Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - How To Meal Prep And Spend Less On Food

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

Oh the sweet relief of the first pay day of the year. But before you gift a chunk of your hard-earned salary to Pret, Eat and others, we have important news: it doesn’t have to be this way. This week, we’re talking meal prep, and why it’s about so much more than having something to eat at lunchtime. It’s a statement of intent about the kind of week you want to have; a way of supporting good nutrition, along with your financial and psychological wellbeing. Been there, done that and bought the Tupperware? We hear you. So, on hand to help you turn your meal prepping aspirations into a weekly habit are Dr Hazel Wallace, an NHS doctor and founder of The Food Medic (thefoodmedic.co.uk) and Emilie Bellet, founder of Vestpod (vestpod.com).  Join Women’s Health on Instagram: @womenshealthuk Join Roisín Dervish-O’Kane on Instagram: @roisin.dervishokane Join Dr Hazel Wallace on Instagram: @thefoodmedic Join Emilie Bellet on Instagram: @vestpod Have a goal in mind that you want us to put to the experts? Find us on Instagram @womenshealthuk and drop a voice note into our inbox, telling us your name and your goal, and it could be the subject of a future episode.  Topics:  What is financial wellness?  How can meal prepping support good nutrition?  How can you carve out the time to prep your meals when your schedule is packed? What basics should you keep in your cupboards and freezer? Links: Study on meal prep and healthy eating The Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer You're Not Broke You're Pre-rich by Emilie Bellet The Food Medic For Life by Dr Hazel Wallace Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello everyone, welcome back to Going for Goal, the new Women's Health podcast. I'm your host, Roshin Devish O'Kane, and I'll be here each week to help you make good on the health goals you really want to nail in 2020. Before we get into this week's episode, I just want to say a huge thank you for all your feedback so far. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We're new around here, and it really helps others find us. As you'll have seen, this week, we're looking at the goal of mastering meal prep. This week's goal was inspired by listener Linda. Let's hear from her now.

Hi, Women's Health. My name's Linda. I need some help with spending, especially when it comes to food. Some weeks I'm great at Sunday meal prep and I sought a big shop which really helps, but more and more I'm buying and eating food on the hop and it's costing me a fortune. I've started tracking my spending on an app and so much of it is food, especially because I want to eat as healthy as possible. I had such good intentions for 2020, but they're just not coming.

through, help me sort my shit out. Thanks to Linda for sending that in. It sparked loads of conversation in the Women's Health Office, and the more we chatted, the more it became clear that, for so many of us, meal prep isn't just about making sure you have food to eat. It's a statement of intent about the kind of week you want to have. It gives you a sense of being on it. And, indeed, paraphrased Linda, like you have your shit together.

All things considered a win-win. Here to explain why meal prep is the perfect conduit for getting your life in order and the real benefits it can have on your financial and psychological health. And, crucially, how to do it, are two women from very different backgrounds with a ton of wisdom to impart. First, Hazel Wallace, an NHS doctor and founder of the food medic, a platform that aims to bridge the gap between traditional medical advice and the latest developments within nutrition and lifestyle medicine. She's the author of two books and shares seriously tasty batch cook recipes weekly on Instagram. Hello, Hazel. Hi, thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on.

I'm also joined by Emily Bellet, founder of Vespod, an online community that aims to empower women to take control of their finances and lose the taboo around talking about money. After 10 years of working in finance, she's a font of knowledge and all of what she's learned is distilled in probably the most reassuringly titled book I've come across this year. You're not broke, you're just pre-rich. Hi, Emily. Hello, hi. It's great to have you both on the show. So, Hazel, this is, as you said before, favorite topic. very much the comfort zone.

How fundamental a role does meal planning play in your life, both in terms of nutrition and generally in being on top of everything? Yeah, it is one of my favorite topics. And for people who follow me on Instagram, they'll know that I talk about it quite a lot. And it features a lot because I think it's a really important part of an overall healthy lifestyle for lots of reasons because, of course, you're able to kind of manage what your diet's looking like.

for the week ahead, but also it means that you're just kind of removing that added stress that you have to face within the week, what am I going to eat today, what will I make for dinner, those kind of questions that you're asking yourself on your way to work. So for me personally, I work in a busy central London hospital and some days, you know, if I don't bring a lunch with me, I won't get a lunch or I'll be going down to the canteen and having fishy chips and soggy, mushy peas and it's not really something that really, you know, keeps me going for the rest of the day. So I know that it's crucial for me personally to make sure that I've got something that I can also look forward to for like five minutes to sit down on a busy day to know that I'm getting

something nutritious and something that I've set aside from myself. So for lots of reasons, it's really important for me, but it's something that I really encourage my patients, but also the people who follow me on Instagram to do. And you say you encourage it to your patients. Why would you recommend it to someone like Linda who's looking to get their nutrition and general life in order? Yeah, well, you know, it's tricky if you're not making your own meals to keep track of what's going into your body or what's in your diet. Of course, there's meal prep or there's meal planning apps where you can kind of track via bar codes and things like that. But that's something I try to steer people away from because I think you lose the intuition around

what you're actually putting into your body and what you need. Whereas when your meal prepping, you don't have to stick to specific, you know, macronutrients or things if you don't want to. You can just focus on getting good nutritious kind of foods into your diet. And so, in a way, you can structure your meals to have, you know, good quality protein, carbohydrates, lots of colourful fruits and vegetables and things like that. And while there's not a lot of research into the kind of nutritional benefits of meal prepping, there was a study done in 2017. they kind of looked at previous data on a large cohort of French people. They found that people who were meal prepping had more variety in their diet

and were more likely to stick to the nutritional guidelines. Interesting. Which is really interesting. Now, we also know that people who meal prep are also more likely to follow other healthier lifestyle behaviors. So it's a bit of a, you know, is the meal prepping the deciding factor in that or is it something else? Absolutely. But we all know ourselves that, you know, if you don't, you know, make your lunch or make your dinner and you're eating out, it's really tricky to know exactly what's in your meal.

And, you know, if you're just picking up a sandwich, are you just getting the carbohydrates and maybe the protein source say it's chicken? And you're missing out on, you know, avocado or other like leafy greens and things like that. Whereas if you're making it yourself, you can ensure you're getting every type of macronutrient. And oftentimes I find it's more filling when you make it yourself. You feel slightly more satisfied as well. Yeah. Fantastic. Emily, you're connected to thousands of professional women through Vespod, which gives you significant insights into their kind of money habits and concerns. How much do you think they think about the money that they're spending on food?

So I think initially they don't think about it. I think maybe one worry, or at least they don't know where their money is going. And I think the first step and I think the question was really good is that you need to look into your spending. So maybe using an app, using an online bank. And that will break down your spending and then you'll be able to see how much money you're spending on meals. So, for example, like I'm thinking, so Mondo. Monzo. Like a Mondo app where it divvies up everything in the pie chart and you're faced with it.

Or stalling. I mean, they all do it. And you even have some apps that you can plug in on your account and see like a very good breakdown of where your money is going. And you'll see that, you know, apart from rent and transportation, actually food cost is going to be quite a big one. And I mean myself, I worked in finance for a long time. I worked in investment banking. So I was in the office all day, most of the night. And I wasn't preparing my meals.

I was just spending. And it's like, you know, $10 for lunch, $10 for dinner. So $20 a day. That's actually a lot of money. And when you look at your meals on a yearly basis, I mean, if you spend maybe $10 a day, if it's like, you know, lunch and coffee per year, it can cost you more than $2,000. So that's actually a lot of money that you could put somewhere else. Then if you enjoy eating out, I think it's fine.

You don't need to change completely your lifestyle. I think it's making very small changes, very small habits. So maybe it's just starting with having your lunchbox once a week. I mean, meal prep can be a big word, especially if you're not used to it. And for me, I'm like, wow, I have two kids. When am I going to start like cooking for two hours? But you can also just do it once a week on the Monday. It's healthy.

you can just do something different, read at your desk, but don't miss the social aspect like the other days of the week and then slowly do more days and see how much money you can save on that. Because it's a scale, isn't it, both in terms of the benefits on your health and your nutrition, but also in terms of your spending. Emily, I know from researching you ahead of the show that you said you haven't always been so great with money, what changed then in order for you to be able to be able to be more in control of your food spending?

Yeah. So I think the first thing is understanding where you are today. I think a lot of us, we just ignore our finances. We think about wellness. We think about health, work. We're all really busy. But we never take the time to look into our bank statements, to, you know, open your up, look at how much you have in your account.

And it can be worse. Sometimes you have a big credit card balance and you're not really looking into it. So for me, the first step is trying to be a bit more in control of your finances. So take some time for yourself, maybe take 10 minutes, open up your bank accounts, open up like your statement, your pension statement, and start writing down these numbers on a piece of paper. That can be a really scary exercise. But for me, I mean, especially working in banking and I had quite a good salary, but I wasn't saving enough. I wasn't saving into my pension. I wasn't investing. But I didn't really know where I stand. So that was really the first thing for me. And then when you want to make progress, I think it's quite a good idea to start building up a budget. What we usually do when we manage our money is we get paid at the beginning of the month.

We spend money on a lot of things. And at the end of the month, we're like, oh, okay, we're screwed. We take money from our credit card. And then we don't save money. So I think something that we try to do with Vespot is trying to work on your savings at the beginning of the month. So, you know, when you receive your salary, there's a portion of your salary, maybe it's 50%, 70%, that will go into your essential. which means paying your rent, transportation, food. I mean, you can reduce part of your food cost, utility bills.

And then can you have this small pocket of savings? Maybe that's 1% of your salary, 2%. Maybe this money helps to repay some of your credit card debt or build up an emergency fund. But it's really important to do that at the beginning of the month and take the money, put it somewhere else. So a pension, a nice, a saving account, whatever it is. But it's not on your current account anymore.

so you can spend it. And then the money that's left, then you can feel free to go out, spend it on shopping or whatever you like. Yeah. And actually, probably then if you were deciding to, if someone was then deciding to go from spending £10, £12 a day on lunch, probably actually that's one of the easiest shifts to make, isn't it? And then you've got a chunk which can go. If someone is struggling to save, then maybe that's a nice chunk that could then go into, yeah, to starting that saving. Exactly.

And then it's not a sacrifice anymore. So, I mean, Aesel, I imagine it's a pleasure for you to prepare your meal. Maybe for someone for the first time it can be a pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you know you were, you know, like spending 10 pounds on Pratt, and then you put this 10 pound and you put it on a saving account, it's actually super rewarding because this will go towards your goals. So you can just name these accounts.

And maybe this account is like your, you know, holiday, like Thailand holiday, and then, wow, 10 pounds a week. It's really cool. So much better than skipping cheese plowments. at lunch or whatever. The more we engage with it, the more it seems that there's a lot of crossover between the nuts and bolts of traditional self-care in like a health sense from, you know, sleep, nutrition and fitness and looking after your money, like it seems like there's a

lot of, there's a lot of crossover and sometimes doing one for one thing will benefit the other. Would you agree? Yeah, no, I completely agree. But for me, for a long time, I grew with you, self-care was about, yeah, sleeping well, eating well, having a good relationship, but money was just something else, something I just ignored. But actually by researching a lot of the subject, I realized that, you know, financial wellness is actually one of the pillars of wellness. So it's actually really important because when you have money issues, money worries, you're in debt, it can be super overwhelming and you can

actually feel really stressed, very anxious. That will have an impact on your health. So I think it's something you need to consider. And of course, you know, once you have this peace of mind that you're in control of your money, then you feel much better. I don't think it's about being rich or having more money. That's really not the point. But I think it's understanding what you have today, what are your goals, where do you want to be in five years, in 10 years, and try to, yeah, make it work, basically. So maybe, you know, ask for more money at work, then start saving a bit more money, cut some of your cost, invest for the long term. So sort of mapping your life financially. And it's not rocket science, to be honest, but you need to start somewhere.

I think we've established that getting into a good routine with meal prepping is a worthy goal for busy women, not only from a nutritional perspective, but also in terms of our financial and our psychological health too. So now let's move on to the how. Hazel, going to come to you, meal prep for extraordinary. Based on your experience, how would you advise Linda or other listeners to start. It's really variable in terms of what people prefer in terms of setting out a meal prep schedule and I think like we just mentioned meal prep as a word or as a term can be quite daunting and when it comes to when we think about it we think about you know chicken and broccoli and rice all laid out in those identical containers you know and it's all like these big

musly men who are doing it, or girls who are getting on stage. But really what meal prep is is just preparing your meals for the week, whether it's lunches or dinners or breakfasts or all of the above. So for some people, it might be that, say, I'll take myself as an example. I prepare my breakfasts and my lunches because they're the meals that I have out of the home, usually in work. And then my dinners are something that I'll make when I'm at home because that's something that I feel like I've got more time to do. I really enjoy doing it. And it's one less thing for me to prepare on the weekend.

So I would typically set aside a Sunday. Not all of my day. I've got it down to maybe two hours maximum where I'm prepping my meals. And that's for three to five days really. And I will just try to do quite a few things at one time. I try to keep my meal prep as simple as possible, though. I don't want to add too many ingredients in there.

So I'm not like worrying about something on the stove, something in the oven, you know, grinding some other spices. Keep it really simple. But you also want to have, you know, variety into your diet. So what I say to people is pick a veg of the week. If you feel like you're falling into the same habit and you are that person who's chicken and broccoli all the time, maybe one week try to switch it and try a new vegetable. But like I said, maybe it's not lunch times that you're struggling with or maybe you have lunch at work and that's something. that's provided to you, it might be that you just prepare your breakfast in the morning. That streamlines your mornings, gives you more time in the mornings, it might allow you to go to the

gym in the mornings. There's lots of benefits to doing, you know, various ways. Or like we mentioned before, it might be that you've got, you know, quite a busy household, you've got kids and meal perhaps not something you want to do, but you might want to prep individual ingredients. So you could roast up loads of vegetables on the weekend. You could maybe roast some salmon fillets and keep them in the fridge. So it's a matter of pulling things out. and kind of assembling as opposed to having individually portioned meals. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things.

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Yeah, that's something that I do quite a lot. I'm not a good cook. And I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't really take that much satisfaction from it. Or maybe it's just because I haven't done it enough. But something that I find really helpful is almost buying those, like little things of brown rice. Or maybe like the strips of macral or olives and cheese, something that you can just have in the fridge at work, having the fridge at home and just bung all together. So there's no excuses. So they, like, I consider them, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but like meal prep, cheese.

And I think it's a real, I was going to say meal prep life, fine. It's suitable cheating. So things like buying, you know, chopped up vegetables or packets of like lentils or brown rice and things like that that can actually streamline your meal prep process. It's not ideal from a plastic point of view and environmental point of view. But sometimes there will be incredibly busy weeks in your life and you just have to make those sacrifices. But things like cans of lentils and cheese. chickpeas and mixed beans are incredible because they're really good sources of plant-based proteins.

They're also high in fibre, good carbohydrates, and they've got a really long shelf life. So it's not like you have to go out to the supermarket and buy fresh fruits and vegetables or fresh sweet potato or anything. You have that there as a backup. And on that note, I always make sure that I've got kind of a supply in my freezer of fruits and vegetables that I can pull out if I haven't had a chance to get to the supermarket. because I think we tend to shun frozen foods or tinned foods as something that's less healthy when really it's not.

You know, there's some evidence to say that actually frozen fruits and vegetables could theoretically be healthier in that because they're frozen at source, they maintain all of the nutrients. Whereas if you have an avocado sitting on the shelf for seven to ten days, not that an avocado would last that long, but it starts to lose nutrients. So it depends on how long they're on. the shelf. So what I would say is don't be afraid to take those shortcuts and to make sure that you've got lots of long life food that's in the house. So it means that you're not constantly every, you know, three days having to go to the grocery supermarket and pick up like salad bags

and things like that because then you just end up spending money. It's that frittering, isn't it? And is there something in the process of how you get your food? Because by the sounds of what Linda was saying, and I know this is something that I end up doing quite a lot. I'm a, I just end up in my same to be local four times a week. And you're picking up bits and you go in and it's like, oh, what do I fancy? Yeah. And there's so much more, there's so much more room for emotion to come into it. Would you recommend that maybe people stock up on the essentials with like a weekly delivery or how do you do it?

Yeah, absolutely. So living in London and not driving means I do a delivery every week where I'll just kind of get fresh vegetables and fruits and kind of some. pulses and things like that. And I think having that time maybe making the order on a weeknight when I know that I'm going to prep ahead on Sunday for it to arrive that day. And I just kind of have in my mind

what lunches I want to make the week ahead. I run a lunchbox club on my Instagram and I try to inspire people to join it as well. We make enough for three to four days. And because I'm doing that, I'm trying to include like a variety of different, you know, fruits and vegetables and different types of grains and try to suit everyone's palates. But I've kind of gone down the route where I've found that it's almost easier to be,

kind of to have a base to work from. So when I say a base, I would say, when you're thinking about making a lunch, for example, or a dinner, it's not the same with a breakfast. I would always think about what's my protein source. And if that, if you're veggie, it might be tofu, it might be chickpeas, it might be cheese, or if you're vegan, it might be pulses, whole grains, chick bees, those kind of things. Or if you eat meat or fish, it could be meat or fish. And then you're going to be looking at having a carbohydrate source. Again, that could be things like brown rice, that could be pasta, it could be sweet potato, it could be normal potato. And then you want to have some healthy fats in there.

That could be anything from olive oil in your dressing. It could be, you know, smashed avocado, nuts and seeds. and then you want as much colour as you can as possible so I usually go with some kind of leaf kale actually survives a lunchbox a lot better than spinach does I should get this sad watery like when they start to get that horrible dark colour Absolutely and then you know like peppers or courgette or something like that

But it sounds quite extensive but it can be really simple So for example you can put in one tray all of your chopped up vegetables chook it in the oven and they will roast. Again, if you were making brown rice, you can have that going at the same time. And if you are maybe making tofu, you can either chop that up and chuck it in with your vegetables or you could fry it on the pan.

So just finding ways that you can just do things without making too much kind of commotion in the kitchen. Because that can be the thing, isn't it? If you're starting to cook again, you can think, like, right, I'm going to do something really impressive. But actually, by the sounds of it, It's just if in terms of meal prepping functional, functional and a little bit fun, is kind of a thing to aim for.

Absolutely. Because I mean, I think I really started meal prepping as a medical student and I've, you know, done it ever since. So probably for the last 10 years. And I still, if I'm trying a new recipe, I'll still get flustered because I'm like, whoa, this is new. I don't know what I'm doing. What ingredients am I using?

What kind of materials or instruments do I need? So what I would say is make sure you've got kind of, you know, a couple of really easy recipes in your back pocket that you can reach to. Like this is not a time to try, you know, a Michelin Star recipe. Yeah. It's not the time. Don't show off at lunch for lunchtime. No. Your colleagues don't care. Yeah. And there's some incredible lunchbox books out there. And, you know, like there's one called the roasting tin. And they've got like they're really colorful but also quite like simple and straightforward. Like one pot meals are really great. Like I said on my Instagram, I try to share as many really simple recipes because what I find is lots of people, the feedback I get is thank God your ingredient list isn't super long or it's not going to take me hours in the kitchen or I don't have to hike to a really niche health food store for this particular ingredient. And that's how it should feel. It should just feel as part of your every day or every week routine as much as going to the gym or doing your laundry. It's one of those things that you do that helps you feel slightly more in control of your life and also your health.

Because feeling in control as well, it matters, doesn't it? And you can tell from Linda's voice note at the start, the thing that's bothering her, it's not even necessarily how much money she has is that she doesn't know, that she doesn't know what's going on with it. So, Emily, what, obviously your situation is different because you've got children, what kind of hacks do you have for helping people, maybe any mum's listening, helping them kind of stay on track with their money whilst also prioritizing their nutrition. Yeah, so on the meal prep, I actually do it, but I do it a slightly different way.

I love following you on Instagram because that gives me plenty of ideas. So we quite like cooking. So what we do is usually on like Saturday morning, we go to our local markets and we buy a lot of veggies and fruits for the week. And that will last us, like generally until the Friday. and then at night when you have kids, I mean, unless I have a Vespot event or a social event, I'm going to be home and one of us is going to be with the kids cooking anyway. So we try to cook like two more portions usually of whatever we cook

and then we put that in a box and then we eat it like the next day or the day after. So we always have like our lunch. I mean most of the days we're going to have our lunch ready for the next day. So I think you save a lot of money and actually doing shopping. in a local market. I mean, the fruits and veggies are really good. And I compared that to my supermarket. And I realize that it's actually cheaper.

So I think it's also worse looking into that. And there's some really good box delivery of veggies. Maybe that's what you do. And they can be much cheaper. I mean, also like going and getting into Sainsbury's and seeing all these fruits and veggies like wrapped in plastic that just makes me really sad. So I don't want to buy that anymore.

So yeah, if you can find like local shops, maybe, you know, if you eat meat, we have a local butcher, local fishmonger, and if you eat once or twice a week is not that expensive. And yeah, you can really cook like healthy meals and stuff. And obviously we cook for the kids in the evening. I think it's quite meditative also to, like, cook for yourself. So it's just a good break. I know my days are like, you know, rushing the whole day, trying to finish my day on time, see the kids, maybe have these events and stuff. but actually just dropping like your phone, computer and spending like an hour or maybe two hours on a Sunday.

It's actually really good to have this time off and do something different. And when you're in the flow of it, do you listen to anything? Like do you listen to podcasts? Do you have music on? What is that time for you, Hazel, on the Sunday? I do listen. I usually listen to music or a podcast. I find that if I get too into my meal prepping and I'm listening to a podcast, then I'm either I forget what I'm doing with one of them. So usually I'm like listening to it.

A playlist on Spotify. I, like you really enjoy doing it. I find it really meditative. I find it really relaxing. It's like part of my, you know, my favorite part of a Sunday after I usually go to the gym and then I come back and that's my morning to do it. And so I know I've kind of set that away and I'm prepared for the week and I feel slightly more in control on the Sunday. The morning, that's actually, that's a really good point because often I say I'd often do it in the afternoon. Yeah.

But then you always have 10 million other things to do. don't you so the morning's a great shout. I think mornings because you don't want to waste your, not waste your Sunday, but you don't want to spend your Sunday in the kitchen either because it is your day off and you shouldn't feel like you're slaving over a hot stove for just to make yourself lunches. So definitely use your morning, you know, have your slow Sunday morning, but use the last few hours of the morning to just kind of set some time aside. Think about, you know, what meals do you need to make ahead of time? What meals are you going to be having out in the week so you don't need to make them?

and you need to just kind of be prepared, look ahead at your schedule and think about what's coming up because it might be that you are just someone who wants to just make your lunches, that's fine because lots of people have breakfast at home or have dinners at home and things like that. So don't feel like just because you're kind of getting into the meal prep process that you have to do breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks

and have it completely meticulous in every meal in a box because meal prep is not about that. So what I would say to people is just kind of definitely find some time. If it's not Sunday, it might be a different part of the week. It might be a different time of the week. You might find that actually you really enjoyed doing it on a Friday night. Not me. But, yeah, it's just find a schedule that fits for you.

So be a bit intuitive with it as well. So you've got this structure, you've got this framework. Yeah. But be a bit softly, softly within it. Absolutely. Okay. finally then, if you both have one piece of advice for Linda and other listeners who might be in a similar position to help her meal prep like a pro and feel like she's back on top of things, what would it be? I think I would tell her to invest in some good kind of utensils and containers for her meal prep because making that small investment will mean that she's making a long-term investment to her health and all.

also her goals moving forward. They can't, you know, to get a good quality container, sometimes you do have to spend maybe 20 quid, but they're really sturdy. They last a long time, get one that's leakproof. And also you don't need to get loads of them. Nice. I love that. Very practical.

Make the tools a bit more. Because a bad workman blames their tools, right? Yeah, absolutely. Remove that option. Emily, what about you? Yeah, and for me, there's a strong parallel with finance and saving money. So, I mean, one thing that we always do at Vespot is get a very nice notebook, actually and start writing about your finances and it can be a bit of meals also. But yeah, maybe

save a bit of time on a Saturday morning. It can be 10 minutes and it's like a journal for your money. So the first day you're going to write all your all your numbers and then every week just catch up on your savings, how much money you've saved, how much money you've put in your saving accounts. And then you close it and you're done and you can, you know, look forward to the next week. I love it. Bringing it all together because it's all self-care. A big thanks for both of you for coming on this week's Going for Goal and to all of you lot for listening. If you've enjoyed today's episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or spread the word on social using hashtag Going for Goal.

The show is all about helping you achieve the health goals you really care about. So we'd love to hear what yours are. All you need to do is shoot us a brief voice note via the direct message function on Instagram, telling us your name and about the goal you want to achieve. If you're not following us already, you can find us at Women's Health UK. I'll be back next week with new guests and a whole new goal to hear. hit so do join us then and for now it's bye from me bye bye bye bye