Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Interview With Author John Gray

Aired March 06, 2003 - 09:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: On to something a little bit lighter: health, happiness, and lasting romance all in your head or, rather, the chemicals in your brain? Well, that is according to the author of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus."
John Gray's latest book is called the "Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution," and John Gray has dropped by to explain to us some of the differences in chemistry between men and women.

Good morning.

JOHN GRAY, AUTHOR, "MARS AND VENUS DIET AND EXERCISE SOLUTION": Good morning. It is pleasure to be with you again.

ZAHN: Nice to see you again. Congratulations.

GRAY: Thank you. It's a new book. I'm very excited about it.

ZAHN: So you have moved on from being an expert on relationships to an expert on diets?

GRAY: Well, I am an expert in diet and exercise as it relates to men and women differently. Nobody talks about it that way, but our brains are really very different.

The emotional center in the brain, for example, in women is twice as big as it is men. And when the emotional center gets stimulated, eight times more blood flows to the lymbic system. Serotonin gets produced to relax it. So by the end of the day, women tend to have deficiencies in serotonin. So when I learned that, then I realized, Well, how do you create a serotonin diet?

And for men, they tend to have low dopamine levels, which gives them energy. By the end of the day, they have no energy. So how do you create a dopamine diet, and dopamine exercise routine?

ZAHN: Well, why don't you walk us through what we're supposed to do at the end of the day.

What does one do to increase the serotonin in their diet...

(CROSSTALK)

GRAY: Well, the first thing is to realize -- symptoms, understand the symptoms, so you're motivated to do the things, which is low serotonin symptoms tend to be feeling overwhelmed, food cravings, or feelings of depression, which women are more prone to have, because they're more vulnerable to low serotonin. Symptoms of low dopamine are simply low energy, inability to focus or listen, which most men have that difficulty when they get home.

ZAHN: Is it an inability, or are they just very good selective listeners? That's what I want to know.

GRAY: No, I am telling you. Once you understand the brain chemistry, you can see when dopamine levels go down, activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the front part of the brain, actually lessens, and it happens to men and not women.

ZAHN: That explains everything...

GRAY: It does. It does. It does.

ZAHN: So what do we do about this?

GRAY: So, instead of thinking about trying to rebuild it at the end of the day, you want to rebuild your supplies in the first part of the morning. It's the first two hours of the day that you create your supply of dopamine and serotonin. Exercise when you first wake up is the most important thing you can do to produce more serotonin. It is the best cure for -- it is the best cure for depression. It will give you more energy during the day. The right kind of exercise -- very moderate exercise in the morning, lymph stimulating exercises, and a nutritious supplement in the breakfast will produce your serotonin for the day.

ZAHN: And what would that be? Like a granola bar? Would that count?

GRAY: No, a granola bar usually has too much carbohydrate in it, and that is going to cause a spike of blood sugar, which will lower serotonin levels later. What you need is mineral supplementation, enzyme supplementation, the right balance of a complete protein in the morning, and Omega-3 fatty acids. And I give a whole formula in the book...

ZAHN: That sounds awful.

GRAY: It is actually quite delicious if you get the right ingredients, if you put enough chocolate in it, enough sugar in it, it tastes good.

ZAHN: Oh, OK. So it actually comes in the form of a drink.

GRAY: It is a milkshake. You make -- you make it yourself in a little blender. Once you get your things from the health food store, you put it together, and it's actually a brain shake. There's one for women and there is one for men. And it is just basic nutritional supplementation.

ZAHN: You also say in this book that men and women lose weight much differently.

GRAY: Oh, completely differently. It's so much easier for men to lose weight because we have more muscle mass. What happens is -- it is your muscles that burn the calories the most. So if you have more muscle mass, you will burn calories faster. Because women have heard that, you have got to burn your muscles, women go in aerobic classes, and they are working their muscles. That will actually inhibit the burning of fat for women.

Women, to lose weight, have to do very moderate exercise, and it's more about increasing serotonin than burning calories. And also, it's about cleansing the lymph system. And I teach a very simple exercise. Everybody can start it right today if you just do this -- can I demonstrate for a moment?

ZAHN: Yes, absolutely.

GRAY: If you just, every morning the first thing you would do...

ZAHN: I would stand, but I'm still on crutches.

GRAY: I understand. OK. The first thing you do is this. It is just called bounce and shake. If you look in the spiritual traditions of every religion around the world historically, they all involve movement of the body like this, like dancing.

But when you first wake up, you don't feel like dancing, so you just -- and they producing serotonin. If you just bounce and shake like this, it stimulates the lymph system, which cleanses the body, and then you do the more vigorous version after a couple minutes, like this. You do that for four minutes, and then you stand, just feel the tingling in your body, and you have literally created a lot of dopamine and serotonin for the day.

And it also...

ZAHN: You're going to be a pretty frisky guy at midnight tonight, after that little...

GRAY: Yes, yes. It is usually at the end of the work day, when men sort of -- their energy drops. So instead of energy dropping, you have plenty of energy, just like you're ready to go out on a hot date. And yet, you're coming home to your lovely wife.

ZAHN: You hope he is coming home to his lovely wife.

GRAY: We are going to try the bounce and...

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I am not buying this. I don't know. What happened to, like, sit-ups and push-ups?

GRAY: Well, no, you do that afterwards.

HEMMER: Is it the same (ph)?

GRAY: Absolutely. Sit-ups and push-ups are great, exercise is a great thing, but usually people don't do exercise because their muscles aren't warmed up. So if you warm up your muscles, then your body wants to, and then 20 minutes of exercise is the best thing to do after you do your warmup. And then you are producing dopamine and serotonin for the rest of the day.

ZAHN: Yes. And we also have to watch our calories, though, pretty carefully..

GRAY: Watching calories is when you have food cravings, then you want to overeat. But if you get the nutrition at breakfast, then you don't have the craving for food throughout the day. And if you skip breakfast, that's the big problem, because then you'll really overeat at lunch or dinner.

ZAHN: John Gray, thanks for stopping by.

GRAY: It's a real pleasure.

ZAHN: I hope you've given us all a better understanding of this great divide between the sexes.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired March 6, 2003 - 09:48   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: On to something a little bit lighter: health, happiness, and lasting romance all in your head or, rather, the chemicals in your brain? Well, that is according to the author of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus."
John Gray's latest book is called the "Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution," and John Gray has dropped by to explain to us some of the differences in chemistry between men and women.

Good morning.

JOHN GRAY, AUTHOR, "MARS AND VENUS DIET AND EXERCISE SOLUTION": Good morning. It is pleasure to be with you again.

ZAHN: Nice to see you again. Congratulations.

GRAY: Thank you. It's a new book. I'm very excited about it.

ZAHN: So you have moved on from being an expert on relationships to an expert on diets?

GRAY: Well, I am an expert in diet and exercise as it relates to men and women differently. Nobody talks about it that way, but our brains are really very different.

The emotional center in the brain, for example, in women is twice as big as it is men. And when the emotional center gets stimulated, eight times more blood flows to the lymbic system. Serotonin gets produced to relax it. So by the end of the day, women tend to have deficiencies in serotonin. So when I learned that, then I realized, Well, how do you create a serotonin diet?

And for men, they tend to have low dopamine levels, which gives them energy. By the end of the day, they have no energy. So how do you create a dopamine diet, and dopamine exercise routine?

ZAHN: Well, why don't you walk us through what we're supposed to do at the end of the day.

What does one do to increase the serotonin in their diet...

(CROSSTALK)

GRAY: Well, the first thing is to realize -- symptoms, understand the symptoms, so you're motivated to do the things, which is low serotonin symptoms tend to be feeling overwhelmed, food cravings, or feelings of depression, which women are more prone to have, because they're more vulnerable to low serotonin. Symptoms of low dopamine are simply low energy, inability to focus or listen, which most men have that difficulty when they get home.

ZAHN: Is it an inability, or are they just very good selective listeners? That's what I want to know.

GRAY: No, I am telling you. Once you understand the brain chemistry, you can see when dopamine levels go down, activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the front part of the brain, actually lessens, and it happens to men and not women.

ZAHN: That explains everything...

GRAY: It does. It does. It does.

ZAHN: So what do we do about this?

GRAY: So, instead of thinking about trying to rebuild it at the end of the day, you want to rebuild your supplies in the first part of the morning. It's the first two hours of the day that you create your supply of dopamine and serotonin. Exercise when you first wake up is the most important thing you can do to produce more serotonin. It is the best cure for -- it is the best cure for depression. It will give you more energy during the day. The right kind of exercise -- very moderate exercise in the morning, lymph stimulating exercises, and a nutritious supplement in the breakfast will produce your serotonin for the day.

ZAHN: And what would that be? Like a granola bar? Would that count?

GRAY: No, a granola bar usually has too much carbohydrate in it, and that is going to cause a spike of blood sugar, which will lower serotonin levels later. What you need is mineral supplementation, enzyme supplementation, the right balance of a complete protein in the morning, and Omega-3 fatty acids. And I give a whole formula in the book...

ZAHN: That sounds awful.

GRAY: It is actually quite delicious if you get the right ingredients, if you put enough chocolate in it, enough sugar in it, it tastes good.

ZAHN: Oh, OK. So it actually comes in the form of a drink.

GRAY: It is a milkshake. You make -- you make it yourself in a little blender. Once you get your things from the health food store, you put it together, and it's actually a brain shake. There's one for women and there is one for men. And it is just basic nutritional supplementation.

ZAHN: You also say in this book that men and women lose weight much differently.

GRAY: Oh, completely differently. It's so much easier for men to lose weight because we have more muscle mass. What happens is -- it is your muscles that burn the calories the most. So if you have more muscle mass, you will burn calories faster. Because women have heard that, you have got to burn your muscles, women go in aerobic classes, and they are working their muscles. That will actually inhibit the burning of fat for women.

Women, to lose weight, have to do very moderate exercise, and it's more about increasing serotonin than burning calories. And also, it's about cleansing the lymph system. And I teach a very simple exercise. Everybody can start it right today if you just do this -- can I demonstrate for a moment?

ZAHN: Yes, absolutely.

GRAY: If you just, every morning the first thing you would do...

ZAHN: I would stand, but I'm still on crutches.

GRAY: I understand. OK. The first thing you do is this. It is just called bounce and shake. If you look in the spiritual traditions of every religion around the world historically, they all involve movement of the body like this, like dancing.

But when you first wake up, you don't feel like dancing, so you just -- and they producing serotonin. If you just bounce and shake like this, it stimulates the lymph system, which cleanses the body, and then you do the more vigorous version after a couple minutes, like this. You do that for four minutes, and then you stand, just feel the tingling in your body, and you have literally created a lot of dopamine and serotonin for the day.

And it also...

ZAHN: You're going to be a pretty frisky guy at midnight tonight, after that little...

GRAY: Yes, yes. It is usually at the end of the work day, when men sort of -- their energy drops. So instead of energy dropping, you have plenty of energy, just like you're ready to go out on a hot date. And yet, you're coming home to your lovely wife.

ZAHN: You hope he is coming home to his lovely wife.

GRAY: We are going to try the bounce and...

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: I am not buying this. I don't know. What happened to, like, sit-ups and push-ups?

GRAY: Well, no, you do that afterwards.

HEMMER: Is it the same (ph)?

GRAY: Absolutely. Sit-ups and push-ups are great, exercise is a great thing, but usually people don't do exercise because their muscles aren't warmed up. So if you warm up your muscles, then your body wants to, and then 20 minutes of exercise is the best thing to do after you do your warmup. And then you are producing dopamine and serotonin for the rest of the day.

ZAHN: Yes. And we also have to watch our calories, though, pretty carefully..

GRAY: Watching calories is when you have food cravings, then you want to overeat. But if you get the nutrition at breakfast, then you don't have the craving for food throughout the day. And if you skip breakfast, that's the big problem, because then you'll really overeat at lunch or dinner.

ZAHN: John Gray, thanks for stopping by.

GRAY: It's a real pleasure.

ZAHN: I hope you've given us all a better understanding of this great divide between the sexes.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com