Real Girls Radio - EP 29: "That one conversation changed my whole life" - GUEST Em the Nutritionist

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Grab some snacks and chillax whilst we chat WITH... Em the Nutritionist, a former model and deliveroo chef, who is now a social media nutritionist and a big advocate for yummy, home cooked meals filled with everything that can feed the body and soul.We dive into Em's experience in the modelling industry and why she'll never go down that road again. We also touch on myth busting some food rules that society has ingrained, as well as learning a lot about nutrition, the gut and some of Em's favourite meals to make.We really loved having Em on and sharing similar experiences! You can find her on instagram @emthenutritionistSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/e-1-the-unheard-truth-of-millys-journey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the Acast Supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now. This podcast episode is sponsored by Empower Online Coaching. Okay guys, so I'm sure lots of you already know, but I have worked with Emma, who was my coach when I was going through my weight gain journey. Emma, honestly, when I say it was a game changer, I am not even kidding. Just to have that accountability, support and educational guidance, it was honestly such a win. I loved it. Oh, thanks. No, I'm genuinely so proud of you. Honestly, coaching women through their health and fitness journeys is genuinely one of my biggest passions, which is why I set up Empower Online Coaching in the first place. I was just fed up with seeing these cookie cutter plans and one-size-fits-all approaches in the coaching

industry so I really wanted to reinvent the space and create the ultimate personalized health and fitness experience. So Empower Online Coaching is a safe and supportive place for women to get their guidance that they need to reach their health and fitness goals. Whether your goal is to lose body fat, improve your relationship with food, gain weight or build a bum, Emma and her team are your go-to girls. We're basically your in-pocket cheerleader hype girls who will also educate and support you to your end goal. Everything will be housed on the Empower app where you'll get bespoke training programmes, nutrition plans, food inspo, educational ebooks and so much more.

You can log your progress every week through the check-in feature where you'll receive weekly changes, updates and personalized feedback. And you can communicate with myself and my incredible team through the in-app WhatsApp style chat day or night. But just remember, we aren't robots and do actually need sleep. And we have an exclusive discount code for the Real Girls Radio listeners. We've never actually done a discount code for the real girls radio listeners we've never actually done a discount code before you know no so this is very exclusive but if you inquire about online coaching before christmas which is 25th december for those of you who don't know and quote real girls radio you will receive a huge 20 off your coaching subscription. So go to empoweronlinecoaching.com, fill out your

deets and quote Real Girls Radio for 20% off. I said Real Girls Radio. I can't guarantee that your bum's gonna look as good as my face but I will give it a good shot. Love that. Hello and welcome to Bro Girls Radio. I'm Millie. And I'm Emma. And we are both very normal bro girls just like you. Here to talk about all things health, fitness and navigating your way through this crazy life. We're your new besties. We want you to feel part of our weekly chats and we're excited to invite you in to our exclusive girl gang.

Grab some snacks and chillax whilst we chat. Woo! Yeah. Okay, I think we've got it. Hello, everyone. Hello and welcome back. Welcome back. Sorry we missed you guys last week.

Yeah. That was a bit of... Millie was away and we just, yeah. We just fucked it up there a bit. But we're back and we've got a guest with us. Very special guest um otherwise known as em the nutritionist on instagram hi everyone so i have been following you literally from day one i've been like an og follower yeah like since you had like 8 000

followers oh my god no way and you've just blown up it's bonkers isn't it yeah it's bad how it works tell us a little bit about like how you started, a little introduction to you, who you are, for the listeners who don't already follow you. Yeah so I'm Emily and basically I'm the nutritionist who always promotes the joy of food and my main kind of tagline would be food you want to eat designed by a nutritionist and the reason how I kind of got into it in the first place is that I didn't have an easy journey with food from the start so taking it way back to when I was a kid food was such an important part of my life my family everything revolved around

the dinner table like my mum and my granny like they're both amazing cooks my granny had a restaurant and I used to work there so always exposed to just eating a good food I've also always been a science geek so any sort of chemistry biology human physiology all of that stuff loved it and I was originally going to go to university to do human physiology okay um what actually is that basically how the body works so understand it's not becoming a doctor but it's essentially just learning all of the basics of the human body yeah yeah and then one day I was at Bee Festival when I was 16 or 17 I can't quite remember and I got a an ASOS gal who came up to me and offered me a test shoot in London so I did this test shoot and then I got an ASOS gal who came up to me and offered me a test shoot in London. So I did this test shoot and then I got the job.

So I was the first in-house model at ASOS. And it was amazing. It was awesome. Like I was so young. I was on the website of the place I used to shop in. And they were amazing. And they really took care of me. I had the best time there.

Then they thought they were gonna do something really great for me by getting me an agent. So that's the kind of the real world. I hadn't really been exposed to like the real world of the fashion industry yet. So I got the agent, I was living my best life. I traveled so much over the summer. I went to Chicago with my mom,

ate all the good eats of course, because everywhere I went went I was like, I wanna try this restaurant, I wanna have this food. It never, I never had any guilt over that. So then I came back from Chicago and. How old were you at this point? I was 17. Oh okay.

Yeah, and. Still very young. Still super, super young. Came back from Chicago and the agency basically were like, oh well you've been having a good time, haven't you? And I was like yeah, yeah, and basically were like, oh well you've been having a good time, haven't you? And I was like, yeah, yeah. And they were like, yeah we can kind of see that you've put on a bit of weight.

And they were like, I think we need to look at your thighs and try and get back to them. They were showing me pictures of what I used to look like when I was younger. And you know when you get to that age, I was growing up as a woman. Your body changes. Your body changes massively.

And I felt like that change was wrong. And then I've always been someone who is, I want to make people happy and I want to please people, but in a positive way. But all I wanted to do at that point in time was make my management or my agency happy. I was like, yeah, do you know what? I can do this.

I remember I got the train home, I put on my running trainers and I ran and just start and like start myself basically. So when my mom made dinner, I was like, can't eat that. And so it was really all triggered from that one comment from your agent. That one conversation changed my whole life. It's always one thing, isn't it?

One thing, one switch. Yeah. And suddenly I had this huge fear of food and it was definitely around that time as well where clean eating became really prolific on social media. So you know where everyone used to be like, make this this free, gluten-free, wheat-free, refined-free bread. And it used to be like,

go to the shop spending 10 quid on different things. And it was all these like super foods. And like good versus bad foods. And just plagued by tiny, tiny, tiny girls who were super tan and gorgeous and literally just ate fruit. And I unfortunately was caught up in that. And I was very lucky that I saw the most incredible therapist who changed my

whole life I did loads of CBT because I knew that that wasn't what I wanted to be I wanted to have my relationship with food that I used to have I wanted that freedom again because every single decision I made there was another voice in my head telling me, you shouldn't do that, that's gonna make you fat, you're not gonna be worthy if you do that. So it was breaking out of that cycle of the disordered voice essentially. And once I cracked that, I was like, okay, enough's enough. I left all of the whole industry. It wasn't anything to do with ASOS, they were amazing,

but it was time to kind of go in that sense. And I was like, it's time to go to uni now. And I swapped my course from human physiology to nutrition and the rest is history. Which we will definitely delve into. There is so much that I wanna get into with you. And before Millie got here, we were jumping into the conversation

and then I was like, no wait, we'll save it for the podcast. Save it for the podcast. But yeah, we will delve into that. Should we start with our flop and flies? So welcome back from skiing. Can you start? Should we start with a fly today? Yeah, I think we should.

We always start with a fly. Let's start with a fly. So, and I think you should go first. Cause I always go first, don't I? You do, okay. My fly. So, and I think you should go first. Because I always go first, don't I? You do. Okay. My fly. Oh, my fly is just that I'm having a really great January. And I feel like, you know, a lot of people get into, like, a January funk.

And it's a bit, like, depressing, like, after Christmas. But I've just been, like, planning lots of fun activities. I went to Manchester last week with my friend. Oh, fun. We're in London this weekend because it's my birthday next week and I've just like been planning lots of fun things to do oh that's nice and what was your flop my flop I mean kind of contradicts that a little bit but you know like a lot of people will go into the new year and be like new year new me um going to leave all of the things they were struggling with in 2022 i was so like i was putting so much pressure on myself to just be straight into this like new me like completely healed thriving happy optimistic right and because

of like some situations going on in my life which have been very stressful and intense in my private life i have not been able to like enter that like healthy healed girl era yet because i've just had a lot of like anxious days and panic attacks because of things going on so i'm just trying to like not put too much pressure on myself to be this super positive, optimistic person straight away. Well, like we said in our previous podcast episodes, it's always just like, it's not down to society's timeline, it's down to your timeline.

So I'm just being kind to myself and not putting pressure on myself to be this 180 change person straight away. It's not gonna happen overnight so yeah my flop is just that i've had a lot of anxious panicky days yeah that's fine we're working for it it's temporary yeah temporary yeah we will um your fly my fly has to be probably like the same as you. This time last year, if I imagine where I am now, I'm every bit of the person I ever hoped I'd be.

Oh, that's lovely. And that's such an amazing feeling to becoming the businesswoman, the person, the person, the girlfriend, the friend to everyone. I feel like I'm really just the best version of me at the moment. It's really, really, really beautiful. That's that.

Aw, so happy for you. That's really nice. Aw. What about your flop? Flop is sleep at the moment. Like I have really bad insomnia and I really have to work on my sleep pattern. And I've been a nightmare with

working up until like half ten at night and then just getting straight into bed and then wondering why I'm not sleeping. Oh, yeah. That was us. Yeah, yeah. That was me last night. I was up at 1am.

Yeah. Editing my fucking YouTube video. And it's so important as well. Not many people appreciate how important sleep actually is for your health, but for everything. Yeah, that's a tricky one. That one. no i did my fly so my fly is my skiing holiday obviously it was just like the best time ever and i learned how to ski i met you look like you're pretty good at it do you think

yeah not sure but maybe you're just showing the best yeah i think i am i felt twice i feel like that was pretty good going for like five days um and I just met loads of like you guys out there and I just made some new friends it was just like just the best time ever oh you know when you come back and you're just like looking through all your photos and videos like just wishing you were back again awesome so awesome um and then my flop is so when I was away I was triggered by a guy that made me cry. I met him that night. What happened? He made me cry.

What? No, it was my shit, it was my stuff. But I just felt rejection and I was just like, fuck this. And I was like messaging my therapist. Okay, details. But it was fine because he didn't reject me. So I saw him the next day. But he's 20 years old, so.

I found out he was 20 years old. So did you like 20 years old for a kiss or something and he said no no no it was more that um we had how much detail do i go into here we'd plan to i'd plan to stay at his okay and then towards the end of the night i saw him with another girl and i was like that's weird and then yeah that's basically it right and yeah i just was like triggered hurt you a little bit yeah i mean a bit but it was fine i woke up this morning i was like i don't need no more okay and now he's like running back and that's me all the time i'm like always happen honey um so yeah that was my flop but yeah wow i'm glad you had a good time yeah it's lovely anyway should we get to the episode yeah let's get into the episode right so we when we get a

guest on we like to start with a little icebreaker yes we do i've got some icebreakers for you do you want to go first yeah have you got some as well i've got one perfectbreakers for you. Do you wanna go first? Yeah, have you got some as well? I've got one. Perfect, okay. So which one do I begin with? Let's go for an easy one. What's your favorite song? Oh my God, that's not easy. That is not easy. It's like, so, I don't know, it has to be something,

it has to be an album for me. Okay. For some reason. Fair enough. Beyonce's live homecoming album, the one she did at Coachella, is the vibe. Like every single gym session, I guarantee, like I'm at least putting one section of that on. Iconic, so good.

That's a good answer. That's a great answer. That would have thrown me if you asked me that. It's a bit of a cheat though, saying the whole album, but I can't pinpoint one song. Yeah, no, I agree. To be fair, like my favorite song changes all the time. Yeah, it depends on your mood.

Like music, if I'm ever feeling sad, stick your headphones on and go for a walk on like an album that actually makes you happy, will always pick you up. But we were saying in the other episode that when people are sad, they wanna listen to sad songs. I don't wanna do that. I think it's like expressing yourself.

You know, sometimes when it's better out than in, sometimes you just need a good cry. If you're feeling really pent up and emotional, cry it out. And like we said, it's the relatability aspect. I'm not the only person who's sad in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You go for the next one. Okay, my question is, what is your favorite product

or item you bought within the last year? My air fryer. I remember when I bought it home, my boyfriend was like, what is that? We do not need any more equipment in the kitchen, gadgets, I'm like, just you wait. Now he's obsessed. But you do everything, I do my toast in it.

My toast, yeah. I do it on my toast. What air fryer do you have? It's a number one on Amazon, and it's not too expensive as well. It's called Cazorri. And it's just perfect, it's not too big as well. It's called Kazori. And it's just perfect. Like it's not too big. It's all black.

It's really sleek. It's tucked into the corner. You get that at the double draw ninja ones, but they're just massive. They're so bulky. And yeah, I do all my veggies in it. You can do like potatoes. Have you done sweet stuff in it yet?

Like muffins? No, not yet. No, I need to get the little muffin cases. It comes all like the accessories that you get. Sobc try that one more question what is your favorite recipe to make in the active in the air fryer in the air fryer i've got to be toasty they do the best like i need to try this heaven toasties because you know sometimes when you do a toasty press they go like too thin and too crispy on the outside. They are stunning.

Oh my god, I literally had a sandwich yesterday and I was like, if I had a toaster. Whack it in the air fire. Yeah. I should have done that. Game changer. Okay, next time, next time. Okay, maybe one more?

One more, let's see one more. Oh, I've got quite a few here. What did you want to be when you were younger? I wanted to be a teacher, weirdly. Yeah, and I feel like I'm doing, I'm teaching people in a way. Channeling that in another way. Yeah, in a different way,

but I've always wanted to help people learn something about, but it used to be about biology or science. Quite a science nerd. Massive geek, like obsessed. It all kind of like fits and yeah it does yeah but i always like to net i think the one thing that nutrition sometimes does wrong is that it detaches the human nature from how we eat like we don't just eat nutrients yeah and i think sometimes people can get so obsessed with calories numbers macros they actually lose track of like

their identity through food so if you think about the dishes that your mom used to like cycle on a regular basis in the week like they were just her food maybe she got those recipes from her grandma and it's really important that we still think about how much food makes you feel from more of like an emotional sense not just what nutrition is this giving me don't strip the soul from from it. Yeah, I always say you gotta fuel your body, but you also need to feed the soul. That is, yeah, 100%. I was gonna ask you, so obviously now you know

so much about food and so much about nutrition. Has it helped you with your relationship with food? Because you know sometimes naivety is bliss sometimes. What way has it gone with your relationship with food? Like, helped me massively yeah and I think the most important thing is is doing essentially what I just said like making sure that I keep that very joyful free mindset like I cook with love and also from like a chefy angle as well I don't just cook as a nutritionist and I definitely think that's what puts me in like a unique perspective for my social media platform because like I'm I'm I am a nutritionist I do help

people with eating well eating better feeling good but I also help people become better cooks at the same time that's so true and I actually think sometimes like becoming a better cook and like putting more love and effort and care into your cooking can actually like make you want to eat healthier 100 yeah they get 100 for sure but i say eating beautifully um kind of feeds into um like feeling beautiful as well so you just take that time to present things nicely if you were giving a bowl of food to someone that you love and care about what would it look like and then if you look at the bowl of food you give yourself why would it be any different like you should feed you the same way that you feed people that

you love so true and it just makes you feel it's like romanticizing everything like yeah i like to make my food look so pretty and aesthetic yeah you're really good at that yeah because then it makes you yeah yeah i need to be better at that and you love it all on a plate yeah yeah i literally just grab any ingredient and chuck it all together and put it in a plate i remember i remember when i first met my boyfriend um he used to be a vegan and he used to just cook like whole packs of vegan sausages and he just used to line them up on a plate and be like a dollop of ketchup and that was his meal he's like well i'm getting like 40 grams of protein. And you're like, no, no, I can't not be doing something

like that. But when he used to cook for me, like the most beautiful vegan risottos, like crispy mushrooms on top. So he had the potential. He is an amazing cook. He's an amazing cook. Do you think he's learned a lot from you?

Definitely. Yeah, yeah. But it's like the little, he was always a really good cook, but we just bounce off each other really well in the kitchen. We can't cook together though. Right. That's the-

But there's two chefs in the kitchen. No, don't do it. Arguments always happen. So did you convert him back from being a vegan? I did, yeah. Well, it started off because I had a delivery kitchen at the time and I had the most amazing supplies of things like eggs um so we started off just having kind of eggs from time

to time um and we don't eat anything in excess and we always try and be like really careful of like where we're getting it from and and being conscious of seasonality and things like that um but yeah he just slowly transitioned to my pattern of eating, which I just think happens naturally when you live with someone and it's constantly making two separate dinners just wasn't really the ideal situation.

So. How long had he been vegan for? Two, three years. But he was very much of a vegan to influence other cultures who need to be influenced by us so if you think about um china um and the kind of whole asian um population the influence that um westerners have actually on there so he was almost making a statement that like if more of us stand for

veganism then it can actually influence more people to reduce their overall consumption of meat um but he wasn't doing it for um any other kind of reason reason than that i do feel kind of slightly guilty that i've just like balled in with my cheese and my eggs and kind of ruined it all but um everything in moderation yeah do you have many vegan clients i do yeah a lot of vegetarian clients so you see from my page like I'm not I don't do fully vegan recipes like most of the time just because I cook how I cook I know what I know and and it's all about again as I said like healthy balance moderation for me but so many vegetarians I work with because you can eat incredible plant predominpredominant-based diets and still get everything in that you need.

It just needs a little bit more planning. Yeah, I agree. I think that's where I fall. That's where I just chuck loads of ingredients in a pan, because I'm like... Are you veggie? Yeah, well, I'm pesky. So I went through, like, so I was normal eating,

then I went to pesky, then I went to veggie, and then it kind of translated into a little bit of a vegan, but now I'm back to pesky. Yeah. So I just thought it was just too hard. Yeah. And I'm not really a good planner with my food. So I, I just went back to eating fish because it's just a very quick and easy, convenient

way of getting some protein in. What was your, what was your reason for? For going pesky. So I was traveling when I was 19 and I was going to all like the Asian places. Yeah. And I kind of, you just hear stories of like not wanting to eat meat because people get like food poisoning or whatever. I was 19 and I was going to all the Asian places. You just hear stories of not wanting to eat meat because people get food poisoning or whatever.

So I was like, I'm just gonna avoid meat. And then I didn't really struggle at all. And then I was in Australia, went to Melbourne and I saw lots of protests, vegan protests and stuff. And I was just quite interested by it. So I looked it up, I came across some documentaries, I was just like quite interested by it so I like looked up looked at some like I came across some documentaries looking at those and then it kind of like made me just want to not eat meat at all yeah then I came back home and I was like I'm just going to continue on with this so it's just a very like slow transition it wasn't like a straight quick

overnight um sort of thing but then yeah ever since I haven't eaten meat yeah I just feel like I haven't craved it you you definitely can go off it yeah you hear so many people who but like who knows i never say that i'll never eat meat again like people ask me will you ever eat it again i'll like i never never say never i think like people just don't need to put themselves into a label like yeah i i actually don't eat that much meat anymore but i'm not a vegan not vegetarian like i just eat like what i feel like eating you know and that and that's the thing like not everything has to fit into a box yeah and i say like the same way that you eat is the same way that you dress you don't all dress the same you

don't have like this is the five categories of outfits that you can wear and you can only wear that one yeah like you can just do whatever i I guess whilst we're on the topic of veganism and vegetarian and stuff, it would be good to bust some myths on that because a lot of people will correlate being a vegan to being healthier. Healthy, low calorie, stuff like that. So maybe you could touch on that from a nutritionist perspective

and how putting yourself into that vegan bracket or gluten-free when you're not actually intolerant to gluten. I can't believe that still flies around really. So we'll start with the veganism. It's veganism doesn't necessarily mean plant-based and what I have or see a lot of is this ultra processed pattern of veganism. So people who turn vegan and suddenly eat much more vegan, they basically just turn for all the substitutes so it's like how can i eat the same diet that i was eating before but just now just loading myself with loads of these synthetic kind of high alt alt process where the reality is no

you should be cooking with more legumes and pulses adding lentils to your sauces like getting massive diversity and variety of plants checking into seasonality more like seeing if you can go to farmers markets which pop up everywhere if that is something that you're conscious with and to get a little bit uh extra bit of protein of course like protein shakes are such a brilliant way there's so many incredible vegan protein-based companies out there nowadays as well some of the um soy like i love a bit of corn it's absolutely brilliant stuff it's been around for ages. It's affordable. It's cheap.

And it's just like a, it's a. Is that corn? Corn, yeah. The corn substitute. Absolutely brilliant. You don't need to be having all these, like, processed packaged vegan ready meals, vegan bacon, like all these things.

I just, I just personally don't look at that and think that's a better option than. And then when it comes to this whole gluten-free thing,'s i always say if someone says to me i don't know if i'm intolerant to gluten i'm like you you will know if you have a gluten intolerance you're going to know about it when you're eating bread you're going to be in so much pain you're going to be cramping you're going to be bloating it's not it's not gonna be a happy situation and people just suddenly cutting out of their diet you end up almost developing your gluten intolerance because you've done this like person like you've taken upon yourself to take out all these foods because you think they're

the ones to blame because it's very mainstream like gluten and dairy are like the first two that everyone seems to jump to but that's what i did I did with dairy. I made myself a part of it. And you cut it out, yeah. And it's, I see it's so common, like in, and it's unfortunate because I often say, you have to actually think about, it's your gut responding to the food that you're eating, not necessarily the food triggering your guts most of the time.

And why is your gut responding that way? Are you sleeping well? Are you stressed? Are you getting in enough diversity? Like, are you having ultra processed foods? And all those things will have an impact in your digestive system and how you're digesting your food.

So rather than just jumping to the gun being like, I have an intolerance, actually look at inside out. Yeah. And it can even be a case of like taking too much or the wrong type of probiotics. So by actually over-complicating it and making it so technical, you're just causing yourself more problems.

Keep it simple, keep it simple. And again, the people who actually have really severe gut issues, you know. You just know about it. And a lot of clients will come to me and say, oh, I wanna cut out gluten and dairy because they want to lose weight. And it's just such a silly mindset to go into.

Like if you want to lose body fat, like you do not have to cut out gluten or dairy or go vegan. So it's good to get yourself a nutritionist cleared up. It's a shame. I can't believe it's still impacting people now because i feel like it same time that all of that gluten-free bread make it at home and and that whole phase of social media cooking went around i feel like those demons or gluten and dairy have just carried on through and just haven't really gone and i don't know why the

next generations as well yeah and i probably have over time like we're all humans gonna be bloody intolerant yeah we've been we've been eating bread and and gluten grains for as long as long like ancestors everything of course if you eat half a loaf then you're probably gonna have a stomach issues because your body can't break it down properly but yeah no don't always just jump to the gun and think yeah i'm intolerant something did you think if it wasn't for your past with your relationship with like food and stuff that you you would be going down the nutrition road or have you always kind of wanted to do that i'd probably do something in food potentially um i'm not like food science creating maybe, yeah. It's really hard to tell because all I know is what I've done and I am now.

So it's very hard to kind of like look in hindsight and think, oh, I imagine what I would have been. But I've always been obsessed with food and restaurants. I guess like you said, with your childhood and like your family being so like food centered and being such a foodie, you were always going to be inclined to do something with food.

Yeah, always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's my passion. It's, I don't work a day in my life because every single day I do something I love. Which is, I'm so lucky. I feel so grateful for that. That's really good.

In like, during your modeling days, did they have food on set? And if so, was it like low calorie, like the typical sort of set and if so was it like low calorie like the typical sort of low calorie foods or was it like well do you know what it's it all depends on obviously who was doing production most of the time it would be like gales and they'll get like pastries and coffee it'd be really sweet but i remember at the time i'd be like i can't eat those i used to starve myself on set because and it used to be like how little can i eat and it used to starve myself on set because, and it used to be like, how little can I eat? And it used to be like an apple,

just to like try and keep me going. But also I had no understanding about proper nutrition at that time. All I thought was I need to eat the lowest calories as possible and I'm going to lose weight. I didn't understand how I was wrecking my hormones. I didn't understand how I wasn't getting enough protein and my muscle was deteriorating

like i had no idea for those things and i like my social media to be a platform that if i found me at that point i would have learned so much and i want it to be that open friendly fun space that helps people and the messages and my community they are so amazing yeah it's so rewarding it's so they're the best yeah like and it's so amazing to have a social media platform and a space that can influence people in such a positive way and like as you guys know it's it's just phenomenal how many people you can reach it's the best feeling it's also phenomenal how many people can relate as well yeah yeah it goes both ways it's like when i first realized how many people can relate as well. Yeah. Yeah. It goes both ways. It's like when I first realized how many people were struggling, I was like, oh, gosh, I'm not the only one.

Like, this is mad. So many people who I even knew from school who would, like, say, God, yeah, I used to struggle a lot. I was like, I never knew. Yeah. I never knew. It was all so secretive and hidden. Did you have a lot of, like, model friends

who were kind of doing the same behaviors as you? It's difficult to say i don't think i don't think anyone who was a model was going out and eating freely i think everyone was conscious in a way and the one thing that's really important is that not everyone has an eating disorder mind so some people put themselves on a diet and they're like counting their calories they're not doing they don't necessarily have a negative relationship with food that's just what they do they're just a little bit more black and white and i think the issue is sometimes we can assume our feelings onto everyone else so if someone says oh actually i don't want chips or can i have my salad dressing on the side a person with an eating disorder

they'll be like that person's ill yeah but they're just like i actually you know i just had a burger last night i'm just trying to be a bit lighter today so or maybe they just don't like chips exactly yeah and it's you have to give people allowance just to like be themselves and make their own decisions and i think the health and fitness and nutrition industry is so opinionated. Do you find everyone has an opinion? Very opinionated. I think it's because you're being on social media, you're exposed to everyone's opinion.

So you're a lot more at risk to controversy or causing. You can never please everyone. Like something you say or post will trigger someone out there, 100%. And like my view on food is just my opinion on nutrition. I'm not saying that my way is the only way. I just like if you want to cook my food and feel this and and i guide my clients in my own personal way great yeah that's what they want and that's why that's what they like and that's why they follow me and you're not yeah that's the thing you're not forcing them to

follow you either it's like if there's any negativity i'm just like don't follow me there. Go away. Do you, I very, very rarely get any hate though. Do you get any hate at all? Honestly, rarely. Like if I do, it would be about a photo being edited, which is, I take as a compliment because obviously it's not edited. So I'm like, you know what, you can think that because I'll absolutely take that.

That's my buddy. Yeah, or like, or some people could say, you know, like an old man or something, say I preferred you at this, when you were skinnier. But that's literally it. Like, I never take it to heart. Yeah.

What about you? I don't really get any hate. I did actually the other day about like, clothing I wear. Oh. Like, that's a bit like... The other day? Yeah.

I was going to talk about it in the next podcast. Hmm. Did you post a picture that made that up? Yeah, basically saying that I dress like a slut. Nice. But I don't really get any hate, really. Yeah. It's great.

It's very rare. I actually think it's because all of us have a platform which is inspiring to help or educate other people. If we were just posting pictures of ourselves and being quite like superficial pretentious and i think we'd probably be getting a bit more backlash yeah we're not trying to make other people feel bad about themselves like it's trying to help yeah so in terms of um social media and being like you know posting all the time do you ever get creative fatigue or like, do you ever feel like, you know, you don't know what recipe to make

and you just struggle with that? I can't cook when I'm not happy. So my best recipes come when I literally wake up in the morning. I'm like, right, I'm going to go on my walk, listen to a podcast, go to Sano's. I walk into Sainsbury's, I pick up some things, I go home and I just cook.

So everything just comes from my brain. Yeah. And I think it's actually weirdly the one talent I never really realised that I had. It's like I can write a recipe in my mind. Wow. Which is really cool. I've started being able to do that.

I can just randomly make it up. Yeah, you can taste it before you've made it. I just know how it's going to taste. I wish I could do that. That's a superpower. Oh my God, yeah. I'll tell you do that that's a superpower I'll say that what a superpower recipes in my head no I love that like I with you as well when you make all your little like desserts and stuff I'm like how do you know the ratios I yeah like I made this

like biscoff banana bread the other day and I literally just threw ingredients into a bowl and it came out so good i was like are there any recipes that you've made and you're like gosh i can't yeah what has been like a recipe disaster or something that's gone wrong uh or is your superpower just so good yeah so perfect and i don't mess anything up um i can't do it it's actually a really good question i'm trying and there's definitely been something that i've absolutely fucked up but i can't actually remember so it'll only ever be if i've like burnt something but i keep things i keep things simple like i don't necessarily do things in a way that's going to be so complicated that i'm not a baker are you not no like absolutely not so do you not think the skills like would transfer they're so different really ask any chef in the

kitchen you're either a pastry chef or you're you're a chef who's doing like the main food like they you can't cross them over most really good chefs are crap bakers that's so funny you're a baker then well i think you're a bit both yeah chef chef do you think you'd ever want to like go into a kitchen? Well, when I did, so I literally had a full-functioning Deliveroo kitchen. Yeah, can we talk about that? That's incredible.

It was bonkers. It was a bonkers time in my life. The Deliveroo kitchen. I had a Deliveroo kitchen. So I got approached by some guys who had a Deliveroo kitchen from a totally different company, and they were like, look, we've got space.

Do you want to launch a kitchen delivery kitchen i called it the nutritionist table and i made all the food myself like i was actually behind i was in the kitchen doing it packing it up giving it to the driver all day off your door all day and it was high of pandemic where everything was still closed around two years ago now um and it was the hardest thing i have ever like i respect anyone who has a restaurant or a kitchen or is a cook because trying to find staff trying to keep things quality, keeping track of making sure everything's fresh. And I literally used to wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning to prep. I was also doing food prep for Warner Brothers Studios

for one of their film sets at the time. So I'd do all the prep for my private clients, package it up, then do boil 50 eggs at a time and package all my salads up and everything. That is a skill. It was insane. The hardest thing I've ever done, never cried so much in my life.

Oh no. And when it closed, I was like, I will never. Wow. I will never open a restaurant ever again, but best experience ever. Do you know what though? That's probably why you're such a great chef today. I'm so quick.

Perfect pressure. It's one thing that whenever, if my boyfriend comes home and it's like eight o'clock and he's like, oh, I'm gonna cook dinner. I'm like, no you're not because I'm not eating at 10. No. So I'll literally make something that'll be done in 15 minutes.

He's like, how did you do that? I was like, speak. What's your favorite recipe? Chicken lasagna. Oh, see, I've not tried it. I saw yours. So iconic. It's the one thing, if anyone comes over, I saw yours. So iconic, it's the one thing if anyone comes over,

I always make it. But does that not take a while? Probably takes like 35 minutes, 40 minutes to knock up. But the secret is you put tarragon in the bechamel and it just gives it the most, that chicken tarragon is match made in heaven. It doesn't taste like liquidy, I think a lot of people think it does.

And you just use left over roast chicken meat from your Sunday roast. So I often make it on a Monday because I'll have a bit of like left over chicken meat, shred it all up, cook it all down into like a gorgeous rich tomato sauce, lasagna, tarragon, and best of all, loads of parmesan through it as well.

And it's just so good. See, a lot of listeners will hear that and be like, I can't eat that. That's pasta. That's the thing. People still have this like connotation with like lasagna or pasta or bread, like with you like off- White carbs.

You cannot eat that. I think it's just with time. Over time. You've got to learn to trust your body. Yeah, that's it. And you have to be willing to make yourself vulnerable feel vulnerable and the the reason well why i got out of my eating disorder is because i accepted that vulnerability that's it it's the acceptance for sure when you were with your therapist who

put yourself like was it you that put yourself in okay yeah that's really i found her yeah and my mom used to drive me and sit in the car like um every single kind of wednesday session was she really supportive yeah she didn't like it's really hard coming from a family who i don't think my mom's ever had any sort of like mental health issues at all like everyone's really calm and in my family and they didn't really know how to take it they're just like well why can't you just eat yeah it's hard to understand it's fine and it's one of those types that i don't think you'll ever truly understand unless you've gone through yeah i agree that's so true i think that's why my family struggled to like fully grasp onto that what was going on what was going on yeah because they were just it's so alien isn't

it like if you think well well why can't you just eat it and I remember there's like this cheese roll and I was in tears because there was nothing else to eat and mum was like I'm like it's just a little cheese like bap in a whole meal whole meal roll like a tiny little thing I was like crying so I was like I'm so petrified I can't eat that oh gosh so how long were you actually in the modeling industry for probably two years okay yeah would you ever do it again never really wow you're so sure on that 100 yeah are you like so glad you got out of it when you did i just my i hate my body and what i look like being my offering yeah i agree and there's nothing more soul destroying than someone telling you that you're not good enough from based on your looks and that's such a stick in your head

sticks in your head like and it's hard enough we all have negative self-talk we all look in the mirror some days and be like oh god i hate my skin today or like oh i'm so bloated today and we talk ourselves down really often and it's important that you're your best hype man. And the people that are around you are your hype man as well. So the relationships that you have with your friends, your boyfriends, your family, everyone that you bring in

should help make you feel good. And I always tell everyone, good health starts from within and how you feel. So if you've got that negativity, that toxic, that person and how you feel. So if you've got that negativity, that toxic, that person who makes you feel nervous and underappreciated, cut them out before you start eating more broccoli and greens. Sort your life out as well.

You know how you said there was that one comment that just completely switched? Were there any comments that you heard from that sort of industry that still stick with you? Still a little niggles in your head? It was reactions as well. Like I remember going into some shoots sometimes and the creative director being like, oh, we've got Emily today. And I'd hear it and then there'll be like behind the screen

and then I'll be shooting literally like, give her a bit. And then the guy would be like, yeah, fine. Like get off. What? The set. It was mean. Like no kind of like reward or like praise.

No, no, it wasn't. It's not a kind nurturing industry. And I, and they have their favorites. I can imagine. They had their favorites.

I just didn't have thick skin. Like I, I, I wasn't thick skinned enough. I am. I'm a sensitive soul. I can imagine that it's actually quite like dehumanizing, objectifying.

Incredibly so. Yeah. Yeah, incredibly so. But yeah, as I said, I wouldn't be where I am now. I believe that sometimes life has a really messed up way getting you to where you need to be. And you just have to trust in that process sometimes. I've got goosebumps. Oh do you? Yeah goosebumps i see how passionate you are yeah but i love it and i and i love what i do and i love my life

that's so good and asked me this x number of years ago even three years ago and i'm a totally different person because i put myself great mom oh I can imagine you being a great mom. Oh dear, oh God. I'm one of five. So I come from a massive family and my mom had three kids under the age of three when I was seven, eight. Three kids under the, oh my gosh.

Yeah, so my, from a very young age, I've been super independent. So I used to like make my family dinners at eight years old. I would chop up the whole chili con carne, put the vats on the giant pot, like little of me, and I did wash my own school clothes, packed my lunch box, everything.

And it's, because I kind of like raised, helped raise them. And so there's twin brothers who love them now. They were hellish. I'm probably gonna watch this and be like, but they know it, they know it as well. And then a younger sister as well. They've just turned 21 now and she's 18 okay yeah um it was it just it's enough to put me off for a little while i'm still young i still got time yeah the clock isn't

closing yet but weirdly my my partner i think is much better with kids than i am is he how long have you been together for? Two years now. Oh, so literally probably during the time that you had the whole delivery kitchen thing. Yeah. So he's seen you really, like, the loss of what you are now. He's been such a huge part of my growth.

And I literally credit so much of my success because he was the one who was like, get behind the camera on Instagram. Like, do your stories. Like, post you. Like, people want to see see you so I was just posting pictures of food before like I want it wasn't ever like personality personality me and yeah he's he's amazing how did you meet if you don't remember we were just talking about yeah before we came on so we were like let's save it for the podcast um we we met via Instagram um a way it was like a mutual connection and because he was vegan at

the time he asked me my protein powder recommendation okay classic um but do you know he's not a creepo at all he he asked me for a drink um i said no because i had a boyfriend at the time um and he was incredibly respectful and lovely. And we just chatted like friends. And it just ended up getting to the point where I really, I fell so in love with him that I had no choice other than to love him. And it just crescendoed into a huge change around where I left my old life, essentially, probably not in the best way and in hindsight of course I I wish things could have been a little bit different but everything's really amicable with with my past and the day I left was the day that I moved in with him instantly like

that's the third time we'd actually met in person and we've never moved now now we live together have our own flat. It's like when you know, you know. He will be the person that I will marry. Oh, that's so lovely. What does he do for work? He's a marketing strategist. And he's amazing.

So he's the best at taking a brand and being like, this is what you need to do. Like, this is your path. Great for you. Great for me. Yeah, I love it. He's helped me so, so much. So good. Does he work in London? He does, yeah. Great for you. Great for me. Yeah, he's helped me so, so much. So good. Does he work in London?

He does, yeah. Oh, okay. Do you live in London? Oh yeah, you live in London. Yeah, we live together in our little flat now. Which is basically my slash full-time studio. Yeah. With all our lamps.

Taking up all the space. Taking up all the space. Yeah, we don't have any lamps. We just have studio lights that I like ping up. So it'd be like, literally the lamps. Yeah. I need to have studio lights that I like ping up. So it'd be like- Literally, yeah. Yeah. That's like my house. There's just like tripods, ring lights everywhere.

Okay, so like I was just saying, a lot of clients will come to me and would just automatically assume that eating carbohydrates will make them gain body fat. So it's a total myth. And what we know categorically is when we take one person, for example, and they have X amount of calories that they need to maintain their weight. The most important thing is that we hit that calorie target, but also hit protein targets.

And if we look at studies that compare a keto diet versus a high carb, low fat diet, as long as the protein amount is the same and the calories are the same there's no difference in fat loss between the two so if you are someone who loves fats and and just doesn't really enjoy carbs that much and you want to do a high fat diet okay fine it's not a problem you do you but don't do keto and low carb because you think that carbs are the reason why you are gaining weight it's a it's a total myth focus on hitting your protein targets stay within your calorie limits track in a way that feels good for you whether that be learning visually so you can be a bit more intuitive or tracking through

something like my fitness pal everyone's. Find what works for you. And also just find a diet that makes you feel full and satisfied. Because if you're just going to be having slices of toast at breakfast and you get to lunch and you're just going to have like a white cheese baguette and you get to dinner

and you're just going to have like a bowl of tortellini. Like it's empty. It's just carb, carb, carb. It's not balanced enough. And all you have to do, focus on your protein targets. Include lots of nice veggies and color. Enjoy it and your fats and carbs are flexible. Another one, eating at night,

like eating past 6 p.m. for example. So it is a myth, but it can affect your sleep. And if you eat too much kind of carbon fat too close to your bedtime, and I normally say leave about two hour window for your main meal before you actually go to bed. Because if your sleep is disturbed, your hunger hormones are actually affected the next day. So you will increase your hunger hormone ghrelin. So you'll feel sugar cravings constantly hungry constantly snacking the next day just from that bad night's sleep from eating too late at night yeah so the reason why

i discourage it is because you actually need to think of like the knock-on effects right of what you're eating but if you're hungry and you're just about to go to bed something protein focused is the best option to not impair your metabolism overnight and also your sleep quality overnight so nice little yogurt with some some kind of fresh berries or something in or yeah because that's a good point as well because you know um if you go to bed hungry that's also going to affect your sleep cycle which will increase your hunger levels the next day too yeah and if you're going to bed if you're finding that you're getting to bed and you're hungry eat more dinner yeah your dinner is a balance.

So just think about your actions throughout the day and how they're making you feel as well. It's a knock on effect for sure. Cause I'd always go to bed hungry and I'd be like, gosh, why am I doing, why am I hungry? And it's like, well, maybe you're not eating enough for your day, Millie. Just silly things like that.

Another one that people get really attached to is eating really small frequent meals throughout the day to spike their metabolism yeah having breakfast like as soon as they wake up to spike their metabolism you see that one a lot or even like intermittent fasting though the opposite yeah yeah maybe we could touch on that first small frequent meals that yeah metabolism and then your take and opinions on intermittent fasting so the metabolism thing comes from something called like the thermic effect of food so whenever we eat we burn like an extra little bit of metabolism up a little bit it's very natural and it's actually very insignificant it's so insignificant of your total daily calorie exactly like if it's not much

it's not something that i would rely on or do if you don't enjoy it if you if you feel better for doing it as i said i go ahead you do you but it's not a magic bullet and then intermittent fasting uh so the only studies have only really shown benefits for early window intermittent fasting which which is so socially kind of inert because you'd start eating at seven o'clock in the morning. You'd finish at like two or three. So it can actually have benefits for blood sugar control and diabetics. So they've done these studies in kind of diabetic patients. But then what are you going to do?

Your friend asked you out for dinner. Yeah. Doesn't fit my fast. Yeah. So it's just it's not very flexible but there have been like blood markers that have shown improvement from doing that for the general public if they just try and condense all of their food into a shorter window it's only a means of a calorie deficit it's just another way of controlling your food intake it's not again a magic bullet that's yeah that's important to note because it like so many people get attached to it as a secret fat loss method and like i yn rheoli'ch cyflog fwyd, nid yn un fagwyd yn dda. Iawn, mae hynny'n bwysig i'w adnabod, oherwydd mae llawer o bobl yn cael eu cymryd i'w

ddysgu fel ffodd llos ffat. Ac rwy'n cofio, dwi'n meddwl, dwi'n dod i'r ffordd i wneud ffastio'n ddysgol iawn ac roeddwn i'n meddwl, os oeddwn i'n bwydo un munud dros y ffastio, byddai'n ei roi'n bryd. Mae'n hollbwysig, ie. Ond mae hynny'n un ffordd i wneud y defnydd o'ch calori yn haws i'w ddod oherwydd y byddwch yn rhoi'ch calori'n fwy o amser i'w ddefnyddio. Ond nid yw'r hyn yn fagwyd. Mae llawer o ffyrdd eraill. that just a way to make your calorie deficit easier to hit because you're putting your calories into a smaller time frame of food but it's not anything magical there's so many other ways yeah but nothing's magical yeah like there's no if someone's about to be like what's the perfect diet it's like it does not exist the perfect diet is the one that makes you feel full you happy

and and nourished and balanced it It's your lifestyle. Exactly. I think with like all the fat loss sort of techniques and things, it's like a lot of them has come from people who have been advised like athletes and stuff. Like the whole general public don't fit into that athlete bracket. So it's like we over generalize so much when it actually is like all these things have come

from very specific niches, like athletes or like, I don't know, people with diabetics or people like that. It's really hard to not generalize, isn't it? I know, and I say to my clients, like they'll come with me this list of questions after I get them planned and turn around to them like, are you an Olympian?

Yeah, yeah. And they're like, no. Are you a bodybuilder? Don't they're like, no. It's like, don't worry. Yeah, exactly. Unless you're these high performance athletes where your 0.2 seconds on your split time actually is gonna make a difference between you getting that gold or silver,

then babes don't matter. Yeah, I agree. Love that. Love that. Thanks for clearing that up. I think that'll be super helpful and reassuring to so many people yeah i agree we love myth bust we do love we do right she finished with our quote the quote

um have you got a quote i do and i know i feel like i've just spoken about my boyfriend i must feel really in love with him at the moment because the whole podcast but this is actually his quote oh lovely he came up with it um and it's vulnerability is the condition of all meaningful growth oh yeah that's so lovely that is very true great so in order to grow you have to put yourself i so agree with that yeah i really love that you go um um mine is if outside validation is your only source of nourishment, you will be hungry for the rest of your life. Ooh. Spicy.

That is a great one. That hit the heart there. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. It's very true. I haven't heard of that one before. Yeah.

Is that Pinterest? Because, yeah, it was Pinterest. I saw it and I just, I had to pin that one. Yeah, that's a really good one. My one is quite a short one. It says, destroy what destroys you. Brutal. Jesus. yeah that's a really good one my one is quite a short one it says destroy what destroys you brutal jesus so maybe maybe not physically stay away from that boy you fucking triggered me no weapons guys okay That's it. No shame in that. No weapons, guys. Okay.

You are your only weapon. Disclosure. Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, do you want to pump yourself a little bit? Say where people can find you. Yeah, where people can find you. What you offer.

So you can find me on Instagram. Obviously, I am The Nutritionist. I do loads of recipe reels and kind of food that you can cook at home, make, balance of breakfast prep lunches dinner whatever they are incredible they're super tasty i always pride myself on

them tasting good as well but they're also going to make you feel lighter brighter and well balanced lighter brighter more balanced lovely little well thank you so so much for coming on it's been so lovely to like get to know you more on your journey and i think like i said the listeners will absolutely love this episode so thank you thank you bye thanks guys bye see you next week