Life Uncut - Talking Diet Culture and nutrition with Sheri Health

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Hey lifers!Today we are talking about a very important relationship in your life, one that you probably think about at least 3 times per day and maybe without even realising it. It's your relationship with FOOD!Britt's sister Sheri Hockley- nutritionist, PT, radiation scientist and all around great lass, joins us today and opens up the conversation of nutrition and diet culture.Diet culture is so incredibly ingrained in us that many of us may not even be aware of how much it affects our daily life!In this episode we discuss:-Sheri's hearing loss-How our relationship with food can affect our mental well being and why we have such a f*cked up mentality around diet culture-Weight training-How food affects our mood/how periods alter our cravings-Whether food can be medicine-Gut health-Pre and pro biotics& different types of diets.This episode was made possible by The Culture co. Probiotic Kefir, with over 1 billion live cultures per serve.If you are new to the pod, welcome. We introduced a new segment today called "confessionals." If you'd like to send us yours, slide on into the DMs @lifeuncutpodcast on insta, and if you're feeling extra spicy please leave us a 5 star review.x x See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and I am back ladies and gentlemen and I don't mean back to the podcast I mean I am back on Australian home soil. She's been catfishing y'all. Brittany is locked down in quarantine town in Adelaide. Yeah, I've been back. I've been back for a couple of days. I've been in quarantine, obviously, but I just, you know what? I haven't posted anything about it because I just figure you guys have been literally locked down for months. Who gives a fuck if I'm in lockdown? Like no one wants to see this shit. So I was like, I don't want to burden you guys with that. But you know, over the next, I'm sure over the next week or so, I'll put some posts up

about being in here, but there's really nothing to say, but it is nice to finally be back. I feel very lucky that I have made it back. The hotel that Britt's in has some really interesting wallpaper. I know that there's a lot of people who have been in such dire hotels that haven't had any access to fresh air or no balconies. It is, it's, there's a nice little chair there in the corner. There's windows that open. Brittany even arrived and there was an exercise bike. She's doing quarantine bougie guys. Although you had no control over the hotel room that you got. I feel like you kind of hotel quarantine scored it's a pretty nice room I got windows that open but not a balcony as such I can't go outside but I can get the fresh air which is nice but my view is

of three walls so I can't see anything and it also means which is really annoying the angle of these like so I look out of my window and literally on all three sides are these huge walls of the apartment and the sun because of the way of the the walls are the sun can't quite make it into me so I can see it all day, but the shadows don't allow it to come into my room. So I'm like desperately trying to stretch out to get some sort of vitamin D, but it's not going to happen. But yeah, I have, look, I'm pretty happy with the room, all things considered. I ordered some weights and things like that. So I got some stuff delivered. So I'm trying to do like little workouts, but other than that, it's, it's pretty bonkers. Like I think by day 14 or it's actually

day 15. I didn't know that either. Day one here is actually day zero. So it's 15 days all up. By day 15, without one bit of sunshine and getting outside, I'm sure I'm going to be going insane. Has anyone been following the Inspired Unemployed on Instagram at the moment in their quarantine situation? I like that I asked that question to the listeners, like you guys are all going to reply to me. I've got a million followers, 1.2 million followers. I'm sure most people, especially our listeners, I feel like would be following them, but their quarantine story is insane. Just in case you haven't been following along, long story short, they're in quarantine in this hotel really really really high up many many floors up they look down onto a really busy

road and there has been this guy they've he's called himself hammock man he's anonymous no one knows who he is he set up a hammock on the side of the road and he's been sending the boys the inspired unemployed boys packages every day with these like cryptic notes and riddles and making them dress up and do stuff and it's it's at the start I think it was funny I don't know what you think now Laura but now I'm like it's a bit fucking creepy like it's a bit too much I'm curious as to whether it's a setup like I'm curious as to whether it's been set up for content and it's someone that they actually know because it's so outrageous like I'm sorry but what person has so much time to dedicate going and sitting outside of a hotel and creating this like scavenger hunt

if you haven't been following along go and check out the inspired unemployed boys instagram they keep on sharing it across their stories but it's not only has it just transpired across their stories. It's now made international news. And every day there's groups of people congregating outside of their quarantine hotel, which is also very un-COVID safe, to see the boys in the window do these different activities now. It's just wild. I don't, I honestly don't think it's a setup. I just think, I think the guy that has done it just thought, hey, this will be funny. Who knows if they'll even get the package. And I think it's just rolled on from there. I don't think these boys have had the forethought to pre-plan this match media attention but it's so incredible

because like you just said it's made international use this is the best advertising for these guys I low-key wish I got put I was like why didn't I get put in their hotel I could have been quarantining with them and get myself amongst it I would have had something to do otherwise but now that I'm in a room and this is the thing the boys are complaining about once things come into your room they're not allowed to come out really so the boys are like you guys you gotta stop sending us so much shit we've got nowhere to put it like they've got nowhere to sleep anymore and you can see them actually getting a bit frustrated one of the boys was like do you know what like this is all well and good and this is funny but I wanted to come into quarantine and not do shit I

wanted to relax I wanted to sleep he's like now I've got to be here at five o'clock I got to be the window at 6 p.m I've got to be wearing this he's like this is not what my quarantine was supposed to be but I'm definitely counting down the hours I've actually set a little alarm but I have to book a flight because I don't have a flight back home yet so please don't let me forget that otherwise I'll be like I'm free and I'll have nowhere to go and then you'll be stuck in which is not a bad place to be stuck. I cannot believe that we have done this podcast now for three and a bit months via zoom. If there was ever a time that was going to be a make or break or really like test the foundations as to whether this is a podcast that can go the distance. This

was it baby. And we have made it. We have two more weeks left. Survive and thrive long distance. But anyway, enough about quarantine. We have a great episode for you today. Now, you know, that we speak about relationships on this podcast all the time. And it kind of morphed over the years into relationships, not just with people, not just like your romantic relationships, but our relationship with the world and how we show up in the world. And what we're talking about today, talking to somebody who, if you guys are a part of the Facebook group, you would probably already know. It's somebody who Brit knows extremely well. And that is Sherry Hockley. We have my sister Sherry on the podcast. And those of you that are OG listeners, you'll know

that Sherry is one of the closest people to me she's my best friend we do everything together she's also has a radiation science degree like me so we've worked in hospitals together forever she's a PT but first and foremost she's a nutritionist and she helps hundreds of people online with nutrition that is her passion she's very very passionate about food cooking and eating I can tell you but also helping people we're going to talk a lot about diet culture our relationships with food how that's changed from when we're younger to what it's like now and how that impacted us growing up because I know it impacted me a lot I know it's impacted you a lot Laura so we put some questions out to you guys because we want to answer what you want to know we've

compiled a whole bunch of them and then we've taken them to Sherry and we hope you guys learn something from this chat and before we do get too far down the rabbit hole of what today's episode is about just want to quickly say a very big thank you to our sponsor which is the culture co for making today's episode possible now the culture co is a kefir yogurt it has over 1 billion friendly live cultures per serve and it is the easy way to get the good in and take care of your gut health. The thing that I found so interesting from this chat with Sherry was the conversation that we had around diet culture and how completely ingrained and encoded in us and normalized diet culture is. I think so many of us have subjected our bodies to yo-yo dieting or we have punished

ourselves when it's come to food or we have restricted ourselves in a way that when we actually look back on or we think about our relationship with food, we realize is actually completely dysfunctional. And I know we're going to get into it quite a bit in this episode. And I guess for me, it was a really reflective conversation because I never really realized just how dysfunctional my relationship with food was in my early twenties. And I went on every single crash course diet, but that's also because all my friends were doing it. And it was so normal In speaking to Sherry, it really brought up just how much diet and thinking about food in a negative way impacted a good decade of my life. And when I say that, I mean waking up in the morning and thinking what I wasn't going to eat in that day or how I was going to restrict myself.

And I think that this episode does need to come with a bit of a trigger warning for anybody who does have a problematic or is struggling with their relationship with food. However, I also think it's a really liberating conversation that highlights just how toxic diet culture can be and also touches on some of the great things around nutrition, like why we should eat for our bodies and not punish ourselves with exercise, unpacking why society places such a huge importance around wanting to be skinny. However, before we get into the chat with Sherry, of course, every week we seem to be unpacking some weird and wonderful news with you guys, the headlines that nobody ever wanted to read or nobody probably ever heard of.

People do not come here for real news, Laura. Let me tell you that. It's not front page. This was very deep, but this is a real article and I feel like you guys need to know about it. It's really important. I love that you preface it with this is a real article. We're not making up the news.

All right, here it is, guys. Man develops restless anal syndrome just weeks after recovering from a mild case of COVID. I don't know if we're allowed to laugh at this, are we? You can absolutely laugh at this. So restless anal syndrome is in restless leg syndrome? Yeah, of the butt. So if anybody hasn't heard of restless leg syndrome, it's actually really common when

you're pregnant. It's irritated or itchy or like you can't control your legs. You might have like a twitch or a kick or something. Usually it happens when you're trying to sleep. So it is so infuriating because you'll be drifting off to sleep and all of a sudden your legs will just start doing something involuntarily and then you can't sleep. So a lot of people who have it have insomnia and other issues that kind of coincide. It's the absolute worst. And like you don't even have to there actually is a syndrome restless leg syndrome where you don't have to be pregnant you don't have to do anything but it's it's like i've had it before without having the proper syndrome but when you're in bed and you want to like i have to get up and walk around the house it's like you

cannot as you could be crying yourself to sleep because you're so tired but your legs are like so his anus is like that is horrific so restless leg syndrome is actually one of the seven sleep disorders right so there's seven different one of them is also sex omnia don't get me started on that we can talk about that on another episode is that why you have sex while you're asleep you can be completely asleep and you can roll over and start having sex and still be asleep it's wild I know someone I know someone with that okay that's a whole other headline that we can unpack next week but no okay this poor man there's a guy in Japan he had COVID and one of his long-term side effects of COVID is that he has restless anal syndrome now I've looked into it basically

he has, I looked into the eye of the storm and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. Okay. So this poor man, he can't sit down anymore. He can't sit still and he can't sleep because every time he tries to sit still, his anus won't let him. When I say it won't let him, it is constantly either in pain or twitching or doing something that is completely involuntary. Could you imagine how exhausted you would be if your anus wouldn't let you sit down honestly and i mean i wonder if you get oh i'm not gonna say that let's describe that i was gonna i was gonna say i wonder if you get relief whilst you're pooping because that's when it's working at its hardest apparently there is no relief when he goes to the toilet and one might say it's a real pain in his ass oh laura you've

been waiting the whole time to put that in haven't you that is that is i'm laughing because that is so bad but good on you i reckon you picked that article just so you could put that pun in okay but also whilst we're on whilst we're on weird stuff and butts I'm going to tell you another story that happened in my household this week not that we don't talk about butts enough on this podcast but here we are I was about to say that's like the main theme at the moment we just really need we need you to get out of quarantine I need to get out of lockdown we just need some new content this is butt fatigue right now but we're here we're really at the bottom of the barrel guys I'll be back in action very soon okay so I was sitting at my desk doing some work

and Marley she we're toilet training her at the moment so she's constantly running around with no pants on it's like that's the norm just a toddler with a t-shirt on and no pants so I'm sitting at the laptop I'm doing work and I can hear this jingling the sound of keys jingling I was like oh Marley's playing with my keys and she walks over and she's doing this like waddle and she walks over to the to the table and I was like babe what are you doing and she goes I got your keys in my bum oh my and she she had stuck like you know the big car key like the car key that's like got the the buttons on it which you can open the door like the proper like the electronic car key so she had stuck the electronic car key in between her butt cheeks it was just in her butt crack so my

house keys were dangling below and as she walked they were jingling together it's like when you have a dog or a cat and you have to put a bell on it so you know they're coming I know where she is she'll be developing good pelvic floor anyway squeezing that butt cheek together anyway that's what lockdown with a toddler is like it's been real fun everybody well it's more exciting than my lockdown there's Brittany with no pants on some keys jingling out of her butt crack all right guys let's get into our favorite segment accidentally unfiltered but we're also spicing things up a little bit here at Life Uncut we have a new segment coming I'm gonna let Laura explain this one I can't guarantee how this one's going to go down but trial and error it's totally

this is a this is a baptism of fire guys if you have seen if you follow life on cart podcast if you follow our instagram I put up a thing yesterday and we are going to start a new segment let's see how it goes you guys are absolutely cooked with some of the things that you've been writing in it is called confessionals now you can come here and be absolved of your sins we're not Priest Laura, we're not absolving you of your sins, but we'll laugh at them. You can definitely get them off your chest, but I can't promise we'll absolve anything. So we will keep you completely anonymous. But what we are asking of you guys is to write in what is something that you have been keeping a secret, like your funniest, dumbest, silliest, whatever it is that you wanted

to take to the grave. That's what we want. Those things that you want to take to the grave with you. We want to know them. Yeah. The thing that you were like, I have never told anyone this because it's so embarrassing, but I'm going to tell Britt and Laura because there's something really cathartic about sharing a secret. I mean, talking about keeping you guys anonymous, just so you know, because I know that like, even when you tell your biggest secret, you don't want anyone to even see who you are. I promise you 99.5% of the time when we go through the DMs and we're reading these, we don't actually even go into your profile. Like we won't even associate what you have written unless it's like super fucked up. Then we're like, we have to see

this person is okay I have to tell you though one person did they meant to say I have slept with my brother's friend and then they just wrote I slept with my brothers and so I did go into that girl's profile and I was like is this a spelling mistake or is this chick really messed up we might need to report you I'm pretty sure it was just a mistake so when when Brit says 99.5 percent yeah look there's a there's a 0.5 percent of people whose profiles we do look at but don't worry it comes with zero judgment unless you're having sex with your brother we have a lot of listeners but not all of you are following the Instagram or the Facebook so if you're a listener and you're not amongst that can you please jump on Facebook discussion group and Instagram because this is

where all the magic happens and this is where we put out these questions and confessionals and this is where we get you to write in so if you're not yet following our Life Uncut podcast Instagram please jump on that. Now Laura do you want me to read my Accidentally Unfiltered? Give it to me. I started my Monday in Sydney lockdown like any other Monday made a home brew coffee and sat down to log onto my computer and get into some work. I had a few sips of my coffee and thought, hmm, that looks like an eyelash. So I put my hand in to pull it out, but no, it was in fact the leg of a cockroach. I pulled out an entire cockroach of my morning coffee.

I hope your week was better than mine. That's revolting. It's so disgusting, but imagine being like, oh, cute eyelash, I'm going to make a wish because you know how you have to blow them. And she pulled out a whole cockroach. It's so, it is so rank and girl, I hope you threw that coffee out and made another one. Britt, you need to get out of quarantine stat. I think that's so funny.

All right, get me onto some confessionals. Okay, guys, I cannot tell you how many people wrote in. I think that there's something really cathartic about getting secrets off your chest. But on top of that, so many, I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of you wrote in stories. I haven't really figured out how we're going to do this segment as in like how many we're going to share each week what we're going to share so guys just keep them coming and I'm going to bank the best ones they're short they're sweet the difference with the confessionals is that I'm putting them up as like a question box so the replies uh like one sentence replies so you can

keep this as short and snappy and be absolved of your sins as quickly as possible here they go me and my sister fully made out kissing when we were 11 and 13 because we wanted to practice what it would be like to kiss a boyfriend you're so too old to be making out with your sister actually there's no age you should be making out with your sister do you know what though this was so common there were so many people who were like I made out with my sister or I made out with my best friend in primary school because we wanted to see what kissing was like I mean kids are curious and kids are weird they do weird stuff they stick keys in their butt cracks I had friends that were I I mean, I can honestly say I didn't.

I had a friend, I swear. No, I had friends that admitted later in life that they made out at school. I think they were in like year six, year seven, like pretty young, before you had a boyfriend because they were too scared to have gone into their first boyfriend relationship without kissing. So they used to just kiss each other at school, like behind the demandables and stuff. It's so fine. It's so fine.

The kissing of friends thinks fine. The kissing of sisters is a little bit weirder. But who are we to judge? We're just here to share the good news. Okay, I absolve you. You're absolved. I used to masturbate to the Julia Gillard misogyny speech you live your best life you live your truth if that's what turns you on who are we to judge

you know what feminism turns me on too maybe I'll start masturbating to it okay here's one I work in a cafe and if we don't like a customer we give them decaf coffee I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference in all honesty yeah and I think it would be a placebo thing anyway I'd be like oh really getting my morning buzz and wouldn't know the difference but I would be so dirty if I found out that that's what was happening. But I wonder if that is, is this like repeat customers? So not one-off, is this like a repeat customer that comes back thinking that they're getting the best coffee ever, but it's always a decaf? And also who is so much of an asshole when they're ordering a coffee that they're warranting getting a decaf? Do you know

what I mean? Like what, what does someone do when they place an order for a coffee that's so dickheadish that they are hated by a cafe? I mean, I waitressed for a long time. I was a barista for a long time people can be really rude really quickly if they want to be like you can get a sense within the first couple of seconds if someone's a dick i wish we had that same ability when we're dating like to get that the idea that someone's a dick in the first minute but in a relationship that takes us like two years this is very true good looking men and chemistry will lead you astray i got period blood on my white blouse at work and then i told everybody it was chocolate hang on hang on hang on how does the period blood get on your blouse don't shame don't

No, they're like, you're absolved of your sins. No, no, this is a genuine question. Like, actually, is it maybe like a tampon or something? You put a tampon in and then you've like fixed your blouse up? Because how else would it get up there? I feel like lots of people have had accidents. Like, nobody intends to get it somewhere. But like, I'm going to say that lots of people have had accidents

or like things have just not gone to plan. And then what do you do? What do you say? You're not going to say, hey, sorry, it's period blood. Oh, hey, Laura, you've got something on your shirt. Yes, my period. Or you just say, yeah, I've got my period. People would be like, huh?

This is the last one guys. I think we've done enough here. I once stole $300 off the side table of a guy that I had a one night stand with and went out and bought myself a new pair of shoes. That's so funny. Actually, it reminded me while we're here. I'm just going to say one that I read. Someone wrote in and was like, I met a guy at the pokies. He won $900. We went outside to get a drink and he passed out. I looked around, no one was around. So I took the $900, booked a flight, booked a flight to the Gold Coast and went and partied for the week. She stole his $900 dollars because he passed out outside. Anyway, you're all absolved. There you go. Confessions with Brittany and Laura. I'm so glad that you've come. I'm so glad that everyone can go on, make

peace and yeah, there we go. But please keep them coming in because we want to, we want to do this as much as possible and as often as possible. And we got so many this first time, but we want it to be a recurrent theme. So if it is too long, if your confessional is too long for the little question box, you can just DM us, but just like Ask Uncut, put confessional at the top. And it's so nice to know how many people have been holding on to messed up secrets. I'm sure there's a few that Britt and I have been holding on to that we can't share because we're scared Daily Mail will publish them. Do you have a secret that you know, like something in your life that you're like, I would just never tell it? You don't have to tell it, but is there one you can think of? Oh yeah. Like

hundreds, hundreds, literally hundreds. So many. And the weird thing is, is that like my barometer on this podcast for what is private has slipped so far over the years. Like anyone just needs to do a google search of daily mail and then they'll know exactly how far it slipped but I think there are still some things that I will never share we've got to have some self-respect right that's what I was thinking I was like most of my things I share I'm sure there'd be a few that I've that I've held on to that no one will ever know but I've probably been so traumatized by them that I've just like suppressed them I don't remember them so I'm like I feel like I've got no if someone was holding my sister hostage and was like tell us your biggest secret or she died so I'd be like

I don't have any. I doubt it. I don't believe that for a second. Anyway, speaking of sisters being held hostage, she most certainly is not. But let's get into the episode with Sherry. Sherry, having you on the podcast has been a long time coming. This is for multiple reasons. Now, if you guys are new to the podcast, Sherry, Sherry Health, Sherry Hockley is my sister

and she has been an integral part of the podcast from the very beginning. every single idea in the beginning that we had we bounced off sherry she always gives her opinion she's the first person to listen to an episode she was not shy on critiquing us at the start of the podcast was she laura she was always like i think you need to do this and this and it i think the sound was this and this and this but you have been there from the very beginning and you do run a very very successful nutritional business via instagram so it's completely online it has absolutely boomed in the last 12 to 18 months and we have had a lot of requests to have you on the podcast. I've tried to fight them off. I was like, nah, we don't want to get another Hockley on. You

guys don't need another Hockley. No, I'm joking. We'd love to have you. We're so looking forward to this chat, but Sherry, it has been a long time coming. Welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you guys. I'm so excited to finally be here. It is, yeah, been a long time coming. How have you, how's it taken this long to get me on here well actually we did have you on I don't know if anyone who's an OG listener and has you know listened to every single episode we did an episode quite a while ago talking about menstruation and different types of contraception and Sherry jumped on that episode and talked to us about her experience with Implanon but it has been a long time between drinks so welcome back Sherry we have been wanting to do an episode on nutrition for ages with you

guys and now like the big thing about our podcast is about relationships and how we interact with the world and how we show up in the world and a huge part of that is our relationship with food is our relationship with ourselves and nutrition is such a fundamental part of this now we're going straight to the source sherry we have so many questions to ask you that have come from the life uncut community but before we get into that there is something that we do on every single episode which i know that you're very familiar with and that is accidentally unfiltered now do you have a horrendously embarrassing story that you want to share with everyone brit you told half of this story on the podcast recently and you completely threw me under the bus but in

your defense you did say i'm not going to embarrass her and i will let her tell this story when she comes on so i feel like i owe it to the people i owe it to my fans to complete the embarrassing story that doesn't sound like me throwing you under the bus it has to do with lube Brittany you had a segment I think asking people about the things that they used for lube yeah my at-home lube story so I'm gonna throw Jay under the bus here because it's happening to Jay my my new fiance everybody sorry Jay we were getting getting down and dirty one night and uh we were doing massage Mondays which is where we you know is what exactly what it sounds we do a massage every Monday which always leads to like beautiful beautiful sex we didn't

have any lube and I said to him oh babe there's some um there's some coconut oil in the pantry go get that because guys and I'll give you a pro tip coconut oil is not healthy for you it is not a superfood by any means but it is a great lubricant so I sent him to get the jar of coconut oil and he comes running back into the bedroom and I said oh hold on like I actually use that for cooking sometimes. So just put a small amount into a Tupperware container, bring it back into the bedroom and leave the rest in the pantry. So he does, he scoops it out. He puts it into a Tupperware container, but I've really got to set the scene for you guys. So we use it. It's great. It's fun. It's a really good lubricant. Use it a couple more times. And then next time Massage

Monday rolls around, I'm in the dark, I'm naked. We're getting down to it. We're using the coconut oil. It's really great. You know, he gets the container out. It's everywhere. It's on me. It's in me and then i was like jay i feel funny like i feel really bitty like i can feel like there's stuff all over me and it wasn't just coconut oil what do you mean bitty like you know when like when you rub your hands really fast together and bits of skin come up on your hand oh yeah like it felt like there was sand or something on me everywhere the little boobies were just like covered in in bumps pretty much and so i was like just put the light on and so i'm laying there stark naked and he puts the light on and i am covered head to toe in black mold the coconut

oil had gone moldy in the container this is wrong on so many levels because black mold's literally toxic you had that shit all over your body that is fucked it is so fucked it had gone moldy in the container and it was a dark and i couldn't see and he had literally massaged mold all over my body it was in chunks all over me it was disgusting oh my god please keep stored in an airtight cool dry container absolutely wild and then what happened I just went and had a shower and like we didn't have sex I just couldn't I couldn't do it I was covered in mold guys how is it that this after two years of doing this podcast how has this only just come out now it's a repressed memory for sure I definitely blocked that one out that was so rank but thank

you for sharing that story now everybody's turned off their food now that we're going to talk about nutrition great but before we get in we want to know a little bit about you for the people that don't know who you are or what you're about tell us what your 20s looked like what did you do what did you get up to how did you end up where you are how'd you get into nutrition if you want to throw something in that makes me sound great that's fine whatever no oh man my 20s well I mean they were pretty much spent with you Brit running around the world but no I am like you trained in medical science so I have a degree in that and worked in like I mean I still work as a radiographer in a hospital so I had I had definitely had that science background and then I got really deep into

crossfit and lifting like you did Brit we went full lifting beast and got so interested in the science behind eating and things like that like I didn't know what a calorie was I got sucked into the sweet potato versus white potato thing like I was not eating enough at all to fuel my training and I just wish I knew then what I know now because I would have been so much fitter and better at that but anyway yeah so Brit and I like quit life ran around the world and I was just still so interested in nutrition and health and I was like doing these stupid diets like I'm sure you guys have done them like you've done stupid detox things where you've nearly shit your pants because all you're doing is drinking juice Laura's really guilty of that do a detox shit your pants

if that's what you want if you guys want to hear some stories about ballerina tea I'm your girl do not do it guys do not pass go oh man this skinny detox tea and all that all that absolute rubbish I got sucked into that and it's crazy because when you're in your 20s and I think so many of us did and I think so many of us have had challenges with food or disordered eating as there are a lot of people who have unhealthy relationships with food and I guess your role Sherry is to help people to try and rectify that and to try and see food in a really positive way but I look back on my 20s and I had such a dysfunctional relationship with food in that I was drinking ballerina tea like all the fucking time as though it was going to help me lose weight

and it's obviously just a laxative for anyone who doesn't know I did the lemon detox diet I got sucked into all of these crazy fads for a period and I look back on that now and it's only now that I'm so far past that point in my life that I realized just how dysfunctional my eating was for so long. And I think we're sold it on social media. We're sold these quick get fixes all the time. So it's so good to have you on here to debunk all the different myths. Absolutely. You're not alone. Like almost every client I have, every woman in their twenties, thirties, forties has had this absolutely shit relationship with food and their bodies. And, you know, like we come from that generation of parents talking about weight watches and, you know, mom's being on diets and

going to like 15 cardio classes a week and things like that it's so ingrained into us diet culture is so ingrained into us it takes so much unlearning to get out of these poor behaviors and that's definitely my wheelhouse that is what i'm really passionate about i got into this to help myself and my relationship with food i mean i am by no means eating disordered trained at all and that is not my wheelhouse but i definitely love helping women get out of that shitty mindset of you've got to eat less you've got to do 50 hours of cardio a week you've got to you know shot apple cider vinegar which guys don't do that like it does absolutely nothing except ruin the enamel on your teeth one thing i did want to talk to you about it's something that you have been really

open with on social media recently and you've spoken a lot about with your own community is that you are personally hard of hearing and you struggle with hearing loss why is it that you're so passionate about talking about this and i feel like it's something that you've only just recently started sharing so much more than what you were prior. Yeah, totally. I have been, I guess, partially deaf, hard of hearing. I don't know what the official terminology is. I answered them all, but I have been hard of hearing for many years. I can't hear very well. That's the long and short of it. Actually, I don't think a lot of people know that Brit is actually slightly deaf also. So we have a hereditary deafness that comes from our mother. My oldest

brother has hearing aids as well and I've been deaf for quite a long time but I was really hesitant to get intervention and to get hearing aids because there's so much stigma right like you think it's just something for old people people are going to think I'm slow or stupid which is like a terrible thing to say but that's what they're the fears that people have and I know that because since I've shared it so many people have messaged me saying I was embarrassed to wear my hearing aids in case people thought I had a developmental delay or something like that and I'm so passionate about it because and look I don't see myself as this deaf representative I know that in the in the hearing world like I am fortunate I can exist in my day-to-day life

quite well without my aids there are definitely things that I I can't hear I can't hear rain I can't hear conversations from a different room I need Brittany to interpret a lot of the time for me. I don't hear birds outside, so many things like that, but I can generally exist in day-to-day life, which is really great for me. But so many people can't and so many young Australians are hard of hearing. So one in six Australians actually experiences some degree of hearing loss and nearly half of those are working age people. So it's not just an old person problem, it's happening to so many young people and it comes with such a drop in self-esteem and confidence. We know that people experiencing hearing loss are one fifth less likely to be employed. And then they do show

lower levels of productivity while at work. So untreated hearing loss makes you so much more susceptible to depression and poor confidence issues. But since I've shared it, I've had so many people message me saying, you know, young girl saying, thank you so much for sharing this. I have now been wearing my hearing aids to school and telling my friends when I was too embarrassed to wear them to school so they were at school suffering potentially having difficulties learning at school because they couldn't hear properly because they're embarrassed about what people will say about them it's just a hearing aid you know and it's it's not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about and I know that so many people won't even go and get tested because they

don't want to know the truth they don't want to be told that they need a hearing aid because that's going to be ugly or unattractive or they can't wear their hair down and things like that so I'm very very vocal about it now about sharing you know my hearing aid journey and then not to make a thing of it but just to say like hey this is something that happened to me this is part of me and you know if it's part of you cool join the club you can hear now it was a bit of a slow burn and it was something that none of us wanted to admit to and like I actually don't speak about it but Sherry just outed me on the podcast as well I'm part of hearing as well it's in the family but I remember how this happened I went in to film The Bachelor this is what happened and when we go

into the bachelor guys you know that we don't have contact with anyone for three months we don't know what's going on in the outside world three months later so I went in and my sister and brother there's four of us but one sister one brother I went in and there were no hearing aids no hearing problems and I came out three months later and two of my three siblings had hearing aids so in a period of three months Sheridan and my brother Mitch both got hearing aids they both just lost their hearing and I think for Sherry it was something you're obviously more hard of hearing than I am because I don't have hearing aids yet but for you it was something that we didn't really realize and we used to joke about it a lot Sheridan wouldn't hear something that we were saying and

neither would my brother and we we almost used to get angry at her and be like oh you're so deaf like open your ears not actually thinking that she was deaf and it took a long time you finally went and got your hearing aids you used them for a little while and you actually threw them you gave them back didn't you you were like I don't want them I did yeah I hated them like I could not adjust to them and I think mentally I kind of just wasn't ready as well I was still you know like work was manageable it was hard but it wasn't like I couldn't exist at work with my job but yeah it was it was one of those things that I just wasn't ready for and I think this time I was ready and that you know it's been getting progressively worse and I think Brit you can

attest to that you know you have to translate for me a lot more I think a lot of people actually think that Britt's really domineering and speaks for me but it's just because I've not heard something and I know that she knows me so well that Britt you will you know you always step in for me and you answer the question and people think you're just answering on my behalf but you've just got my back. How much has it changed your life actually going to get the test and getting hearing aids because like you just said there are so many young people that are too embarrassed to wear hearing aids or don't want to admit it or think that you know it has this negative connotation but how has it impacted your life and would you encourage people to go and get

those tests it's absolutely mental the benefit that it's had like when I first got them I made Jay run into like a different room and I was like talk to me from the lounge room so I can hear you because it's just not something I could do like I and he was like I don't want to play this game anymore I'm like come on let's do a test let's do a test it's it's still for sure overwhelming in a restaurant and I called them my ears like I say I don't have my ears in now because it is like having go-go gadget ears like technology is insane they're rechargeable you can adjust the volume There's a special setting for restaurants. Honestly, if there's anyone out there that is struggling with hearing or you think that

maybe you could benefit from a hearing aid, and I know that there is so many of you, there's 60% of you that will not go and get tested, but you should because it's free in Australia to go get tested and it could honestly change your hearing life to get a new sparkly set of ears. Let's get into some of the questions that have come in in regards to nutrition. one of the biggest things that I think so many of us have dealt with over the years whether it be something that you dealt with when you're in your 20s or maybe you're in the throes of it now but our relationship with food can take such a huge and play such a huge part on our mental health

and there can be so much guilt around just enjoying food something that's so essential for us to live to actually function yet we can feel so incredibly guilty about it why is it so important to have this healthy relationship with food and why is it so important to identify if food guilt is something that you're dealing with or being triggered by man food guilt is so fucked like why do we let food food is just food why do we let food make us feel something like guilt like you haven't cheated on your husband or run someone over like you just ate a brownie why do we let food control our emotions but no we do we let guilt overrun our brains for eating something and we really need to like disconnect the emotion from food food cannot make us feel good or bad

because then we put that emotion onto ourselves like if you say i've been so bad so naughty that says that you personally are being bad and naughty and that just encourages this dichotomous thinking about food this good this bad and there's no such thing as good or bad foods and a food cannot make you feel guilty and as soon as you start really challenging yourself on those thoughts and those beliefs you're going to be so much happier you're going to stop the binging on the weekends you're going to stop this new diet starts monday mentality and you're just going to be so much happier i remember when i was younger and sherry you'll probably remember this but i used to have so much food guilt I had a bit of an eating problem in my teens I would eat one bad thing and it was

it didn't happen often but if I ate one bad thing I would literally put it down at the end like I'd finish it I'd lick my fingers I'd put my joggers on and I'd go for a run I was like I immediately within 10 minutes had to start burning that off and it was it got to the point that I was actually taking a hospital like I passed out I had a seizure Sheridan was there on that day I remember I was out cold and I woke up and Sheridan was in my face the ambulance was already there they'd they'd run up to the road and they'd got service and called an ambulance and I had a really bad relationship with food and I constantly felt guilty for even if I had I was just having one meal a day and it was like a mocha frappuccino I used to make my dad bring me home a mocha

frappuccino and that was because the coffee kept me going and no one really knew I had this problem because I used to lie about it and then I had one thing like I said and I'd go exercising and I I think it stems from a really young age I think that we have to be really careful in society now whether you're parents or you're just around younger people or the things that you're putting out to the environment it can really affect someone totally and especially as parents like I say to my clients that are mums like don't comment on your kids bodies good or bad like don't comment on their bodies don't comment on your body in front of them don't comment negatively about food like you even just said Britt you probably don't even know you just said if I ate

a bad food like there's no bad foods like even your language and the way you speak about food it's calling something clean or dirty or good or bad is damaging because whether you know it or not that's putting something in your head that you've been doing the wrong thing by eating that food and I remember when you had that seizure it was so scary and it really brought home the fact that the way we see food and think about it is so damaging like I remember when I was a kid and I will never forget this and this is why no one should comment on people's bodies because I was like 13 and I was at a swimming carnival in my bikini and I was sure like a little bit of a little bit of a chubby preteen whatever and a boy said to me I had more rolls than a bakery

and it was you know boys will be boys oh it was said in jest it was just a joke but that shit sticks with you and kids that have parents that comment on their weight it sticks with them forever and it takes them into adulthood and it really shapes how they view themselves and their bodies and their food so just if you're thinking about commenting on your kid's weight or in someone else's weight just don't why is it that someone's size is not indicative of how healthy someone is I mean I know this just from speaking to you now Brit as well and like the conversations we've had when I have been at my skinniest and people have looked at me and probably thought I was at my fittest I was well and truly at my most unhealthy because my relationship with food was so bad but

I think it also works on the other end of the spectrum we have this real mentality in society that just because your biggest size means that you must be unhealthy why is size not a predetermining indicator of what makes someone a healthy person well because we know that people are really lean and thin like you said Laura you were not healthy there are people in really small bodies that are unhealthy they don't exercise they don't eat many vegetables they drink too much alcohol and conversely there are people in bigger bodies that exercise every day they go for their daily walk and lift weights they eat really well and metabolically their bloods are great you know they're really fit and active they're healthy and a skinnier person could be unhealthy and vice

versa we know that at the higher end obesity does come with risks of of metabolic disease and heart disease but there are plenty of people in a bigger body that are perfectly healthy and vice versa skinny people can be healthy bigger people can be healthy they can also be unhealthy weight is not a determinator of your health your behaviors are and your overall food and intake and stress and sleep and your mental health like it is so holistic health cannot just be put down to body size or weight what are some basic first steps that someone can take to improve their overall health and i know that this is a huge blanket question but i also know that this is probably the most common question that you get i feel like the first thing is to not use moldy moldy lube is

that your number one tip good health benefit but no it is it is such a common question and i guess people always want to know like what is the one thing i can do what is the one food i can eat and there it's such a boring answer but there is no one thing you can do or one food you can do and there's nothing magic there's no magic shake there's no pill there's no you know just do this exercise and get rid of your hip dips like you just have to and it's so boring just live an overall healthy life and to do that the biggest thing you can do is eat more plants and fruits and veggies and everyone tells us that our parents tell us eat more veggies but it's honestly the best thing that you can do. The next thing I always recommend to my clients is have enough protein. And I know

that everybody goes on about protein and you don't need to be like sculling protein shakes outside the gym and every meal doesn't have to be like a high protein meal or anything like that. But you do need to be having enough of it because most of us definitely don't eat enough. And it's so important for muscle gain and muscle maintenance and hormone function and so many things. I definitely always say do some sort of exercise that you enjoy if that can be some sort of weight training please do it it's so good for us as females I recommend a daily walk for every one of my clients every time they turn up for me I tell them go out for a daily walk and they hate it at the start and they love it at the end it has so many health benefits and enjoy like enjoy

your life eat the pizza eat the brownie drink the wine it truly is everything in moderation and remove the labels of good food bad food cheat days and all that shit why do you say that weight training is so important because i know that for so many of us we hear cardio cardio cardio you've got to keep your cardio up and that's the way of burning calories and but i think very rarely do we hear the benefits around weight training and what that does for our body i'm actually also a pt i feel like i'm pretty qualified to talk on this weight training is so important for a multitude of reasons. Basically, muscle mass is important, right? We want to be able to be strong, lift heavy shit, function in life. You squat, you pick up your kid, you do the groceries. We've all done

the thing where you carry 19 bags of groceries in. You want to be strong and fit. Having muscle mass increases your metabolism. We want to have a fast metabolism, right? We want to have muscle mass. We want to be burning more calories. But we should really be being told to exercise for our health and exercise for enjoyment, not just to burn calories. That's definitely a really poor mindset to be in. But if you're doing cardio to lose fat, say it takes you an hour running on the treadmill to burn 500 calories. Soon you're going to get better and better. And it's going to take you two hours to three hours to burn the same amount of calories. That's just completely inefficient. We don't need to be doing that. But weightlifting, you're going to have strong

ligaments strong bones strong muscles it's going to be great for your heart health your hormone health so many things I just cannot recommend strength training enough for women one thing that I want to know and I mean I do want to know it but that's because I binge eat on a lot of sugar does food affect mood or is this a bit of a myth look there's no one food that is going to completely improve your mood or there's no one food that can do anything really like our diet and diet quality is accumulation of everything we eat right over days and weeks and months for sure if you're eating a diet that's just like pizza chocolate 19 gin and tonics on the weekend you're going to feel like shit your mood is going to be lower we know we don't feel good when we eat

that kind of stuff so yeah eating a really whole diet of meats and fish and veggies and and dairy and and being you know exercising regularly and things like that you're going to feel good it boost your mood we know from studies that eating well and exercising regularly increases your mood and improves your mood and improves symptoms of depression but by no means is there you know a food that is going to to boost your mood no sherry what do you think of the saying food is medicine and what do you think of this application that we can use food to treat different ailments um this is a really good question laura because i think it's it's a polarizing topic because people want to be told, hey, you've got this disease, eat this thing and you'll be cured, right? But

that's just not how it works. And I strongly believe that food is preventative. We know that we eat healthily. We do our exercise. We go for walks. We don't eat too much junk food. We don't drink too much alcohol. We're going to be healthy and we're going to prevent disease and things like that, which is awesome. And it's so true. And it's what I preach. We do need to prevent serious disease but food can't treat disease and i think that's where the problem lies it's where people like you know the medical medium the guy that gets his medical information from spirits like i'm not even joking that's his jam he tells people to drink celery this drinks that's where the celery juice trend came from the medical medium he tells people that if you drink celery juice you will

cure all of life's ailments including cancer which is just it's just dangerous and it's so irresponsible and I think that's why I get on my high horse about food is not medicine sure it can support your life but it's not going to fix things if you need medicine you need medicine and I think I'm definitely and like Britt you'll be the same you're biased maybe not biased like we just believe in science because we have a science degree and we work in the hospital setting and we see the worst of the worst we see people at their worst dying of cancer to be quite blunt about it and it's like it's just awful to see that people are foregoing medical treatment for food and that's it's just not going to fix anything. These are things that we've seen it's hard when people who

have cancer and the cancer is spreading and the doctor has recommended that they have some sort of treatment whether that's radiation treatment chemotherapy and the patient says that's my last resort so I'm going to keep doing this you know celery and healthy eating for another few months and see how it goes what they don't realize is that doesn't that's not how cancer works um you need to do them hand in hand because unfortunately by the time you come around and realize that that celery hasn't cured you and you want to do the treatment it's too far gone so they definitely need to be it needs to be holistic you need to be eating well and feeding your body the right things it needs to to sustain a healthy lifestyle but if you do get sick you can't just use healthy

eating to treat that ailment. And I think that's the real take home here. Absolutely. It needs to go hand in hand. It needs to be holistic. We need to eat well, but we also need to believe science and medicine. Sherry, the one question that was the most common question that came in when we put the call out to our listeners. So many people were like, I have my diet. I have my routine down pat during the week. I am so good when it comes to my food. I am so good when it comes to my exercise. And then on the weekend, I have a complete blowout. What advice would you have to someone who's finding it really hard to maintain a level of being healthy and minimize the binging when it comes to the end of the week? Oh, it is an absolute real thing. And man, this

was me my whole twenties. And this was every, I mean, this is every one of my clients ever. I am so perfect Monday to Friday. And then on Friday night, they're sinking, you know, 15 espresso martinis it's that whole binge restrict cycle people like you say laura they go perfect i'm gonna start this new diet i'm gonna be so good and like what even is good you know like what is healthy i'm gonna be clean like what is clean food but they say i'm gonna be clean and i'm gonna do five gym classes but generally they go too hard too fast they're too restrictive doing the week they're not having any chocolate they're not having any i like to call it soul food because it's food that like it's good for your soul and we need to eat that stuff. If you're being way

too restrictive during the week it gets to Friday and you think being so good like fuck this I'm gonna eat a whole pizza. If you're too restrictive like I like to use the analogy of think of a rubber band right if you pull the rubber band back really really far the harder you pull the harder the recoil and that's what restriction does. So if you restrict and there's a few ways you can restrict you can restrict total calories so you can be eating just not enough Monday to Friday. Or you could be restricting the kind of food you eat where you don't allow yourself to eat garlic bread or chocolate or ice cream or any of that stuff during the week. Restriction generally leads to overeating. So the way that I get my clients out of this is have something that you

love every single day. Whether it's, Brittany, I know you're a chocolate fiend and I tell you to have some chocolate every single day. Pick your poison pretty much. Whatever it is that you love eating have something every single day just for the fact that it tastes good and you like it because that's going to take the magic away from that food it's not going to be this special chocolates on a pedestal i'm not allowed to have it because what happens when you're told you can't have something you want to eat more of it right you want to eat the whole block whereas if you're having something every single day or you know every couple of days by the time the weekend rolls around you don't feel the need to eat 19 brownies and then you know a bottle of wine and

then you don't fall face first into a kebab on sunday night it stops the over restriction i'd love to ask your opinion on some of the i guess i don't know if they're called fads but they are things that we're seeing everywhere on instagram everyone's talking about them they're i guess types of diets and fads what are your opinion on the 5-2 diet uh so this diet for those that don't know is is just a fasting diet so you fast for two days of the week and the other five days you eat at libertine so you just eat what you want i'm not a fan it's just severe restriction on two days like you're going to lose weight because you're not eating for two days and it just enforces the whole binge restrict thing i am not a fan intermittent fasting now this is something i've

done yeah and i'm so curious about this one sherry because i know that there are some other health benefits in regards to intermittent fasting but I'm interested to know your thoughts on this when you are so passionate about this idea about binge restrict. I have an interesting opinion on this one like everything you're going to find the zealots that are like live and die by intermittent fasting and then the people that say like don't do it you need breakfast there's no right answer like you don't need to eat breakfast and first of all I'll just explain it it's just time restricted feeding and the most popular one is having your last meal at 6 or 8 p.m and then not eating until you know say midday the next day it's essentially just a fancy way of saying skipping breakfast

which there's nothing inherently wrong with that if you are somebody who wakes up and you're not that hungry like I personally wake up and I'm not really hungry for a few hours so I can quite easily get to 11 and then go oh I've got a hunger pang I'm going to eat it's definitely not magic It is just another way of restricting calories, which you need to lose fat. So some people enjoy it because, you know, they're busy in the morning or going to work and they don't really need to eat until lunchtime. So for them, it gives them a small window of eating and they end up consuming fewer calories throughout the day.

But it's not magic and it's not superior to any other calorie deficit diet. What about fasting in regards to like health benefits from giving your digestive system a break, like repairing your body? I know that there has been some research that's been going into how fasting or intermittent fasting, not from a calorie deficit, but how it can help your overall health. Is this what, do you know anything about the validity to this? Any potential claims are vastly overblown. Like your digestive system doesn't need a break. Like our bodies are designed to work all the time it rests overnight that's what an overnight fast is like we're not eating during the night our digestive system's resting you don't need to be fasting the health benefits

are vastly overblown and it's not something that i recommend to people keto diet keto diet is a word keto keto keto it's we're seeing it everywhere it's being thrown around left right and center what are your thoughts on it what is it i hate the keto diet so much it was invented i guess utilized to treat epilepsy in children. And for that, you know, there's some medical things where it can be useful, but generally, so keto is very, very, very few to no carbohydrates, which is not great. That means no, no bread, no pasta, no rice. And people can't tell me that keto rice and keto pasta is a thing. It's just a really, really high fat diet. It starves your gut bacteria. It can increase your risk of heart conditions, constipation. You're not getting

all that fiber it's definitely not superior to any other diet when calories and protein are controlled for the keto diet don't come for me like they love their way of eating and if that's the way you prefer to eat like go for it but as a health professional i definitely don't recommend it because you're cutting out an entire food group you're cutting out carbohydrates which one are delicious to bring enjoyment to your life and if that's not a way that you can sustain eating forever, then why are you doing it? The last one is this stupid, and I'm going to say it's stupid. I'm already calling it stupid, but I would still have an educated opinion. The stupid new fad that's going around that's not even by anyone with a qualification. It's just by

a man. He made it up, but it's called the 75 hard or the hard 75 interchangeable. What is that? Just a quick rundown and what are your thoughts on it? I knew you were going to ask me about this one, Britt. Yeah. And like you say, he doesn't have any qualifications. He's just a guy who's like, I know how to train hard it's essentially you need to follow a diet and he doesn't say which one but whatever you have decided is your quote-unquote diet like say you're doing keto or you're doing clean food or paleo you need to follow that diet and you cannot have any cheap meals or alcohol for the 75 days which straight up that's restrictive because what's going to happen when 75 days is over you're going to fall face first into like 50 pieces you need to work

out twice daily every single day which your body needs to rest you need to rest and repair don't recommend that four liters of water a day you need to have a cold shower a day I think and I think there's some good things I think you're supposed to read an excerpt of a book a day like 20 minutes of a book which is good that's great but essentially the whole like no cheat meals you know work out twice daily follow a diet every day take a photo of yourself every like a progress photo every day again it's just reinforcing the whole binge restrict thing because what are you going to do when your 75 days is up like I know what I would be doing can you tell us about gut health and I know that this is such a broad topic but it's something that's so interesting and we hear

a lot about gut health and like the connection to the brain what I mean very broadly can you touch on that and tell us a little bit about it how important it is what we can do about it Gut health is, isn't it just like the topic of the month or the moment or the year at the moment, especially on social media, because we are learning every day so much more about gut health. It is a really, really complex topic. You know, there are people whose entire careers are dedicated to researching gut health and it's super complex. It's really hard to understand, but it is so important. And we know now that gut health is linked to everything from supporting your immunity to better heart and skin health and to mood like we know that having

a functioning gut helps us and it helps us poop better look the biggest thing that you can do for your gut health is have a variety of plant foods of fruit vegetables legumes seeds nuts and to have a lot of them right like we don't eat enough fiber we don't eat enough plants and we really need to eat more because our gut microbes feed off of fiber and that is what they need so all the good bacteria in our gut need these food to feed off so the recommended amount of fiber is 30 grams a day and most adults actually only get 15 to 18 grams which is not enough so that is the number one thing and i know that's not exciting to say have more fruit and veggies and plants so your gut sorry science sometimes isn't exciting but it's the number one thing that you can do

definitely heard about prebiotics and probiotics. But if you think of probiotics as like your gut bug, so the live beneficial bacteria that lives in your gut, and we need to keep it alive and thriving and striving by feeding it prebiotics. And prebiotic foods are things like fiber, artichokes, garlic, onions, apple, just healthy, healthy foods, dietary fiber. And you don't need to exclusively eat those foods but you do need to make sure that you eat a variety of foods to feed your gut the recommended amount is 30 different types of plants a week that includes things like herbs and seeds and nuts and spices it's easy to get 30 should we be taking supplements then if because i feel like there'd be people out there that probably don't eat 30 a week or maybe you

know some weeks they might some weeks they might not there's all these supplements every time we go to a supermarket or there's always an ad or an Instagram or at the shops or on TV, take these vitamins, take these supplements. You need to be doing this. How important are supplements and specifically in gut health and like pre and probiotics? It's really not that necessary to be supplementing. Like I said, the biggest thing you can do is eat a variety of plant food and fiber. It is really beneficial to be eating food probiotics called live cultures. So those fermented foods like sauerkraut, live yogurts, kefir, kimchi, those fermented foods are really good for your gut. But as for like a probiotic in a like a pill form, the average person,

average healthy human doesn't need to take it. The evidence is just not there that you need to take it. In terms of maybe people with IBS, there is some research that a probiotic could be beneficial, but there's trillions, right? There's so many different probiotics and bacterias and not every single one is going to satisfy a different symptom. So you need to make sure that you're eating or taking the right probiotic. Something that I'm sure everybody or majority of people have tried or have done at some point in their lives, calorie counting. As a nutritionist, what is your opinion and perspective on calorie counting and what are the pros and cons? This is a really, really polarizing topic for the industry because there's two camps. There's

the camp that says like, you only need to count your calories. That's all that matters. Track your macros. That's the only way you can lose weight. And then there's the other side that say like, you know, calorie counting is really dangerous. It's going to give you an eating disorder. And then there's the rest of us that live in the middle where we know it's just a tool. So calorie counting is just tracking the food that you eat. So all food has calories. Calories are just a unit of energy and calorie counting is just tracking, usually in an app like MyFitnessPal, tracking the food that you eat. And it definitely has benefits for some people and it definitely can be really dangerous for other people. So from the benefit side of things, it brings an awareness

to some people that may have no idea about food literacy or calorie literacy. And for people that don't have a good awareness, it can be really helpful for people that are really type A and quite like data and they like to visually see things. It can be really beneficial. Some people, and I have clients that do track their food and have been really successful, but it is completely unique because it can be really dangerous. It can lead to really obsessive eating, disordered eating. It can be frustrating and time consuming, and it can make people preoccupied with just the numbers and saying, oh, I can make this fit my macros, and then completely losing focus of health and the fact that healthy foods still matter. It's not about just eating 2000 calories of chocolate

and peanut butter and I will lose weight. Well, like, yeah, you will, but you're not going to be healthy. So you need to balance tracking your food and health and enjoyment of eating, not listening to an app to tell you when to eat. So yeah, like I say, it's quite polarizing. And but for the average person, you don't need to track your food. You don't need to calorie count. If it's something that works for you go for it if you're an athlete that needs to get in enough protein enough calories go for it but the average person it's just you don't need to and you just need to be super self-aware that if you're somebody that has a history of disordered eating or a history of obsessive eating or you know that you get really preoccupied with something then it's probably not

going to be a good idea for you now i feel like i sort of know your opinion on this i personally love a Coke Zero or like a Coke No Sugar, something like that. I love them. I feel like they're a little bit of a treat. I feel like I'm having the real thing, but I feel in my brain, it's like, oh, this is better because it's got no sugar in it. What are your thoughts on all these sugar-free alternatives? Like it gets a really bad rap, artificial sweeteners, but there's no research to say that it's detrimental to us. There's no research to say that it's giving us cancer or causes weight gain. Like how can it cause weight gain? There's zero calories in zero calorie drinks. I put sugar-free cordial in my water and I love it.

It can be really good for people who struggle to get water. This is your permission to have your Coke Zero. It's totally fine. Sherry, why do you think it is so important for us to have a good relationship with our food? And also for women who are in their thirties now, or for our listeners who are in their twenties, who have grown up in this crazy diet culture, why is it so important that we educate ourselves and really improve our relationship with eating? I think the biggest thing is like we don't want to be fucking dieting forever like we do not want to be starting a new diet every single Monday it's so exhausting and it takes up so much of our brain space that can be better used for so many things what we look like and our body weight

is the least important thing about us and if if we're constantly thinking about food and our relationship and being naughty eating this and being good eating that we like lose so much brain space for cultivating good relationships with our friends and our family and reading and traveling and enjoying things and going to the beach and wearing a bikini without thinking what you look like it really shouldn't take up that much of our brain space like thinking about food it's so freaking exhausting and i don't want women to do it i think it also comes from this comparison culture social media and how social media whether we want to admit it or not it literally rules our life and I know over I mean I Laura and I were in our 30s Sherry you're 30 over the last like my

whole adulthood probably from when I came into my teens and I was starting to buy magazines dolly magazines they were all really really skinny women like our generation that we looked up to was the Kate Moss generation it was the cocaine chic that looks like you were sick and if you're an impressionable woman or young girl and this is what you're oh this person that's famous in this movie this person that's on the front cover of this magazine everyone was sickly skinny so I think that that starts to be ingraining you as a young child and even now fucking bullshit I'm gonna call bullshit on Instagram most of the people that you look at myself included if I ever post a good photo for every good photo I post where I look fantastic there are 20 that I've taken

that I think don't look fantastic it's just that we're not seeing that we're seeing a highlight reel of absolutely everybody and that's what we've got to what we think live up to but we really need to break that cycle and I think that our generation I think we're starting to now we're starting to see who we shouldn't even call them plus size models they should just be models but that's the category they've fallen into which all that's doing is showing you that we're slowly moving in the right direction but we're still not quite there yet the fact that we have to have that label means we're on our way but we haven't quite reached where we need to be we are we are doing so much better. And I think like you say, Britt, it's comparison culture, right? So like everyone you

look at on Instagram, I tell my clients all the time, they don't even look like that. Like that person has contorted their body to get in the very best lighting. They're not showing what they really look like. We're coming so far. We're realizing that skinnier does not mean healthier and that people in bigger bodies can be perfectly healthy and live a super healthy life, be metabolically healthy being the skinniest version of yourself should not be your end goal and i think social media can be really damaging but it can be really positive there are some really positive role models out there that are really fighting the good fight there are people that are out there that are naturally very skinny there are people out there that are naturally larger and your body

is your body and everyone has their own and we can look the way we look as long as we're healthy and living a good life like who cares at the end of the day like just look after yourself and you've only got one body so treat it well I just think about my 20s and I think about how like how much I restricted myself and how many things I missed out on because I didn't want to eat or I didn't want to you know like for example we would go out for dinners with friends and I would eat something small at home and I wouldn't eat out with my friends and I didn't realize at the time how fucking dysfunctional that was but I did it because I was like no I want to know exactly what I'm eating in this day because I wanted to be a certain size and so much of my brain space

so much of my energy was taken up by wanting to be skinny and it was fucking exhausting to be honest and I think that that's the biggest fear as well is having something that is truly so insignificant take over so much significant mind space Sherry thank you so much for joining us we've been saying for so long that we wanted to get you on the pod to talk about nutrition to talk about how people can better their relationships with food can you please tell everyone where they can find you and how they can follow you on socials thank you so much for having me girls it's been a pleasure you guys can find me on instagram at sherry health s-h-e-r-i health you will find me there drinking gin drinking wine eating carbs all day and trying to debunk the nutrition myths out there

And if you guys haven't seen Sherry's very famous cheesecake, you guys just want to go and follow her on Instagram to get that recipe because it is lit city. Yeah, the cheesecake's amazing. Thanks, girls. All right, you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our lowlight of each and every week. Brittany, you can hit me with yours first.

I mean, I feel like mine is pretty obvious. mine is just my hardcore lockdown in quarantine hotel in Adelaide my suite will probably be I guess the same sort of thing the fact that I've made it back to Australia because it was touch and go there for a while I wasn't sure when I was going to come back and it means I'm one step closer to getting my life back to normal to seeing Laura to seeing the girls who have grown up so much I feel like they're not even going to remember me anymore and yeah just to get him back on track with the podcast as well okay that was I yes all of these things you're like okay cool you smash that out like yeah I've never seen you ever do a suck in a sweet so quick in my life well there's

not a lot going on down here Laura this is true this is true do you know what make sure that you visit a nice winery on your way out actually is Adelaide in lockdown as well I don't even know what's happening in the world anymore Adelaide's not a hot spot so Adelaide's fine go have a nice little trip to a winery on your way after you leave quarantine before you come back to the hellhole that is Sydney at the moment but okay my second sweet for the week my suck is that today is a public holiday and I know public holidays are meant to be great but a public holiday just means that Marley is home from daycare so it's like every other day holidays mean fucking shit all right now so being a public holiday has just made it a little bit more challenging because

Marley's home there's no help and we still have work to get through and I'm currently trying to record this podcast while Matt is taking the kids for just laps around the block in the pram secondly to that is I just took a massive swig of my very cold soy cappuccino and anyone knows if you've left soy milk sitting for too long it goes clumpy like has like those chunky bits in it so I just swigged down some chunky soy milk which I'm pretty upset about okay and my sweet for the week is that yesterday was Sunday and we went to the beach and had a really cute family time I did see that that was very cute we were far away from all the other families but it was really nice just get out of the house be in the sunshine everything is just infinitely better when the sun is shining

that was so deep i was like is there more to that yes laura life is better when the sun is shining that is a wrap on our episode guys if you loved it please go on subscribe hit five stars if you feel an extra cheeky leave us a review if you haven't already and keep the ask uncuts coming into the instagram dms keep the accidentally unfiltered and now keep the confessionals and that is it from us tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love love We'll be right back.