Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - They Told Her to Lose Weight, She Built a Wellness Empire Instead

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

When a modelling agent told Emily English to slim down, it triggered an eating disorder that stole years of her life. But what followed was a radical transformation - from obsessive calorie-counting to becoming one of the UK’s most influential nutritionists, with over 2.5 million followers. In this powerful episode, Emily opens up about her recovery, her no-nonsense approach to food, why joy and connection matter just as much as nutrients, and how she built a wellness empire rooted in empathy. Expect chat about walking as a miracle movement, budget-friendly meals, the truth about oat milk, and the supplement she swears by. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hi, I'm Gemma Harkinson And I'm Claire Sanderson, the editor-in-chief of Women's Health UK. We've just recorded just as well with Emily English or M The Nutritionist, as some of you may know, are on social media. You did really well, Claire, because you were struggling. You feel like crap today, don't you? Yes, I don't feel the best. And when I arrived this morning in the studio,

I imagine you're all slightly concerned by how banged up by Sam. We actually spoke to Emily, didn't we, about the powers of nutrition for good health. I never knew she used to have an eating disorder. That was news to me. Yes, in her late teens, and she told us that she was a model at the time, an agent told her to slim down her thighs,

and it triggered years of disordered eating for her. And it just goes to show the power that words can have, especially on impressionable young women. It's horrible. But she also said that going through that in disorder, actually spurred her to study nutrition and therefore become the nutritionists. So many others.

Yes. And she looks, because I always think, I've met people who I follow on social and I think you look nothing like you do in social media. She was glowing. Her skin. Yeah.

She told us the secret of pomegranate seeds for your skin, didn't she? Pomegranate seeds would be the one ingredient she couldn't live without. Yeah. It was a bit of... She had every day. You give me some cooking advice

for when I cook for gawker. Yeah. I try to cook for gorka. So you freely admit that you are useless. I'm not very good in the kitchen. I can cook for myself, but everyone else, I'm like, oh, no, I can't do it. I wouldn't describe myself as bad in the kitchen. I just can't be bothered.

It's the frying, isn't it? And a bit lazy. I end up going for the easiest option available in the fridge. And then you fall into the habit of just eating the same things, you know, the same six, seven dishes on rotating. Actually, I've got two kids, you've got two kids. You just fall into that habit. You do whatever's easy is, don't you? Whatever's quick, whatever's convenient.

Yeah. But also as well, she was an advocate, a game which I didn't know, for walking. Obviously here at women's health, whenever you do anything with walking, people love it because it's free, it's accessible, it's easy. Absolutely. So on our platforms across Women's Health many content platforms, you know, the magazine, the website, the app, etc. Anytime we do any content on walking, it goes bananas. And women cannot get enough of content about walking. is having a moment. And I've gone through my own health journey in this last year and I put on

a lot of weight last year. My mother died. I took over men's health because obviously I edit men's health as well. And I've put on weight a lot quickly and I wasn't feeling myself. I didn't feel comfortable in my skin. So I've gone through my own health journey in the last 12 months and walking is a huge part of that. So my own training regime is strength training like you. We love lifting our weight and walking. So it was really interesting to hear the Emily too. She said she loves a mega reformer. Yeah, reformer platters and then walking. But look, brilliant. Incredible for it. If you are currently struggling with or know anyone who has struggled with an eating disorder or you just want to know more about nutrition and ways you can make your plate more colourful,

then this is definitely the episode for you. So enjoy. So today, we are joined by the nutritionist who has cut through the riotous noise of social media to firmly cement herself as food's most famous face. With more than 2.5 million followers and counting, two best-selling books under a belt, her own probiotic brand and a woman's health cover star. I mean, she looks incredible. We are thrilled that Emily English,

or M the nutritionist, as you may know her, has joined us here and just as well. Thank you for coming along, Emily. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Very very good. hot. Yeah, it does. It's hot or cold in it and it's not

retrained. And I need to start by saying, obviously, I follow you on Instagram and you always look so fresh-faced, so vibrant and I always think this lady looks after her nutrition and seeing you in the flesh is proof, isn't it? I mean, you are glowing. You are just glowing. Positively glowing. I do like to say that it is because of my food. Yeah, so, my God, looks. Exactly. Well, clearly you're doing something right.

Is it true that you're the eldest of five? Tell us about your background how it all started for you so i'm a second oldest of five um uh definitely a chaotic but food focused family so the one thing i always remember is that no matter how disorganized our days were would always sit down and have a meal at the dinner table and i think that's definitely something that i learned very very early on um but even so even though i'm second oldest my parents had a bit of a gap between the younger three so they were like oh let's just have one more my mum fell pregnant with twins. And then like less than a year after the twins,

she fell pregnant with the youngest Mary. So she had three kids under the age of three. So then I used to start helping out cooking the meals for family dinners. So, I mean, I was a pro at Chili Konkani. I was like, like, could bash out a spag ball in under an hour and I was only like 10. That's such a good habit that you were all into because we try and do that in our family. My other half Spanish, so eating in Spain is kind of like it's not. just a quick, you know, put the telly on and eat your tea. He likes us all around the table,

food in the middle. It's like a celebration. So the fact that that was drilled into you is good because I think, me definitely, I think I'll speak for a lot of those. It's just a quick tea in front of the telly and it shouldn't be really, should it? No, no. And I think so many people lose a sense of how important food is, not just for nutrition, but for social connection, for sharing love, for culture, for identity. All of these things are really, really important around food. And so many of my recipes are inspired by moments and feelings in my life, rather than just, oh, like, I'm going to eat this because it's healthy.

And I definitely think, so like my journey into nutrition, I think coming from that place of food love and love for cooking, my granny was actually a chef. Oh, nice. So my first ever job was in her restaurant. And I remember prepping all of the food and seeing the way that customers reacted to her. And she was definitely an idol of mine, incredibly hardworking. But if you asked me back then at the time, oh, like, what do you think of nutrition?

I would have just automatically thought weight watchers and slim fast. And you would see the kind of headlines in the magazines that was like, eat cabbage for 10 days and lose 10 pounds. That was what the kind of nutrition was about the time. The Gillian McKeith, Searchery-Y-Poo-Poo era, which she was back in the day. At the Top-A-Ware-Bot. Yeah, she was concentrating on poo way before the current cohort, the Tim Spectres of this world.

Yeah. So she was ahead of her time. But I think because neither my mum or my granny or anyone and any women in my family really dieted, we all just ate kind of normal food. I was never really exposed to diet culture. And I went through school loving science. I loved understanding the way the human body worked. I didn't know if I wanted to go and do human physiology

or just do like biomedic sciences, something like that. And it wasn't until I got scouted at a festival to become a model for ASOS. I must have been around 17 at the time. It was like the golden job. I used to shop on ASOS because it's like the golden hay day of it. And I modeled for like a good two or three years. And I had a really happy time at

ASOS. But it wasn't until I got a proper fashion agency outside the safety net of the e-commerce world. Yeah. That I, and they turned around to me and they basically criticized the size of my thighs. And they told me to lose weight. And I went from having an incredibly normal healthy relationship with food to overnight, going on Google, getting into the horrible toxic world of unregulated nutritional advice at the time and developing eating disorder. And it stole so much of my life away from me for months and months.

And it was so strange because if you asked me what was it that made the switch go, I just, I can't explain it. And I think it's one of the things that I'm so grateful to have had the experience for now because every single time I met a client or I speak to people over my social media, I understand the relationship of food part. And I think it's why I always want to hold that level of accountability and responsibility for the nutrition advice I share

because it's not just nutrients, it's food, and it's not just health, it's also mindset and mental health as well. So when we talk about health and wellbeing, It's this incredible complex arena. And I think it's a juggling act, really. Who's that powerful words are, isn't it? That one person saying that to you completely changed how you looked at yourself, viewed yourself, and how you treated yourself when it came to fueling your body

because of one person saying you've got big thighs. Yeah. Well, what journey did you go on to recover from your eating disorder? So I ended up finding the most incredible CBT therapist. Her name was Jane. She'd also suffered. from an eating disorder. So I felt like she really understood me.

And it was step by step, kind of, I stopped eating with my family. My mom could no longer cook for me. I became obsessed with weighing everything. Like my fitness power was, I used to wear my spinach leaves and cucumber, like silly things that just don't need weighing. My body was just pure mass equation.

And Jane helped kind of pull me out of it and have this amazing bird's eye view of life. And what I valued or what was really important to me. And I think sometimes with nutrition and health and wellness, we can get so hyper-fixated on these really kind of like specific points of what we want to achieve, that we stop actually looking at the bigger picture of life

and what it is there to do. So I saw Jane had the most amazing experience with her and kind of realized myself that as someone who thought, oh, I know a lot about the human body and I know a lot about science. I knew nothing about nutrition. So I ended up going to university to study nutrition there.

And was that sparked by the therapy journey you went on and your experience your eating disorder? Do you think that's why you ended up studying nutrition? 100%. I would have never studied nutrition if I didn't have an eating disorder. And it's so funny because Kings have actually asked me to do the graduation speech for the biomedical sciences

faculty this year. And that's a full pinch-me moment because my opening line is going to be as a nutritionist, the last degree I ever thought I would do is nutrition. Yeah. And isn't it so funny how sometimes the harder experiences in our life

really can actually put us onto the path that we're meant to be? And now I've impacted millions of people's relationships with food and helped millions of people understand and establish better ways and happier ways of eating. What I love about your recipes is, I mean, they look incredible. But when you make them, it looks easy to make.

I mean, I'm a terrible cook. I'm not the best cook. But it's not like, because you see some recipes and it's like, all you'll need is these 30 ingredients, these nine specific pots. And you're like, what? Would you make it really simple for anyone who's a non-cook? Is that something you purposely want to do to make it accessible for everybody? Definitely.

And that style of recipe writing, actually came from my clients. So when I first set up my own kind of private clinic and I used to see clients during lockdown over Zoom calls, I used to write their own meal plans and they would have time restrictions and I worked with a lot of people very closely in real life settings, moms with kids, university students,

so people who aren't necessarily cooking for lots of people. So I would write these recipes based on their parents, pain points in life, so it needs to be quick, it needs to be easy. If I have a leftover portion that I can take for lunch, work the next day that's going to be really helpful. All these things matter when it comes to being consistent. And the one thing when it comes to my recipes is, A, I want them to be easy and not too time consuming. So if you come back from a busy day, you can't really be bothered, you know you're still going to throw something together in 15 minutes. And importantly, at the end, it's going to taste good. But I take you back to the

of your social media journey because it was your lovely now husband, Aaron, who encouraged you to put yourself in your content on social media during COVID. You can't ever have imagined you would be as big as you are now. Like you are possibly the most famous face in nutrition on social media. You know, it's crazy and it is a pinch me moment because I did not have a lot of confidence at the beginning. And I remember when my page is really, really small, I actually had a delivery company at the time. And my husband was like, oh, you need to like get in front of the camera and film yourself. I remember my partner in that delivery business turned around to me

and said, no, you don't. No one cares about you. Like, you're a nobody. No one cares about what you have to have to say. And that's a lovely person. Again, like, like, you have to. It's just one the thing of like your vulnerability and your nervousness to to share yourself can feel a bit overwhelming on social media. So if anyone's listening to this and they feel like they have a story to tell or they feel like they have something valuable to adds to the world, share it, please, because we are never alone with our vulnerabilities, our insecurities, the things we struggle with. There's always going to be a little community who is in the same boat as you. And I'm so pleased that I did all those silly videos and so pleased that I used to mouth so good at all

of the end of there. I remember one person messaged me once like why did you do that stupid blow-up duck lip so good at the end of meal? Now I have one of the most successful sending cookbooks called So Good because of it. I have a massive, massive community who are families and they all cook and eat together and I think that's one bit of feedback that really fills my soul. It's like I'm so happy that the mum often is like, oh, I'm getting my health goals in. I'm being able to achieve the things I want to with my body. But I can also still sit down with my kids and my husband and they love it too. And that's a really special place, I think, that I've cracked.

Because you didn't grow up in a family where there was an abundance of money. And you grew up in a council house. There's a misconception that you're a privileged posh girl. And that's absolutely not the case. is it? No. You grew up in a house where often

they might not have been too much in the fridge and you would have to make something out of nothing almost. And that must now inform your content as well that a lot of people

don't have the luxury of lots of money or lots of time to prepare these dishes. And it's one thing that I always think you have to be so careful

and responsible for because I truly believe that nutrition should be normal and also accessible to everyone. And I think so much of nutrition and certain people

in the health space jump on themes that they're known for. They're like, oh, I'm the kind of the vegan girl. I'm the, are this kind of like

live forever until you're 100 person. Like, I'm the person who tells you oat milk is going to kill you. Every one seems to try and jump on these like hypes. Whereas I'm just like,

we all eat every single day. That's an opportunity to get, nutrition into you and into your body and into your children's body. And I remember so distinctively, like there was one shop that mum did and it was every single thing was Tesco value. And even as kids, like, I remember, like, mom, these chips taste funny and I just have this distinct memory.

But she'd still always be able to put something that was homemade and delicious on the table. Of course, when you're that age and it was like stew again, you're like, mom, not stew or it would be like one of the kind of curries that just had every single bit of ropey veg that was thrown into the bottom but I definitely think it informs my recipes that I do now and if I use an expensive ingredient I will make sure that I use it in lots of recipes

so people are able to utilise it and use it so something that's like harisipates for example it's like three pound a jar and that's sometimes not budget friendly enough for people on their weekly shops but you can use it in your eggs. You can use it in your tuna mix to make your tuna sandwiches.

Taste amazing. Brings like a lovely bit of spice. But it's not going to be like the kind of Otolengi back limes that sit in the back of your cupboard for about five years. And you're like, I remember I bought those that recipe that I did like five years ago.

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but you also want to enjoy that food. And sometimes it's like, I can't go to the cinema, for example, without sitting with popcorn. Yeah, because for me, that's a mix. as well for me. For me, that's part of the experience. And if someone was saying to me, that's really bad, you shouldn't do that. I think, oh, bugger off, you know, you'd want to. Well, make me want it more. It's the experience of it. So there's nothing that you would say don't ever eat that.

No, because exactly of, like, the reason why you said, there is something amazing about waking up on your birthday and having a slice of cake for breakfast. Now see. And this whole thing of like good and bad, black and white, context is everything. And if you have, again, like that bird's eye view, I'm going to say is one of the most powerful tools that you can implement in your life because we can get so stressed out about the tiniest, tiny as details. Like, I literally have people who are like, oh, I put a splash of oat milk in my coffee in the morning. Like, is this bad for me? I'm like, oh, thank about your day.

Think about your week. Think about your years. Because our health, our hormonal health, our mental health, our gut health is determined by an accumulation of good behavior. just like eating one salad doesn't make you healthy having a bar of dairy milk does not make you unhealthy going on holiday and having a spritz and a sunshine on the beach glorious thing like don't worry about the sugar don't worry about the little bits of seed oils that you

that you may have in something that you've picked up off the shelf as long as the whole context of your diet is whole food focus colourful lovely you're good to go Is this level of responsibility that you clearly feel when creating your content? Do you think that's as a result of your eating disorder? 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. And every single thing that I post, I always think, how would this make little M. Ville? And I think that's a really powerful tool to make sure that I stay grounded, to make sure that I am responsible for a lot of people's mental health, well-being. being choices and influence. And I know that power. And I think sometimes a lot of people who do become very successful lose sight of that.

And it's not a vanity project for me. I don't do everything that I do for myself. I do everything that I do for the love and the passion of what I believe in. And the love and the passion of, I get my kicks through the messages that people send me of them like feeding their kids, my super greens pasta,

and like everyone's around the dinner table and like tucking it. I did this amazing lunch collaboration with a really great chef called Phil Howard at Ellison Street. It's a missionist star restaurant, but they did one of the best values set lunches in London. And there was a whole family with three kids that came. I can't remember the exact ages. I think they were like 8, 10 and 12 who were like my little super fans. Oh, that's cute. And they all take it in turns to cook a recipe out of my book, like once a week for the family.

That is awesome. It's so awesome. Do you ever get like, because I think, actually, when I read your women's health cover, you'd said in there that no one likes to go to a dinner party and be sat with a nutritionist because they'll feel like they're being judged, you know, with what they're eating and stuff. Do you ever feel like when you do go to an event as such and there's food? I mean, I guess it's like, you know, was it Gordon Ramsey, he went to a restaurant and he said everyone was really panicking.

The chefs, yeah, so worried about serving him food. Do you get that feeling as well? A hundred percent. But the health space and the nutrition space is full of judgment. Like even I know that. Even the people who are nutritionists and stuff in my industry, like there is still a lot of stigma and judgment and people set in their ways. But I just think that it's about bloody time that we bring the joy and the fun back to health and nutrition

and the way that we fuel and nourish our bodies. Because too long it's been about deprivation. Too long it's been about right and wrong. and black and white. It's like we all just eat food. Let's just eat food that makes us feel good but also taste really good. Like it doesn't need to be complicated.

It's not hard is it? It's not hard. It's not hard. No. And food is somewhat being demonised but the current culture of GLP's and that's everywhere now. The weight loss injections that everyone's on.

It's almost feels like we've gone back 10 years. The deprivation is cool again. Yeah. I think with the whole GLP, a Zempic thing. I know people who it's been life-changing for and it's been the assistance and the helping hand that they've needed

to heal their relationship and food noise. But then I also know people who did it because they were like, oh, this is going to be an easy way to lose weight, but then hated how they couldn't go out for dinner, eat normally anymore and have kind of the same way of living that they used to. It's both a blessing and a curse.

and I think we can never, like I'll always be nervous to just have like a one side opinion being like, oh, I don't believe in it. I believe that everything has a time and a place. But if you're not addressing the fundamentals of what put you in the place to need GLPs in the first place, then I've said it before and I've been quoted. It's like sticking a plaster over wound that need stitches.

Yeah, yeah. So I was going to say in layman's terms, I'm listening to you both and I'm thinking, What does GLP mean? So it's Zembek Woghvi, Manjaro. It's the weight loss injections that everyone are taking. So they've been made as diabetes drugs. Oh yes.

So I know what the injection was, I just wasn't sure of the term. GLP. So GLP is the umbrella term to describe them all. But they are, and I entirely agree with you, that there is absolutely a place for them. And they can help people who otherwise are putting their health at risk. But they are being misused because, People who don't have a lot of weight to use.

And yeah, they're everywhere. They're commonplace now, aren't they? I think the biggest thing as well is like a lot of people are then heavily under-eating. They're not getting enough protein. They're not exercising and training in the way. We're seeing this massive reduction in muscle mass. And one thing that is so, so, so important is we maintain good, strong muscle mass. We look after our bone health because I know it sounds really,

like alien to us when we're young and but as soon as we start to get like kind of late 60s if you fracture your hip because of misuse of weight loss injections you're going to be like living a terrible quality of life

for the rest of your start at the end couldn't it? It's really yeah and it's a serious issue and I think we need to make sure that the right advice and the right support is given alongside these weight loss injections and these weight loss drugs

because they can be so amazing for helping them in the food noise as I said before. So people's relationships of food, obsessions with food, addiction to food, phenomenal. But when it's misused

and you're under-eating and you're still not establishing a healthy-balanced relationship with nutrition, then it can be a really slippery slope. So let's talk a bit about your own relationship with fitness and well-being. Gemma's already said,

you are positively glowing. And you've come from training this morning. I have. I'm fresh off the reformer and I had a little walk here that's about an hour as well. Oh no. So is that is reformer your thing? Reformer and walking? So I found something called mega reformer which basically

utilises heavy weight resistance training and Pilates I would like that. It's my addiction. I'm addicted I don't like reformer but if a combination of heavy weights as well. You do heavy squat, heavy kickback lunges

and I've never been stronger got every single class, it's like I'm going to war. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I've only ever done for that reformer when I was pregnant. I did it through both pregnancies towards the end because I couldn't do my normal weight training. And I enjoyed it, but I found I was thinking of other things as I was doing it.

I wasn't just switching off. So that's, no, you need, with movement, you need to find the thing that you enjoy and gives you that kind of like state of mind that you're out. You're zoned out. because movement for me is so much more than kind of training to achieve in a certain aesthetic goal. Movement is the way I go with. Sorry. No, it's okay. That I'm going to be a silenced me.

I love it. I'm a bit of silence, yeah. So movement to me is a way that I reduce my anxiety. I decompress. I come up with new ideas. I clear my mind. Like, it's so holistically part of my well-being. because I've found something that I love to do.

You would never catch me in like a Barry's or like a hit class. I don't want to do it. I love running, but like I don't run with timers or Nike in my ear being like, you're a bit slow this kilometre, hurry up, hurry up. I'm just like, no, it's nice sunny down, I'm going to go for a run. So I found what I've like really settled into, and that is three times a week, mega reformer, and a walk everywhere. And walking is the super free exercise that every single person should be doing more of.

If there's one thing that you implement into your fitness and your movement goals, it's walk. And I don't think people take it seriously enough to realize how absolutely life teaching is. But then you also don't realize how many people can't walk 5K. Well, it's getting worse, isn't it? Even like if you work in an office building, I've started at our radio station. and I now purposely use the water cooler upstairs. We've got one right outside the studio and I'm like, nope, I'm going to go out on the corridor,

go up the two stairs, fill up and come. And it's just little things like that little changes. Genius. Can make a big difference. They really do. Yeah. That's great advice. Just collect it.

You're like a character on like Marrow cart, like pick up the coins where you can. And it's those small accumulations of movement that you can get throughout your day. And my favourite time and my favourite time to kind of like inspire people to do more is the morning because you can always steal half an hour or an hour back. I say always that's obviously like glorified. I know obviously if your kids wake up really early and it's hard and it's a struggle,

but even if you can like get them involved and do more kind of outside walkable activities, but if you can steal that half an hour, hour back, go out for a quick little walk. If you don't feel safe, a walking pad is amazing. They're not too expensive and they're foldable so they can be tucked away, like even It's the wardrobe cupboard. Wake up in the morning, have a cup of coffee and walk. Yeah, half an hour on your walking pad. So on woman's health, the most popular content is walking content.

Really? Yeah. That makes you so happy. And it goes viral. Every time we put content about walking on our websites, people cannot get enough of it. But it's the same with nutrition. I think people have this idea of like when you talk about nutrition and nutritionists. They're like, oh God, here I am, going on a diet.

And you speak about movement, they're like, oh, God, they're going to maybe do burpees and lunges and run. It's like, oh, I can achieve that by walking. Yeah. People almost, it sounds too good to be true, but it's not. Yeah. Walking is one of the best things that you can do for your fitness, for your health, for your hormones, hunger regulation, everything. Yeah. Because it doesn't spike your cortisol, because I've had tests with sports scientists, so, you know, through work.

And they said at the time I was doing a lot of high-intensity cross-fit type. training. Yeah. And they said malactic acid and cortisol levels were through the roof because I'm already operating at a level of quite high stress, you know, running two brands, a long commute, two kids. So you throw high intensity exercise, all that's going to do is inflame your body and just encourage you to hold on to more stress and cortisol.

They can actually encourage you to hold on to fat. So I've gone through a bit of a health overhaul in the last year where I walk everywhere. and I just strength train and I do it in the morning like you said I'm someone who loves training I know you do it in the morning as well don't you Gemma

yeah you're getting up and get out of way yeah so if I'll get distracted otherwise or make excuses and if I'm making excuses someone who has trained my entire life and absolutely love it if it's a bit of a chore for someone

they're never going to do it that's the thing morning movement if you're someone who can be a bit flaky best time to do because you're so much less likely to be like

I'm a bit tired, I'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. It only goes back to what's comfortable, does it? The body will always decide. It's the comfort you have to sit down and stand up. So you've got to like, be like, nope, we're doing it. Get it done out the way. And you always feel good after you never move and afterwards go, oh, I feel terrible.

No. You always feel better, I think. Well, even when that alarm goes off and you're, no, no, I don't want to get up, I don't want to get up. If you can just force yourself to get out of bed, you'll immediately feel fine. Have a coffee. and then you're off. And Mel Robbins says it.

It's like that thing of like you count down from, I think it's like five, or the time you get to the end, get out of bed. And having that kind of get up and go, like I literally walk like a zombie first in the morning because it doesn't matter. Like my arm goes off at six, now it's like 5.45 as it gets like a little bit early in the morning.

I'm up. I take my supplements. I hydrate and I'm out the door. And I don't even give my brain the opportunity to be like, oh, couldn't I just have an extra little heart? half an hour. So there's a level of discipline. Yeah.

Because as human beings, we are naturally very undisciplined and we will always look for the easiest path of least resistance. But we have to realize sometimes it's the discipline and the commitment that is going to really make us feel amazing. And I think it's actually quite interesting

because obviously someone who's come from a place of having an eating disorder that was very much about rules and restrictions and regulations, how do you balance discipline with self-love and self-care and things that make you feel happy and good. And I always think at the end of the day,

if something adds more to your life than it takes away, it's a good discipline. Yeah. So that's the kind of level and the balance that I use to make sure that I'm keeping everything in check, both mentally and physically. So you mentioned supplements there. So you have your own probiotic supplement brand.

I do, yeah. Tell us a bit about that. So Effort Home is one of my proudest achievements. We're over a year old now. And we have the most incredible customer retention rate. So people try it and it changes their lives. We do as part of our community, we do these kind of live interviews where we'll sit and we'll speak to our customers about the journey that they've been on in their gut health.

And I always say the supplement industry is a very unregulated one, especially the world of gut health. And I think the biggest issue with gut health is that there is so much that we don't know. everything is a little bit kind of like touch and go where it's like, is this viable? Is it going to work? So what we did at Epitome is I basically found every single key strain that I wanted to put in there that had the biggest body of scientific research behind it. And I put all of these in an inner cap. And then I protected it with an outer cap.

So we have this duro cap mechanism, which means that we get all of the incredible bacterial strains, which are kind of registered and trademarked. another thing as well. Not all bacterial strings are created equally. I often say it's like buying a white t-shirt. So you can buy a white t-shirt from Primark. You can buy a white t-shirt from John Lewis and you can buy a white t-shirt from like the row. Wildly expect, like different prices, but different production and quality. So we house all of those lovely kind of unique blends in the middle. And then at outer protective core that has lovely kind of like gut supporting nutrients, vitamin D, zinc, biotene, all these things really helps.

support the gut barrier. So then when you ingest it, we basically have a much higher survivability rate than kind of leading liquid or leading powder gut health supplements. And we've actually done our first kind of clinical trial and digestion trial where we were able to see that we were kind of like 12 times more effective than the leading liquid probiotic on the market. And I truly, truly believe that the time, attention, quality and care that we've put into the brand is the reason and why it's been so successful. Yeah. And people have literally had life-changing experiences.

That's all. So is that the only supplement you take? What do you take other? No. So my morning routine is, I'm very, very consistent with it. So at the moment, I mean, it changes. I wake up, creatine.

Love creatine. Everyone should be taking creatine, especially for women. Women are scared of it because it's like fear of bloating and water retention. Don't worry. No, don't worry. Just drink enough water. So good for it.

Tell us what creating does. So incredible for strength. Yeah. And helping support muscle mass and growth. But also, for women, it can be really, really good for cognitive function and mental function. Really good for brain health. It's good for in the perimenopause. Very good.

I feel I've done. I have five milligrams every morning. Yeah, every morning. Especially as well. Water. In water. Yeah. Yeah.

And especially when you hit like 50. I would say it's one of the most important times to start taking it. People think they're going to, people think, oh, if I've drink it, I'm going to be like, worry. You think it's like a muscle. It's so, so weird. Because unfortunately, every single time you buy creatine, it's like, you know. Ritune Max. And he's like got this like really, you know, laddie Jimmy branding.

But yeah, so five rounds of creatine, epitome on lengthy stomach, drink it. Sometimes I put a little bit of ginsing in there and just a bit of fun. Why not? And then I also take l-glutamine as well, which is really good for gut barrow function and bloating. So if you're someone who finds that you bloat really easy, you suffer with bloating, glutenamine powder. Then I, in the evening, I'll take an omega-3. I take this, I can't remember which one it is at the moment that I take.

I take astisanthin, which is an incredible antioxidant. These are like my kind of nutritionally healthy supplements. These aren't ones that I'm like everyone needs. And then I will also take dandelion root. If I'm feeling like I'm holding a little bit of water, a little bit bloated, really good for water. water retention. And just because I'm wanting to take care of my kind of hair at the moment, I take a kind of like a hair multi-bitamin with a bit of ancillium, a bit more biotin and zinc.

Before your goal, thank you so much for coming, by the way. It's been brilliant. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot. We've got some quick fire questions. I'll do the quick fire. Short answers. What's the one thing you keep seeing online about nutrition you wish people would simply ignore? oat milk is bad for you. And spiking your blood sugar, isn't it? That's the... Yeah, but how much oat milk are you drinking? Yeah.

Like a splash of oat milk and your coffee, everyone just needs to relax. Yeah. What's the nicest meal you've ever eaten that's been cooked by somebody else? When I first met my husband, his vegan mushroom risotto, but he did stick a crispy bit of Parmesan online.

Lovely. Is he still vegan? No. No. Was he going through a phase? She was like, oh, Emily, that cheese looks nice. You'll go into a desert island for a year. What's the one ingredient you take?

Pomegranate seeds. Really? Eat a pack a day. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, ate pack a day and zest. So good for you. So good for your skin, got everything. Wow.

And you put it a lot on salads as well. A lot of people only associate pomegranate with like a dessert. But I saw only recently with feta and pomegranate seeds. Amazing. The chicken like little cuffers you did. I remember looking at them thinking, I could just smash a pummelma salad. Yeah, so full of fibre and antioxidants.

They love your skin. Right. I'm going to buy some later. What's your death row meal? Really good steak, chips, bernets, side salad and a stick toffee pudding for dessert. Lovely. And finally, Gemma freely admits she's a useless cook.

What's the one meal she could. could master quickly to impress Gorka. My one pot Thai noodles, or like one pot, Gioza, Thai soup, phenomenal. Thai soup, that sounds good. It's so easy. And it's very light Thai food, I like you, because I love a curry, and I find if you have an Indian curry,

I love it, but I'm always a bit poof after. With a Thai meal, my uncle's partners from Thailand, and with any Thai curries, they're a bit lighter, I feel. Yeah. You don't feel as stodgy. I'm at it, coconut base, yeah. So I'll do that, lovely. Good luck.

And I just want to see Happy Boo, I know you're having a landmark food. Thirty, slirty and thriving. Oh, God, you enjoy it. So you enjoy it. Well, thank you so much for coming in, Emily. And it was an absolute pleasure to meet you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Mmm. Or this tea time you.

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