Dr. Matt Chalmers shares highlights from his two-week family trip across Europe, covering London, Paris, Italy, and Greece. He praises the cleanliness and safety of the cities, recounts his culinary adventures, and discusses the noticeable changes in his hunger and diet after indulging in European pastries and local delicacies. Dr. Chalmers also reflects on the impressive architecture, especially in Rome and the Vatican, and the enriching interactions with locals and other travelers. He concludes with recommendations for future travelers and an invitation for questions about his experiences.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:25 - Cleanliness and Safety
00:40 - Destinations Overview
01:20 - Culinary Highlights
02:05 - Pastries and Desserts
03:00 - Hunger and Diet
04:00 - Fat Oxidation State
05:00 - Food and Water Retention
05:40 - Gelato and Honeycomb
06:20 - Walking and Sightseeing
07:30 - Social Media Break
08:00 - Celebrity Sighting
08:20 - Food Variety
09:20 - European Beer
09:50 - Interactions and Learning
10:40 - Global Perspectives
11:20 - Travel Recommendations
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:03] So soon that two weeks, went on my Europe trip, with family. It was awesome. So the, a couple of other things. One of the things we noticed was that. London and Paris. Your friends bathrooms are super clean. Trains are super clean. The thing about the, like the underground with, in London, it's old, so it's got some, it's old style dirt. But. So that was really clean. The bathrooms were clean, there was no homeless people. It was very, very safe. It was pretty awesome. So, if you guys are looking to do some stuff. London was fantastic. Paris was great. Italy was fantastic. It was a little bit warmer. Greece was hot, like 90 to 100 degrees. There was no real beaches. So going out of the beach and getting in was not really a thing. Gorgeous. Lots of fun. If you guys ever are looking to go 100%, go meet the people, talk to them. Everybody was super nice. Really, really cool. Didn't really have any issues. Now, when we went, one of the big things I my goals were were to eat a lot. So I, when I left, it was 230 6.3, so call it 236 ish. I weighed this morning at 250 5.5, so it's 19 pounds now, I will tell you that. And I was talking to some people as I was gone. I was telling them I was, eating like I was trying to get fat. And I was, we went to a place called Ben's Cookies in London. If you guys are going to be in Europe, if you're going to be in London. Ben's Cookies is pretty spectacular.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:55] So the first time we went, we got a couple. They were great. Next we got all the ones they had. They also have great ice cream. Fantastic. The baklava, the baklava over in, or the baklava, depending on where you are, how you get. So, in Greece was huge. It was like this big, one piece was more than enough, to get through. It was. It was really tasty. But that's kind of where it was, the. And every breakfast place has for songs and chocolate croissants and chocolate filled croissants and, you know, Apple songs. And it was it was unbelievable. The food was fantastic. There was lots and lots of it. Now, on the weight thing, I didn't gain 19 pounds of fat. Probably getting five. The the rest that way. You have to remember when you're talking about weights, eight times are about way. It's muscle, it's fat, it's water, it's organs, it's bones, all that stuff. So, I tell you that I'm probably holding 5 to 10 pounds of water, inflammation, weight. I'll make some advice on you. Set. The other big thing I noticed, which was, I kind of thought that was going to happen, but I didn't. You know, it tells me. Happy to see you. Don't really. Oh, that's the thing. I am starving now all the time. But people always ask me like, how do you fast so much? You do, you know, you go 47 hours without eating anything. How are you? Not hungry? I'm like, I'm just not. I am super hungry now.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:20] As I've started eating carbs, I woke up hungry. I was hungry all day. I was hungry like, you know, I would eat a bunch and then like two hours later, I'm like, I'm actually hungry again. It was weird feeling hungry all the time. Again. And I'm not necessarily saying that that was entirely carbohydrate. But the big change for me on that one was that, like people ask me like, how do you, you know, you did a five day fast where you're not hungry? Not really. When I'm in a fat oxidizing suit, when I'm in that chaotic fat oxidizing say, my body's running on fat, running on cholesterol. I was just never really hungry. Like, I can always eat, like, you know, okay, I enjoy eating, but I never felt like that. That in your stomach, that kind of hunger until I started eating the carbohydrates again. So that was that was, I think, one of the more interesting pieces. So if you're always hungry, that might be an option for you to, you know, I'm always, you know, have trouble with my weight control fat. I'm always hungry. If you try to shift over and you get into a fat oxidation state properly and you maintain all items properly that you know. I've said this for a while, but I can really tell you now. Time from when I start doing the classics of September, October. It's really December from for at least, let's just say the beginning of this year. I haven't had, from January at least.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:40] I haven't felt hungry at all. Until I started eating carbohydrates again. I was hungry, you know, multiple times a day. So, that's gonna be that's gonna be a fun thing to kind of go back through and deal with. But that was one of the big things. I feel puffier, which is a bunch of water. Water retention and inflation. But, man, it was, you know, it was so good. Like I said, Ben's cookies was fantastic. The all the pastries were great. I regret nothing. Ben's cookies actually is really good ice cream as well. And I now feel like I can speak as a more or less gelato aficionado, since we had it 2 or 3 times a day and every day. The salted caramel is great. The ones with the little stuff stuck in it. It's fantastic at Ben's. We had this, like this honeycomb where they actually took honeycomb. I put it in there. It was fantastic. The amount of honeycomb and actual raw, real honey that was in all the hotels we were at all the way throughout Europe was kind of impressive. The quality of the food, like we're in Greece, even the junk food, even the the croissants, even the, the little cookies and cakes us all test tested on because they're made with real stuff. The fruit was fantastic. The juices were amazing. It was lots and lots and lots of fun. I highly recommend anybody who likes food to go over there and just eat everything. Now, you know, like, well, you know, I've heard people say, oh, I didn't gamy, which they walked so much, man. We walked. Oh, watch. I think we average like. Seven kilometers a day.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:23] You know, cause we were in Rome, and it was one of those deals where it was like we're already sweaty. And so we were just walking up and down the hills, but I think we were like, 1.3, 1.5km from our hotel. For most of we did. We just walked. The Vatican was is just an impressive building. The the size of Saint Peter's Basilica is unbelievable. It's, you know, 60ft tall, 100ft tall, something. It's just absurd. It's something that you guys have to see. I was not I didn't do a whole lot social media over there because it's trying to be, you know, with the family and be dad, not be social media guy. So I'll go back through and post on our stuff as we go through. Fantastic trip, fantastic time. You guys have questions about it? Hey, we're going to go over here. We're gonna do this. We recommend. That would be very easy. I can answer those questions, but it was. It was a really, really good time. Actually, I saw, Blake Shelton in. His wife and I are blanking on her name. Well, they were there just. It was kind of interesting. He was up there. But no, it was a fantastic time. It was great. Lots and lots and lots of food. More than one person fell asleep on me. I thought that was funny. The the other thing is that people would actually stop me and ask me questions. When I was on the Euro train, I met, you know, half the guys who work there. Because they sort of asked me questions about lifting, about health and so like that. And that was really fun. We had a bunch of people stop and ask me questions about variety of things. So, that was, I thought, interesting. People here in the US totally stop me and ask me questions, about lifting and stuff like that. I guess there's more. There's more large people here than there is over there. It was great. The fish and chips was fantastic. The burgers over there. I'm from Texas. So Texas, you know, are smoking meat and barbecue, so it's pretty solid. The burgers there were not. Spectacular. The Middle Eastern food, the was awesome.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:20] The pitas were great. The hummus was pretty solid. Late. My youngest loves hummus. Via. What I also found was because I had a bunch of beer and stuff like that. Easily something to I can drop. I just had it cause I was there when Try the Great beer wanted to try that, you know, stuff that was there, a local fare, which I thought that was interesting. Lots of that stuff was great while I had it, but a lot of the Quito stuff we have here I like more. So I thought that was hilarious that I need someone to be like, am I? How much am I going to miss this? Yeah. Not really. Bench cookies were pretty solid, though. That was. That was legit. So, like I mentioned it multiple times. Trust me, if you're a cookie person. You guys need to try out Ben's cookies with you there. But that's about it. If you guys have any other questions, we'll kind of run back through that. It was a great time. But, you know, now we're ready to get back and do additional things. So if you guys have any questions on this up, I'll help you guys out. Everybody should travel and meet and talk to people. You know, the the fun thing was, is that, like, because we were, we would go and sit and talk to people and we talked to people from, you know, London or from Georgia, not America, Georgia, like the country. You know, people all over. You know, we work with, you know, I talk to people who are at the restaurants, and the guy who owns the restaurant would be Greek or Italian, and the guys who work there were from Armenian.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:48] They'd be from, you know, they'd be all over the place. And so it was really, really kind of cool getting to see and talk to people who are from all over the world. It was funny cause we met some Canadians and we were talking about, you know, what's going on with Trudeau and stuff like that up there. And it's funny because people were like, man, it's nothing like the crazy stuff you guys have going on down in the States with Trump and stuff like that. So it is kind of interesting to get kind of an outside perspective on what people are seeing about the US and about what's going on here and people I had 2 or 3 people were talking about different things. They'd be like, what's going on with everything that you guys are doing? Like that's absurd. Like the whole, you know, trial stuff. Which I thought was interesting because it's one of those deals where. You know, you you wonder, you know, outside of the US, 5000 miles away, if these people have heard or know what's going on. But yeah, that was that was also very interesting. So if you guys have questions about what we did or where we went or anything for that, if you're trying to plan your trip, set us up. We'll start posting some as we went along. If you guys are going to Mykonos and Greece. Saint John's is spectacular. Love that place. First we went in Santorini. Not as much. The the plaza in, Athens was great. So. But yeah, we had some of that stuff up on posted on that. So if you guys want to see it, also ask me questions and we'll get back to doing everything. It's going it's back to normal tomorrow. Thanks for your time.
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Dr. Matt Chalmers
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