Her Discussions by Dr Faye - The Diet Trends a Nutritionist Wants You to Stop Following | Mini Episode

Starting point is 00:00:00 We're going to come on to a section of the podcast we like to call buy or bye-bye. I'm going to say a thing and you're going to tell me whether you would buy that thing or say bye-bye to that thing. So first, we have food journals. Buy or bye-bye? Yeah, buy. I love food journals as like a way of reflecting. So something I encourage a lot of people to use is, you know, so much the time we just look at recording a food and how many calories are in it or how much proteins in it. But we think about, you know, how do that food make you feel?

Starting point is 00:00:28 or like, does it leave you feeling full and nourished or to leave you feeling hungry? Does it leave you feeling like guilty or do you question things? So I love that and I encourage people to write, you know, notes around thoughts or feelings or hunger around, yeah, the meals, snacks in the food journal. So yeah, I love a food journal. A little bit of background on my issues with my own eating is I really struggled binge restrict for as long as I can remember. And then I went through a breakup in like 2020, it was mid-COVID. and I had this realization. I think maybe I saw some creators talking about, you know,

Starting point is 00:01:04 the way to get out of a binge restrict cycle is to stop the restriction because that's, you know, that's ultimately the cause. So I decided, right, okay, Faye, we are not restricting anymore. And I vividly remember that day, I went to Tesco's and I got a big olive bread. You'd like fresh bread with olives in. And I just sat and I just ate this entire thing of olive bread with like, better on just the whole thing. And like, I felt awful afterwards. And for the next three months, I just ate and ate and ate and ate. And when I look back, it was an important part of me healing

Starting point is 00:01:41 my relationship with food, just getting rid of, just completely getting rid of all the food rules that existed for me. But you touched on a really important point is there are foods that help you, like, sustain yourself. There are foods that are functional when you come back from a busy day and you just need to check something in the microwave. And there are also foods that, you know, probably not ideal to enjoy them every single day. Like, I would have chips and curry sauce every single day? You know, probably not. That's not good health advice.

Starting point is 00:02:09 But I really liked how you gave that nuance by saying, well, you can use a food journal to like reflect. With that, I think something my mum had to do through this period of her treatment. And I think it really helped her. It was kind of, and the service that she's been used. news and they've been great because they've involved me in the treatment. So her first appointment, they brought me in, they said, this is what we're going to do. But we understand, you know your mum better than we do. And we want you to help her with the nutrition size. We want you involved

Starting point is 00:02:40 in her treatment. So I remember there'll be times when my mum be writing in her journal, like, and I've had a packet of crisps, really enjoyed it. But then she's like, what happens if I want another packet of crisps later on? Or I want a chocolate bar later on. And kind of getting her to reflect on that in like her journal and show herself. Actually, that's what I really want. And like you said, with ending that kind of restriction cycle

Starting point is 00:03:01 is start allowing yourself those food. So yeah, that kind of just reminded me at that. That's nice. Nice. Yeah, what happens if I want another one? That really resonates with me

Starting point is 00:03:09 because I thought, you know, actually just sitting and eating that big loaf of olive bread. That was something I was so terrified of. You know, I'd have a slice of the olive bread before and I'd think, God,

Starting point is 00:03:21 I can't possibly have another one. And then just almost face. up to exactly what I feared and realizing, yeah, I feel like pretty, pretty sluggish right now, but like the world didn't end, you know, it's fine, grounding exercises. I think there's so much weird stuff online. I would say if something makes you feel more relaxed or makes you feel a bit more kind of calm, whatever that looks like, you know, crack on with it. I don't know about specific, like grounded things or walking around barefoot on the earth.

Starting point is 00:03:51 but yeah if something makes you feel more relaxed cool crack on calorie tracking just you just need to have nuance for that I think for some people it might be like really educational and I would say you know if someone's typically like eating pretty well when they're active and they're just like you know I just don't really understand maybe I'm eating too much something like that might be beneficial but I think a lot of people just resort to it's like the first thing because it's what we're told we should do was actually there's far more

Starting point is 00:04:19 far more important things, you know. I see people doing it all the time and it's like, but they still don't eat many fruits and vegetables. Surely that's like more important. And I think we should be looking at, you know, kind of like foundation things with like sleep, movement, fiber, fruit and veg. Those kind of things maybe would help people a lot more. And I think the thing with tracking and stuff is people kind of see it as like a

Starting point is 00:04:43 pass or fail test. So you go over it, it's like, I failed, I've ruined the day. Or they might look at it and go, I've eaten breakfast lunch. friends invited me out for cake and coffee or out for dinner and it's like I can't fit that into my calories then they feel like they can't do that I think we just have to yeah maybe just see if it's right for the person because if you gave it to someone like my mom be the worst thing in the world yeah if you gave it to somebody else it might be like oh that's actually really helpful so I think it just depends I remember the way the numbers would like turn red on my

Starting point is 00:05:13 fitness pal as soon as you're right as soon as you just flick over into the you feel like you failed instantly and there's no room and then also I think when I was in like a binge restrict cycle, as soon as I went into the red, I was like, well, fuck it. I'm going to just go eat everything in my cupboard. So it's that binary just, yeah, isn't helpful. I think the other thing as well, it teaches us to rely on something external, rather than internal. It's why I love the food journal. I'm saying about, you know, writing thoughts and feelings and did it make you feel full rather than how many calories did it happen? So if you get into the end of the day and you're like, I've hit my calories, but I'm hungry,

Starting point is 00:05:47 you should eat. You shouldn't be going to bed thinking I'm, you know that's great it's fine I'm hungry but I'm doing good I've stuck to my calories and I think we forget that you know we can eat different amounts on different days you might be really hungry one day and you might be less hungry the next day and it could be for so many different things it could be exercise menstrual cycle all sorts of things but you can't let an app and some numbers tell you whether you should eat or not so I think I much prefer learning like internal cues and kind of figuring out that kind of like trial and error relationship with food with you know what makes you feel good and what fills you up and what helps you feel nourished and

Starting point is 00:06:18 focusing on those other things like fruits, veg, fibre, those kind of things rather than just a number of calories. On social media, when it was the big trend, where PTs would get maybe like a slice of white bread with Nutella on and then maybe like an avocado on whole grade, and they would say, this has got less calories as if, you know, watch your thoughts on that. When I see things of that,

Starting point is 00:06:41 I just feel sorry for other people that are going to see that and absorb that information. I think the thing we forget is we still see the same trends now, but they're just kind of like repackaged. So there's one at the moment, which is just this is what 200 calories of nuts and looks like and this is what 200 calories of olive oil looks like. Whereas this is what 200 calories of strawberries looks like and 200 calories of vegetables.

Starting point is 00:07:01 And it's like, we're encouraging people to like avoid olive oil and nuts. They're two of the most nutritious foods on earth. And if you go and look at research and things, people that eat more olive oil and nuts tend to be, you know, healthier both like with like blood markers but also from like, you know, a weight maintenance point of view and stuff. but other people are going to look at that and go, oh, we should avoid those foods because it's not much.

Starting point is 00:07:22 So I think you still see that kind of stuff now. But yeah, I'd go back to, I remember all those posts and it's like jam on toast is better than peanut butter on toast because it's lower in calories. It's like, yeah, but it's not going to be as filling as, I think that's something we always forget. We just think of the numbers. We don't think about how that food makes us feel, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:39 in two, three, four hours time. I think that's why a lot of people struggle with hunger because they're always looking for the next low-calorie snack or how can I make a low-calorie version of this food? And I'm under one hour or two, they're looking for food again because they're hungry. I'm sorry, I'm going to say something that's going to trigger a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:07:55 The way I would just go through like six, five or one bars. I knew you were going to say five or one bars. Like, every time I was home, because it just wouldn't keep me full at all. Yeah. But I would, God forbid, I had a bit of peanut butter on toast, you know. I had a client once,

Starting point is 00:08:10 so he'd text me again, Josh, I think I'd have a bit of an emergency. I've just eaten like the whole pack of five and one bar. And I was like, yeah, that's going to be fun. I just knew you were going to say five or one was. A low point for me is also I was going on holiday to Ibitha. Do you know those zero calorie noodles? Have you ever eaten them?

Starting point is 00:08:29 No. Yeah, so these zero calorie noodles, the things they do to your GI tract is just, I don't know, all these little shortcuts that people would make. Yeah. Wild. Okay, intermittent fasting. I'm going to say bye bye because I think I would refresh. it and just say if you don't really like eating breakfast and you're eating habits for the rest of the day, fine, fine.

Starting point is 00:08:51 But I don't like people purposely like skipping breakfast and pushing it back so they feel it's better for their health or some sort of magic pill for fat loss. So I don't like the term intermittent fasting. You know, I don't eat breakfast first thing in the morning. I eat it like nine, half nine, ten o'clock. I still eat breakfast. So I'd say, yeah, just, you know, move your meals around for how you like and how it works for you. but actually like calling something a name just because you're purposely missing breakfast.

Starting point is 00:09:20 Yeah, not a fan. The glucose goddess. Yeah, bye-bye. Why? It feels to me like she has like a nine-year-old draw these little graphs on Canva, and then she puts them up as like evidence. And people see them, they go, oh yeah, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:39 I shouldn't eat that because my blood sugar goes up and then it comes down. It's like, yeah, that's what it normally does. Like that is normal blood sugar goes up, it comes down, as long as it doesn't stay elevated for a long period of time. We're not too worried, but I've seen all sorts of stuff like, there's been some really alarm of things that she said, I think, and scaring people over eating, like, grapes and things like that.

Starting point is 00:09:59 And I remember I saying, you know, the more glucose spice you have, the sooner you die. I've never seen that in it. I don't know if you've ever seen that in any research anywhere, but things like that, and people kind of just forget, she says things like that, because she just drops them in. And recently, she was talking about how fruit is unnatural and all these kind of things.

Starting point is 00:10:17 Like we're scaring people about fruit. And if we look at the like statistics, I think it's someone like 20, I can remember the exact number, but it's around like 28, 30% of the UK population even eat five fruit and veg a day. God. So, yeah,

Starting point is 00:10:30 anyone that's kind of scaring people about fruit and talking about it from like this health point of view, I just think is really scary, I think. Yeah. And she's got such a massive follower and she's on TV and, you know, people love her and I just, I just can't understand it. blows my mind,

Starting point is 00:10:43 but I think it's that French accent, There's something about her really calm French accent that clearly hooks people because I don't understand it either. There was one of her like diary of a CEO episode since she was talking about reversing people's PCOS and Stephen Bartlett asked her do you think it's possible to reverse PCOS

Starting point is 00:10:58 and she said absolutely I had three people that they reverse their PCOS with my you just said with confidence three people. Three people. That is nowhere near proof But because you've said it with confidence, you've gone absolutely three people.

Starting point is 00:11:19 The tone of your voice has clearly meant that people ignore the fact you've only said three. I personally see that a lot with just general information on social media. If you say it confident enough, no one, that's an eyelid. Next, we have weighing yourself regularly. It just depends on your relationship with it. If it's something you feel calm about and you just see it as like a number and then don't think about it afterwards. I weigh as much as you want.

Starting point is 00:11:48 But if it's something where your mood is dictated by it for that day, or it then impacts how much you eat that day, then I would say no. I think people just have to be honest with their relationship with the scales and their weight when it comes to that. So it just depends. I had to not weigh myself for a long time afterwards because I need to like heal this relationship.

Starting point is 00:12:07 So I didn't. Now I weigh myself like probably once a month. I will step on the scales deliberately when I know I'm at my heavy. So like previously, I had to only wear myself in the morning, after I've had a massive way, so that before I've eaten anything, so that I knew that that number was probably not going to upset me. And if it upset me, then that was a bad, bad, bad sign. And yeah, you're right, it would ruin my day. Whereas now, like, we went to India for a friend's wedding.

Starting point is 00:12:32 It was absolutely the most incredible experience of my life. We ate so much unbelievable food. It was incredible. And myself and my fiancé, we got on the weight. the scales when we got back. And it was almost like a competition to see who had put on more weight whilst we've been away. And that, like, things like that

Starting point is 00:12:52 have helped me really detach myself from that number. Desensitize from that was. Desensitize. But yeah, you're so right. And you have to be so, so, so honest with yourself in assessing where you are in that journey and what's going to be right for you. And I think that if I noticed that that was making me feel a certain type of way,

Starting point is 00:13:12 now planning a wedding. and I'm thinking I can already feel myself almost like slipping into the slope of the pressure to like be smaller and whatever. And I think if I if I started to do that and start to the numbers start to make me feel a certain way, I think I would cut the scales for like a couple of months, you know, to stop that in its tracks. Yeah, definitely. No, I think it is just about being honest of how it makes you feel. And I'm someone that weighs a lot, but I'd just get on it. I don't even, like half the time I don't even remember the number.

Starting point is 00:13:45 I just step off. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. So I think it's just, yeah, just be honest with yourself. But I think that's where it gets so hard and so tricky because it's like calories. It's like, you know, you have to be honest with yourself and how it makes you feel. And if it's adding something to your day, like positive, like you said, with just data or if it's like adding like guilt, stressed, worry, those kind of things and impacting how you eat and things like that or how you feel about yourself, then, yeah, definitely.

Starting point is 00:14:12 one of the best things ever did my mom was obviously my mom had a terrible relationship with the scales and one of the best things we did was I told her right you're going to take him outside you're going to get a hammer you're going to smash into pieces and and she did and I think that was that was one of the things that she'd done that made her feel like I'm not controlled by a number anymore so yeah but that was a that was a pretty good day I've got good imagery of that happening that seems that sounds very empowering yeah that's great I love that. Ultra-processed foods. I'm going to say, yeah, bye, because I think when I think of ultra-processed foods,

Starting point is 00:14:49 I think about things that are convenient, quick, give me a source of nutrition. But at the end of the day, just make sure I'm fed. And I think people don't quite realize how broad, another term, ultra-processed foods is where in the category of ultra-processed foods, not only do we have chocolate biscuits, but we also have baked beans, We also have supermarket, whole meal bread, but we also have things that you will have seen in the hospital, like, inshors and like drinks that, you know, keep people alive. And I saw an ad the other day. And I think it was, I don't know if it was UNICEF or someone else.

Starting point is 00:15:24 Liam Neeson had a, like, a sachet of food. And he was talking about how this sashet saves lives all over the world. And my first thought of that is people won't realize, but that's also ultra processed. I think they have, they're great. And I think we just have to apply a bit of nuance. When I say ultra processed foods are great, I'm not saying. saying, you know, go and eat chocolate and biscuits all day every day. I'm saying, actually, I can come home and go,

Starting point is 00:15:46 I literally just want to eat and go to bed so I can just have beans on toast. Or I can grab something like microwave bowl rice and, you know, some tin food or beans or something, I can make a really quick nutritious meal. I think people forget that side of it just because they all jumped, like, clumped into the same category. And I think the scaremonger and the fearmonger and around ultra-processed foods it's just we're talking about how trends the trends are the same they're just kind of repackaged you know this whole demonisation of ultra-process foods is just like the re-emergence of like clean

Starting point is 00:16:20 eating yeah just kind of repackaged redesigned it's just that and that goes back to like diet culture and kind of those kind of things so now I think like ultra-process foods have a role and they can ensure that people especially people in poverty and things can have like cheap, affordable, nutritious meals. Like beans on toast, I don't know what's going to cost, but you could probably feed two kids for like a quid. Thank you for listening. If you would like to hear the full episode

Starting point is 00:16:48 with even more jam-packed knowledge, then just click the link in the description.

Her Discussions by Dr Faye - The Diet Trends a Nutritionist Wants You to Stop Following | Mini Episode

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