

I know, I think last year we set up the goal to read at least one Russian writer's book. I feel so proud of myself. I finished one because it is so hard to read. It's easier if you use audiobooks.

I have to say audiobooks saved my ass when I'm driving or like when I'm just doing random things and you don't have to think too much then it's the best time to listen to the book so I highly recommend audiobooks I normally just listen to podcasts and I still feel like reading a paper version I will remember the content longer

Yeah, it really depends on the individual's habit. It's a luxury now. Reading a paper book, it's a luxury now. Not just because it's expensive, and it's also because it's the time that you have to be fully concentrated. True. And I know it's different, but it's kind of a luxury now.

I have to say it's a luxury. And it only happens when I go to the beach and enjoy the sun bath. That's the time that I could read some paper books. Most of the time, I'm just listening to the books. And do you have any advice or suggestions for people who want to build a healthy lifestyle? Instead of sharing some tips,

I think maybe it would be better if I share some mindsets

that probably could help people to make their own decisions because it all comes to personalization. Everyone is different. We're living a different life. We have access to different resources. So instead of telling you what to eat, what to buy, maybe it's better just sharing some mindsets that I found quite important

to not just myself, but also to my members, and I hope will be useful for the audience. There are three of them that I summarized. So the first one is every effort counts. It sounds like, maybe it sounds lame or like, oh, you don't say, but it's that people normally, maybe they don't realize that every effort counts because sometimes they probably will be told that

You have to do the training in this way, three sets of this, five sets of that, and then do that, do that. It's a whole hour of training. You've probably been told to do the perfect training program. It's not suitable for everyone. That's probably something that's stopping people from going to the gym.

they might think that if I only have 10 minutes, then the training, the program might be wasted if I only do it for 10 minutes. But what I want to address is every effort counts for health. For example, when we were recommended by taking 8 to 10K steps daily,

You know if there are some recommendations that you need to you need to take 8 to 10 K steps every day to stay healthy but then there are some recent studies found out if you're older than 6 6 K is enough and

And there's another study found that the minimum steps you need to take to make a change in your disease risk is 2 to 3K. Or if you want to improve your health, it's 11 minutes of walk every day.

When the World Health Organization tells us to work out 150 minutes per week, not many people can do that. And some might think, if I can't do 150,

And if I can only do 100, then the time is wasted. Then I'd rather not doing that. But it's not the case. Even just 11 minutes every day of walking is good. The minimum you just walk two to three K, it could make a change. And even a recent paper saying that doing five flights of stairs, just climb five floors could make a difference. You know,

It's like every step counts and the scientists are trying so hard to tell us every step counts. Just start doing something. It's not just because how many steps you've walked. It's more about just remember this, every minute you exercise.

it reduces or deducts one minute from your prolonged sitting. Okay. Because it's not the exercise that makes a huge difference. It's the exercise plus the reduction of your sitting, the sitting time. Because that's what harms you.

And then now you take that time and put that into just simple walking or just taking the stairs. Yeah, it still makes a difference. And also there are some recent studies on exercise snacks. There's a term called exercise snacks. The definition is some vigorous, like super high intensity exercises lasting less than one minute.

And that's one single bout, just less than one minute, 30 seconds, 20 to 30 seconds. And you do it multiple times per day. So say three to four times per day. It's called exercise snacks or activity snacks, or some call it VILPA, Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Snacks.

physical activity it's a long name um some examples some examples um like chasing the bus that that is a very good exercise next you have to run right you have to run fast or like just catching the metro the metro train just catching the metro train you have to run fast and you and you have to run down the stairs or maybe run up the stairs

or just running up or down the stairs during your lunchtime, or maybe just do some air squats or burpees in your office. These are all counted as exercise snacks. So doing in a total of three to four minutes per day, each time it's less than one minute.

and you do three or four times every day. It's different. Or maybe you just play with your kids that you just chase them. So that's also an activity, three to four minutes per day adding together, and then three to four times a week. So that will help you with your cardio, respiratory fitness. So it's something that could make a change. I'm not saying doing these or saying,

I'm not saying that doing this will make you an Olympic medalist. Definitely no. You need to put more effort in there. But the effort you put in, you're going to gain something out of that. It's not wasted. And also for muscle gains as well. When you think of, I don't have the time with three sets. Can I do one set? Yes. One set. You do one set, you have one set of gains.

But if you do three sets, you get three sets of gains. It's just the level of the gains that's different. But it doesn't mean that if you're only doing one set per day, you're not getting gains or you're losing muscle. It's definitely not the case. At least you're having a good habit on exercising. If this is all you can do, then you could get benefits out of it. But maybe the best...

we can also take this as an initial point. Say maybe you build up a habit and then you will

become more prone to exercising. You're not afraid of doing exercising anymore. You have the experience you have and you have the basic levels of exercising. And the most amazing one, I have to share this, the most amazing one is the recent study that I've read. It's a three-second bicep curl, just three seconds every day.

Just do one rep, but one rep lasts three seconds because it's an eccentric. It's like lowering down your arm with control but holding some weight on your hand. Lowering is an eccentric phase. So three seconds of eccentric bicep curl, just one three seconds and three to five times per week.

lead to an increase in your muscle strength and muscle size. It's an increase. I'm not saying a huge increase, but even just a three-second workout every day counts. It's a starting point. Once you've done one every day, you probably think, maybe I can do two today.

It's a starting point. Don't get the mindset that if the training can't be perfect, then it's not worth it. No, just do the damn training at whatever level you can do because every effort counts. That's the first mindset. I hope that will encourage more people to start doing something. Reminds me about when I was working in New Zealand.

just downstairs of my office. So I do a half an hour head training. I think just those half an hour added up helped me to build this habit to become a dream goer. Because before I was like, ah, no, I don't want to go. But yeah, every, like using this lunchtime break half an hour every day.

slowly and 30 minutes HIT is not just um it's not just like a small thing it's actually a very high intensity yeah it's a very good um training even just doing six minutes of it like there's a study showing if you're just doing six minutes of it it's very beneficial

So do what you can do and you will get what you've done out of what you've done. And it kind of links to the second mindset that I want to share is I got this quote. I quoted this from Flexible Dieting by Alan Aragon. It's from the recent book that I'm reading. So it's a quote, what you can sustain in the long term.

is more important than what is supposedly ideal. So it just emphasizes on the thing I've just said. So thinking about building a habit, a long-term thing that you can sustain. And it's not just the exercising part. It's also a lot of people are facing difficulties in diet, yes, especially in fasting.

Everyone knows that fasting is good for you. They know 16-8, somebody might want to do prolonged fasting. I don't recommend doing that on a very regular basis. That's not something that you need to build up as a habit. But 16-8 is something that you can do on a daily basis. It was firstly introduced by Dr. Panda.

He's got a really good book on the circadian code if anyone's interested. 16 hours of fasting might not be suitable for everyone because we have different social clocks.

you know some some people have kids they want they have to get up early and they have to have dinner with their with a family they can't do 16 hours if you can do it maybe on a maybe maybe you can do it for a week but then you'll realize that your your life is more messed up than getting better so in this case then even just do it 14 hours or just do a 12 hour basic will be

better than not doing it at all. Some people would just say, "If I can't do 16, I'll just quit." Then just do something, pick a pattern that you could sustain. It goes and fits in well into your life. That is very, very critical. And that's what we advise our members as well.

I mean, 16-8 is the ideal situation. If you can do that, perfect. If you can't do it, you're not losing anything because you've gained what you can do from what you can do, right? You build up a sustainable lifestyle that you are happy with and it fits in well with your daily life, then that is more important.

than having a short time period of perfect lifestyle, but you can't sustain at all. So it's kind of still the same concept as what we just introduced. With diet, there's another, the third mindset that I want to introduce is when we talk about fat loss, we always talk about eat less and move more. But I wish...

I hope everyone could think about eating better before thinking about eating less because you're probably not eating too much. You're just eating the wrong type of food that adds the calories up. So the most important thing is to reduce highly processed food.

So rather than eating less, telling yourself, I can't eat this, I can't eat this much, rice is bad for me, bread is bad for me, or meat is bad for me, maybe look for the highly processed food from the diet and kick them out. Because these types of food will change your mind. It will make you feel hunger when you should not.

So these are the foods that changes the link in your neural network. So you are not yourself anymore. When you kick them out and focus on food itself, I have to quote from the famous mantra by Michael Pollan, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. So it's eat the original food

not the highly processed one, not too much. Once you cut the processed food out, you will notice that you're not eating too much because actual food is very, very satiety. It makes you full, right? And mostly plants is not, it doesn't mean that you can't eat meat. It just means that you are limiting your meat intake, especially your red meat intake.

So this is a very, I think this is a very good summary of healthy eating. So the point is not, don't criticize yourself for eating like, for eating what you need. When you think about I should eat less, you are criticizing yourself even when you are eating what you actually need.

So think about eat better. There are foods that don't deserve you eating them. Poor nutrients in there, they're high fat, high sugar. It's not something that you should feed yourself. Feed yourself with food, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. That's something that we could avoid.

That's the better mindset instead of eating less. I remember my personal trainer told me, don't eat anything your grandmother couldn't recognize, which is true. Because back then, like a hundred years ago, maybe, they don't have that much processed food. So highly processed food, yeah.

yeah yeah the problem with highly processed food is um it's not about those processed ones that you took things out you know like protein powder protein powder is like um you you took um you took the carb and the fat out from from milk or from from beans it's like the process is just taking something out and make making it like um more um

like pure with only one single nutrient. These are not highly processed. The highly processed ones are the ones that mix high fat and high sugar together. There's no, to my knowledge, to my knowledge, I have to say this, to my knowledge, there's no food in nature that is high in fat and high in sugar at the same time.

And highly processed food are putting things that are not supposed to coexist together. So that's the problem of highly processed food. Just don't think about like protein powder as processed food or like your olive oil as processed food. They're just taking things out. So that's extracted food. It's not highly processed. So yeah, that's it. I...

From my experience, once people want you to reduce these types of foods, if you do have any, you reduce this, you will see a change on your body. Because that's something affecting your appetite and also affecting your metabolism.

Even with the same calories. I have some members asking if limiting calorie is the key, the base of calorie and calorie out. If calorie deficit is the key of losing fat, can I just eat a bag of potato chips every day? It's like 6 to 800, right? 6 to 800. And I was like,

theoretically if you're eating six to eight hundreds of calories per day you'll probably lose weight but you can't sustain that diet habit it's back to the second mindset it's not sustainable because it's the ideal situation that you are only eating six to eight hundred you're only eating one bag but the the reality is if you eat one back today you're probably eating

One and a half back tomorrow. You can't stop on day three You're feeling so hungry that you might add another back. So you're you're you're you're you're accessing your Your daily intake you're not staying in the six 200 800 because these type of food will make you feel more hungry You can't sustain that it's very theoretically it is calorie, but it's not the calorie that your body actually needs and

Because calorie is calorie, but nutrient is nutrient. There are three different types of macronutrients that you need. You can't live long with imbalancing any one of them. So it's like three columns that's holding up your health. You don't want any one of them to collapse. Yeah.

right so um and if anyone want any more information on this i highly recommend the book um why calories don't count it's it's basically saying this this um this concept that even just the same amount of calorie they do different things to your body so stop thinking about eating less think about what you eat eat better yeah your body deserves better food i really

I remember I read the news that some people eat McDonald's every day, then they lose weight. But later, it's not sustainable. You can't eat McDonald's every day. Although you just reduce the calorie input, you probably lose weight during these three months. But after that, you came back. So it's not, yeah, there's junk food. It's not that too nutritional and...

It's not sustainable at all. It's not supporting your homeostasis of your metabolism. It's not sustainable. It's also said in the book, Why Calories Don't Count, by Zhao Xiao. He addressed the question, healthy eating to some point is actually a privilege.

because McDonald's or Chirps, or if you go to supermarkets in New Zealand, Chirps and ice creams are much cheaper than veggies. They're selling one capsicum at $5, but with that amount of money, you can get yourself a bag of Chirps and a big pot of ice cream. So health is actually...

to some point, it is a privilege. It's not something that we could change yet, but that's also what I want to do for girls or women in China.

There are some things that we could do, like some cheaper substitutes. And also, veggies in China is not that expensive. So that's what we can introduce to them. And

Yeah, it's a good thing that McDonald's and KFCs are not cheap in China. But in New Zealand, it is an issue. It is an issue in New Zealand. Is there any other topics we haven't covered you'd like to share with my listeners? I can talk a lot on diet and fitness.

But when it comes to business, when maybe it's not what I'm very good at, I'm still learning to learn. I'm still looking for a balance between passion and purpose and profitability. So I'm still looking for that balance. I'm still learning to adjust myself to that balance.

situation. So maybe just more about what I have learned during the journey so far, what I've learned, well, I kind of get the feeling, I kind of get this feeling that there are things that you can change and there are things that you can't, especially after the pandemic. We want to be successful, of course, but it could be a result of

a series of fortunate things, fortunate events. It doesn't necessarily because of a good decision or a hard working decision.

It doesn't mean that decisions or hard working is not important. It's just to realize that there's still things that you can't change, like the Black Swan event, like a pandemic. So there are things that you cannot predict. That's what I've learned from here. So what you can do is ask yourself what I can still do at this point.

So even making a good decision doesn't necessarily guarantee a good result. So what you need to do is maybe make another decision from the resource that you have based on the current situation, make another decision. And most importantly is to put your thoughts into actions. Because thinking is not getting you nowhere. Actions is something that gets you further.

I have to quote this from Huberman. Since we talked about this, I have to quote this from Huberman. It was one of his earliest podcasts. That's the time. I heard him saying this, and that's the time I think he is a wonderful scientist.

a neurologist, more specific. He said, let me find this. He said this, for all humans and all species, the sensations, the perceptions, and the thoughts, and the feeling that we have in our lifespan. So these are the main functions of the nervous system. And none of that is actually carried forward

accept the ones that we take and convert into actions such as writing actions or engineering new things so put your mind into actions yeah you couldn't be making good decisions or making bad decisions but there will be a result

And on a level, it will be based on luck. So just do something. If you don't do it, it won't happen. It's very encouraging. I learned from this, and then I put my thoughts in.

even just small things, small thoughts and into research, into articles and into my live stream. I think if you don't express that, if you don't put it and change that or converting that into something, you just let it slip, then it never exists.

no matter how you feel about yourself, how knowledgeable you feel about yourself, you're not making a change in the real world. So putting that thought into action, I think,

probably the one thing I can share from my journey. Yeah, I resonate a lot. When I first listened to Tim Ferriss' podcast, I thought, oh, that's a good way to communicate my idea to the audience. So I just did my first podcast episode back to, I think, 2017 or 2018 in

in the car without any recording service when we listen back to that episode I said what is that it's so bad full of noise and I was yeah I was just talking random stuff about movie and then I noticed that Joe Rogan's first episode is even worse than what I did okay

I said, okay. So everybody, yeah, you just make an action and yeah, you will grow one step, one step. Yeah. I learned a lot from you as well. I learned a lot from you. You write things and you actually evolve from your action. So that's the most important part. You have to take the initial step.

turning things into actions and then just refine it and not maybe not necessarily that it will turn out good or as you wish but you enjoy this it will always be there you'll never know you'll never know you know maybe maybe in some maybe something that you've done 20 years ago suddenly become something

popular 20 years later. You'll never know. But if you didn't put your thought into that action 20 years ago, you would never have this chance

see the result of your action I think that's very if there's any one thing I have to share from my journey of this entrepreneurship that will be something that's great let's review back probably one or two years to see what we become next hopefully we can do a podcast in person in metaverse

In metaverse, we get the headsets. Great, thank you so much, Alan, for sharing. Thanks for having me, Tammy. I miss you, to be honest. Yeah, same. Hope to see you next year, I think. And train crossfit together. I think we should do some opens and dive together. That's a great friendship to be...

To each other. That's the French for that. Let's do it.