Real Girls Radio - EP 3: Bananas make you go crazy

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Grab some snacks and chillax whilst we chat ABOUT......diet culture, diet myths and everything in between. We speak about our honest opinions of having a step count, eating salads, and why you shouldn't follow a diet.You'll definitely walk away from this podcast with a new perspective on society...Please review this podcast and leave us a rating! We really really appreciate it!!DISCLAIMER: please seek professional help if anything we say in this podcast triggers you.Support 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. Hello! Hello, we are back for another episode, baby! We're on number three! It's number three! Number three!

Oh wow, we're really on a roll, aren't we? So welcome back guys! Welcome back, welcome back! Thanks for tuning in! Another week! To Roll Girls Radio! So, we're gonna kick off this episode with a flop and fly. Flop and fly, you know it, so should I start?

Go on then. Give me your flop. My flop. So, if you have? Go on then. Give me your flop. My flop. So, if you have been following my skin journey on Instagram, I recently got my first mic leaving session the other day. It was really painful, but it triggered my insecurities about my skin after because it showed everything after. There was scars and redness.

It was awful. Generally awful. I felt so insecure and I wanted to cry. And that was really annoying because I let my skin insecurities get to me and I've been doing so well of avoiding that. Do you know, your skin looks flawless today. Really? Yeah.

Do you think? So good. Oh my God, Emma. Thank you, honey. That really means a lot. We can do a whole podcast about skin of you really yeah like oh my god i've gone through it that was a flop that's quite annoying but my fly is i'm now an ambassador um of seed charity which is really exciting like i'm a volunteer ambassador

so so proud of you yeah i mean it's been on my vision board and i just really obviously i just want to help as much as i can so being of a charity, like an eating disorder charity and being able to spread awareness, going to schools, do whatever. I just want to do it all and really help my hardest. So I'm really happy and proud that I'm part of a charity. It's really exciting. Proud of you. Thank you.

So what's yours? Okay, my flop, which I did. Oh my God, guys, you are in for a story here. I did kind of touch on it on Instagram. Obviously didn't go into detail. I was quite traumatized. It was awful. So I went to Barcelona with my sister for four days.

And everyone was telling me, you know, beware of pickpocket. Barcelona is like a dangerous place where people get mugged quite a lot. I've heard that. you know when you kind of think like oh it never happened to me yeah you think you're invincible don't you like you're like that's just in the movies right yeah it doesn't happen real life no so we were having a great time we went out for dinner and then my sister was like let's go out and have a few drinks like let's just let our hair down yeah see where the night takes us and i mean i'm a bit of a granny and i don't really drink or go out but i was like you know what why not we're on

holiday so we were about to go into a bar and i was actually taking some photos of my sister outside and then there was a group of guys who were just staring at us and i was just like oh my god i hadn't had any drink like my sister had had a few but i hadn't had anything to drink and they were like coming closer and then there were three of them one of them started talking to my sister and the other two were talking to me and they were asking for my instagram obviously didn't give it to them and the next thing i know one of them was literally hand down my top on my boob. The other one hand up my skirt. No, the same guy hand up my skirt.

Literally sexually touching me. While the other guy had his leg wrapped around my left leg. Sorry? Yeah, and he was trying to scrape off my heels. And were you holding on to anything? No, at one point I was in the air. What? I'm going to be so deadly serious.

Sometimes I do over exaggerate things. That's just me and my personality, but I'm not going to exaggerate this. I was stood there. My sister was like probably like a meter away from me. The other guy was distracting her, talking to her. This all happened so quickly. I was not even aware of what was going on.

So the guy on my right was touching me inappropriately that was obviously his strategy to distract me from the other guy about to mug me so the other guy was trying literally had his his leg wrapped around mine scratching at my leg to try and get off my heels i have my ysl heels on oh god you saw that as like yeah so he was trying to get that off and then he also grabbed onto my wrist and was scratching at my wrist to try and take off my watch what and i had like scratch marks all down my wrist oh this happened probably in like 60 seconds and i literally just pushed him so hard and like elbowed the other one and like screamed and swore at this guy i'm not gonna

repeat what i said but he like jumped away and then some other guy ran over like are you okay are you okay and obviously i was not okay i was so shaken up like where was your sister my sister was just stood there i think she was froze she didn't know what to do bless her i mean she was being distracted by the other guy so yeah my flop is that I nearly got mugged, got pretty much attacked, sexually assaulted. So thankful that you didn't, though. I'm just so grateful that nothing bad happened. They didn't actually manage to get anything. That's very lucky, isn't it?

So lucky. Like, I checked everything. I was fine. I had my bag. I had my phone. I had my jewellery. Did they just run? They just ran.

And it just made me so grateful that, like, my natural instinct was to fight and push them and like you just scream yeah they probably think they probably looked at you and thought blonde pity probably drunk yeah drunk yeah yeah easy target but nah they do not know they should be careful because those heels god they cause some damage yeah i can imagine spiky mug at your own risk yeah so i'm just glad I was able to defend myself but I was quite shaken up and um was having like a full-on panic attack on the way back to the hotel so yeah that was really scary and I guess like it's just made me realize that you have to be so careful

and you know people go around saying like I'll be careful that might happen to you and you never think it will but clearly did it ruin your trip after no it didn't because i just really tried to block it out and move on because i didn't want it during my trip and we moved to another hotel which was really nice and i was just super careful like in the evenings we just avoid going well the second night my sister got food poisoning so we can go anyway what a palaver what so is there a fly to that i mean there's not a fly to that i mean i had a great i had a great time we launched the empower merch which is great so excited i honestly cannot wait to see people wearing it i can't oh my god it must feel so surreal yeah it's been a very very very busy week like you are busy my my apartment has literally been like a distribution center

stock room you've got a separate room haven't you to like yeah that's so lucky because imagine if you didn't have another room like you would literally put it in your kitchen and living area yeah no it wouldn't and it would take over your whole flat. Yeah. I mean, it probably has already, but... It has, but we've shipped half of the orders already. And I'm shipping the other orders tomorrow. Does the post office thing make more money? It's not the post office. We're going to, like, an actual... I don't know what they're called, like, a post warehouse.

So we take them all there. We were going to get them picked up, but we just decided to do two trips. And we probably will have to do a few more trips next week Oh look at that dog! I know I've been seeing that guys as a little Chihuahua Oh my god it's literally jumping around Oh it's like a little teddy bear, it's like a little toy Oh my god

We should try and get a picture of the dog so everyone can see how cute it is Yeah we should, we actually should Check our Real Girls Radio instagram for the updates okay so today's episode is all about diet culture diet culture trying to navigate that balance right because i think i mean we've got a question that's come in which is let me just get it up how to find balance between eating clean and restricting and i just want to note like eating clean i would rephrase that to just like eating like kind of nutritious nutritious eating still being aware of like actually internal bodily health yeah but also not restricting not yeah being yeah eating what you like in a balanced way yeah so i think already like the the the mindset that this person has got by saying eating clean,

like, that's already kind of a trip up because it doesn't need to all be clean. It's like, you have to find that balance. So basically, what I was going to talk about here is, obviously, I've gone on this whole weight gain journey. And before my weight gain journey, I had orthorexia, very, like, weight loss. Like, I need to eat only healthy foods. I completely cut out. Cut out anything

process anything bad foods whatever and so now it's like okay i've got to ariana i'm really happy i've gained all this weight i can still have a salad if i want a salad right i get worried about posting this on my instagram because i know that there's gonna be people there who may think like oh she's eating a salad i thought you know that's against what she preaches about weight gain but like it's so just not that because I still ate salads when I was gaining weight obviously not every day it was just whenever I fancied something fresh like in the summer you just want something you know cold and fresh whatever I love a good salad it's like I think a lot of people this is you know salad is an example by the way it's like yeah it could be anything but I think people are still obsessed

with the idea that a salad equals health and restriction and weight loss and that a burger and chips equals like weight gain yeah and that's diet culture like that has ingrained that in us because it's the black and white way of thinking it's the good versus bad it's the moraling of foods like foods do not have morals and that's what we really want to get across in our episode today. Yeah, we do. I'm all about just eating what you want and eating to be your healthiest and happiest. So if I'm going to have a salad, that doesn't mean that I'm going to not have like a burger for dinner because I had a salad. And like that's going to, you know, like reverse the whole point of having a salad. Like that's not the case. Like the point of having a salad is because I want something fresh.

And that's not the case like the point of having a salad is because i want something fresh and that's actually it and i also think it's really important to make sure that if you are having something that's deemed as healthy whatever nutritious it's got to still be balanced you still got to have the carbs fats and proteins in there like you still got to have a substantial meal the intentions that you have behind it has to be good intentions that you're not you know trying to reverse anything like say you go out drinking the night before you're having avocado and eggs and you're not having bread or like you're having like a smoothie say like you're having a smoothie for breakfast and the intention behind that is because you want to reverse the alcohol that you've had the night before but now that's the case like if i have a smoothie after a night of drinking it's probably just because like i just need some hydration

something fresh yeah and my throat just needs some sort of like soothing thing. So I'll make sure that, yeah, I'll make sure that if I'm having a smoothie, I'm going to put in oats, I'm going to put in banana, I'm going to put berries, like protein. I'm going to make it a balanced, nutritious, substantial breakfast that is filling. Yeah.

And if I'm still not full from that, I will still have something else. But like whether that's, I don't know, oats or if that's chocolate, whatever it is, like it's just what I'm feeling in the moment yeah so because you were kind of saying to me the other day like if you go to prayer and you want to eat a salad people will kind of question that question it they'll be like well why did she choose the salad over the sandwich but it's not the case yeah sometimes it's okay to want to eat a salad and it's okay if you want to have a big bowl of veggies yeah because you you want to

because you feel like you need a bit of green in your life and you want to bump up your fiber like because it is important to still get those nutrients in your body so important it's like i know for me and a lot of my clients as well if we're not eating enough veggies and salads and greens that massively throws off our digestion makes you bloated it's not good to not be consuming plenty of nutritious foods like you need to make sure you're still eating your veggies and your salads yeah just because you see someone online who eats a lot of those foods it doesn't mean that they're restricted yeah or that they're trying to adopt that clean eating mentality we all need to get more on board with balanced approach of eating veggies and salads but also

being okay with enjoying some crisps and burgers and pizza like it doesn't have to be one way or the other yeah i think people just see weight loss as restricting weight gain as going all in and cutting out you know the the nutritious foods weight loss cutting out the less nutritious foods but it's not like it's just i don't know it's really hard like i'm trying to work out how i'm gonna i don't know like it's so hard being online yeah and sharing my food yeah and i know that it's gonna upset people if i post stuff like that if i post a salad or if i post a smoothie do you know what i mean like it's not i guess it's good that you're acknowledging it here now though so people know that you're not

trying to restrict yourself if you want to have that it's just you you like the taste of the salad i love a good salad it is it is literally that i don't know but i think that the whole anti-diet movement great because it's moving us away from people having that shame and guilt and moving away from seeing views as good and bad but you don't need to take it too far the other extreme you don't need to like literally one extreme people are still so caught up in having an all or nothing way of yeah i guess we're going to undress the diet culture right so basically diet culture if you don't know the phrase i've got a little definition here diet culture is the pervasive belief that appearance and body shape are more important than physical, psychological and general well-being. It normalises limiting what and how much you eat.

It also basically kind of says that skinny is good, fat is bad. And some examples of diet culture are as follows. So I'm going to name a few. So it could be labelling foods as good or bad, ignoring body cues. So ignoring when you're hungry like you know restricting basically eliminating food groups associating worth with how you look equating thinness with health food guilt food anxiety food rules diet talk food labels giving you permissions to eat i think for me diet culture really kind of ingrained the habits of like using small cutlery because like that makes the meal last longer or like it makes me think that i'm eating more than i actually am glamorizing like low calorie foods and alternatives like red lentil pasta instead of just normal pasta or whatever like again the

zero calorie oh my god plastic noodles that is don't talk to me about that that's what i want to get into oh how does that how do they even talking about all of the rubbish that they sell meal replacement even in like holland and barrett yeah i was going to mention holland and barrett there's a whole like section isn't there the thing with diet culture that i cannot stand the most is the diet the booties and the detox teas and the skinny ketone pills and the coffee basically laxatives all of that which people are still unfortunately buying into i'm not gonna lie i think we've all kind of purchased at least one of those oh yeah i used to buy those god awful xls medical have you seen them they're called like carb blockers measurement tape on the yeah yeah i have seen that i used to work at

waitrose and they're so expensive. And I just, I cannot even fathom that they're still being sold in places like Boots and Superdrug and Holland and Barrett. Oh God, I've come across loads of people who are like, yeah, I really want to lose weight. I'm skipping lunch today or like I'm on this like juice cleanse or something. And even Press, I've got this juice here from Press and they like sent me out juices. And I looked in a brochure and it's like all of these different juice cleanses that you can do for like a day or a week or whatever. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Do you know the problem with doing a juice cleanse is actually that it sets you up to rely on these products and these supplements. This is the whole point of the dieting industry. Like it's a money making oh my god it's like drawing you in it's like industry yeah it's yeah because quick fixes isn't it they promise you nothing no this is what happens because you actually want to go back so you have a week detox you take these juices and your metabolism actually down regulates because you're consuming such little calories and as an adaptive response for your body your metabolism actually down regulates because you're consuming such little calories and as an adaptive response for your body your metabolism down regulates that intake so then

you know at the start of your weight loss you might be eating 2000 calories you drop back to bloody 800 calories a day your metabolism adapts so that your your body gets used to so then when you stop that juice cleanse and go used to this is what i went through 800 calories a day so then when you stop that juice cleanse and go back to a normal way of eating obviously you're going to because who the hell can live off of that forever your body is only used to consuming that much amount of calories so this is why this is a true statistic 80 of people who lose weight gain it back and more this is why dieting industry is doing this to consumers it's the yo-yo dieting it's the yo-yo dieting and my mum love you mum if you are listening she joins weight well she i don't know if she still was with them but she

joined weight weight watchers and there was so many diet culture like habits in there there was like points to certain things that labeled foods as good as bad or sins you know like all of that the sinning sin sinning food that is awful that imagine like the long-term effects that will have on your mental health i can only have a weight watchers packet of crisps because like that's less sins or something can you like imagine that like what on earth and the thing is these companies are like multi-billion dollar companies who thrive off of consumers insecurities and their unfortunate lack of education around the topic because there is so many diet myths and you know things that these companies are making people believe in so diet myths are like carbs make you gain weight or what else are there god like you have to eat regular small teeny meals throughout the day

to keep your metabolism firing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Diet. That's such a common myth that people believe. That you have to do fasted cardio. Oh my God, fasted. I just, I fell victim to all of these. What are your thoughts on the 10,000 calorie step target?

Because I think so many people get wrapped up around that. And I think this is actually a fact. Like literally a random, maybe not a random guy. Like he probably, you know, did something, I don't't know but he just came up with the the number 10,000 calories just use that as a target and now it's calories assuming steps sorry have i been saying calories no i think you said the steps the first sorry guys i mean steps 10,000 steps and he just plucked that number out there and now it's become this whole oh yeah i mean it's an arbitrary number it's so arbitrary isn't it yeah it's not like once you hit 10 000 like wow but this is

what people think i mean this is what i think and well that's what i thought i thought that if i don't hit 10 000 steps then i um you know failure or like i'm not i mean i'm gonna be completely honest i love a step count goal and i think for my clients majority of my clients do want to lose body fat obviously in a healthy way 10 000 calories um i'm doing it now 10 000 steps a day is a really great tool to help somebody lose weight in a sustainable way but it's not the be all end all and it is not something that you need to like completely base your life around and be upset about if you can't hit it one day. That's the thing.

I think so many people get really hung up about not hitting it. They force themselves to go out. I don't know. Just force themselves to do it when they don't want to, basically. I think the 10,000 steps a day is great. Because the majority of people are very sedentary working office job. And it's designed for those sorts of people who... Well, it's designed for those sorts of people who well it's good for those sorts of people who barely move at all in a day and they want to lose weight in a

healthy way without having to do anything extreme upping your daily expenditure and doing a walk is the best way you can do that but then you know it can get to the extreme where you get so caught up on it that you think like you have to physically force yourself to hit a crazy amount of steps, even on days where you're super busy. Like today, I mean, I'll try to go for a walk after this, but I'm not gonna cry about it if I can't because I've been traveling to London all day, you know, like you don't, you don't have to. Yeah, I think based off my my experience like i've just being there done that i've got so caught up with not like i've just felt like such a failure if i don't reach 10 000 steps and i look at my fitness watch and i see like i don't know 6 000 i'm like i feel fat

i think instantly just felt bigger in myself i felt like oh and it's silly because you've got you got to think about it like your body isn't going to change after one day that's why i think it's just thinking about like average in a week are you getting up and moving are you being active and this is the whole thing this is going back to finding the balance yeah between you know eating nutritious and restricting it's the same with exercise it's finding the balance between actually moving your body like you still like guys we're not promoting sitting and watching netflix all day every day and sitting on your ass and just you know like it's so good to get out there not only for just some physical exercise but for like mental health like getting some fresh air

walking also is super important for your digestion yeah so again but it's just finding the balance of being okay if you don't hit those steps for whatever reason but also enjoying getting the steps do you know what i mean yeah like i don't know i think for whatever reason but also enjoying getting the steps do you know what i mean yeah like i don't know i think for some people it really helps them for others it's really toxic and like if they have a fitness watch like it's just it reinforces their restrictive habits and behaviors so i think you just need to find what is good for you like i'm bang in the middle with my fitness watch like some days i'm like if i look at my watch like it just triggers me and i just feel like i need to restrict because i haven't hit my steps or something but other days i see

i don't know 5 000 steps and i'm like you know that's fine it's fine one tip i'm gonna give you which i give to some some of my clients who get caught up on a step count and feel like it's consuming them literally take the watch off and don't wear it for a few days and i promise you you'll realize it's absolutely fine it's so fine and like when i first did that i felt so uneasy it was a habit generally i look at my wrist and i'd see that i i'm not wearing a watch on there and i'm like oh my god the habit of just raising my wrist to look at it is so ingrained and i'm like whoa okay that's when i knew it was a little bit obsessive so as soon as I took it off like it was hard and it was very I just felt very uneasy and I didn't I didn't know

if um you know how many steps I was I was it was just the fear of the unknown I guess yeah so that was really tricky but it helped it helped so much it is a great tool for weight loss it is to keep account of that but you cannot let it consume you because at that point it's unhealthy so this is why it's good to have a little break from it sometimes and also you know what's interesting i don't think i've addressed this but when i was gaining weight you know like my step count was keeping it below like nine thousand i think it was or something and i actually i think this is with my obsessive mindset still like if I went over 9 000 I was like oh my god like I'm gonna drop weight like it was so it was like the opposite yeah and it would

it would just I don't know consume me and so then that's when I found myself I had to just remove my watch because yeah whereas like the thing is some days you're gonna have days where you do so many more and you don't even mean to yeah for example when i went to barcelona we had one day where i literally walked 28 000 it's always a city breaks isn't it yeah they're great for the second but like other days i might have you're on the plane or something yeah you're on a plane you're literally flying in the sky all day long what are you gonna do then yeah you can't be walking up and up and down the aisle sorry just get my steps in i would i would always have those urges to do that during my like restrictive phases i've always always like even waiting around the airport like i would hate to

sit down for long i know longer than 20 minutes i'll just be like i need to get up but it's because the the apple like my fitness my fit that it would like remind me remind you and that also didn't help me sometimes because it was times when like I was stuck in something but so like I was revising for uni um it would tell me to get up and I'd be like oh well I've got I guess I've got to prioritize my steps over my uni work so I had to get up and like you know and then that would just distract me and then I would it would take me so much longer to get back into my focus zone so it's times like that when it gets really i think you just have to be so in tune with yourself and realize like you're mentally struggling or taking it too far with like your step count goal because i actually think sometimes

having the step count goal can make a whole like weight loss journey even less restricted because some people go into a weight loss journey and think oh my god i need to do all this cardio and live on the treadmill and go to the gym seven times a week and do all the hit but actually if you are starting a weight loss journey nine times out of ten you'll be able to see results from just hitting a set count goal so i think it's good but you just have to not take it too far yeah don't take it too far but that's interesting to hear your take yeah were there any other like diet myths that you you kind of really bought into oh my god there was so many or like exercise uh the hit it was during the body coach when he like i was following the body coach even before he kind of blew up yeah like i was were you yeah yeah yeah

so i had i thought i had to do hit every day oh my god ab workouts as well you and yeah yeah so I had I thought I had to do a hit every day oh my god ab workouts as well you and yeah we know we know guys we know we know this we know this I was obsessed with abs and yeah so if I didn't do an ab workout I thought I'd lose my abs that was like again another myth do you know what I often get asked um whenever I do a Q&A on my stories how often should I train abs how often do you train abs? How long should an ab workout be? Honestly guys I don't have abs but I. Everyone has abs don't they? Well yeah everyone's got abs but like my abs are not visible. Yeah. And for me and my body for me to get abs I have to get my body fat so extremely low that it's actually quite unhealthy. Well it's even like in the previous episode

we were talking about how you did the bikini competition and like you still weren't lean enough so it was like your body would have to literally be dying to get visible everybody's body is different and i think a lot of people will look at someone on instagram and think oh my god her abs are amazing what is she doing but you have to remember everyone's body is so different there are a lot of people that follow sorry go no you go there are a lot of people who follow who naturally just have abs they will eat so much but they just are ripped yeah and it's like it's just just their genetics and you have to accept that yeah but i mean i actually trained abs the other day for the first time in like two months i did so sorry um and oh my god it felt like a bus had driven

over my stomach a hundred times it was so painful but i actually think if you want to train your core there is no need to be doing it more than three times a week it's like any other muscle group you don't need to over train it and actually over training it is not gonna give it the time to actually adapt and recover and repair and rebuild so yeah you don't need to be training abs every single day yeah i don't know if this is a myth but like i was so wrapped up on meal times i guess this is a myth yeah if i ate past like 8 p.m oh my god yeah it would it would be a phase where like if i ate past 6 p.m i'd gain weight overnight isn't that mental wow like the thing is i actually have to tell my clients this quite a lot.

Like your body does not know what time of day it is. Your body doesn't, like obviously a circadian rhythm has come into it, but like your body doesn't know whether it's 6.30 PM or 7.30 PM. And one of them is going to make you gain weight. It doesn't work like that. So true. Okay.

So this is, this is another appropriate thing to talk about based on this topic of like find that balance so last night i was quite hungry like i was up until like midnight and i was hungry so i thought right i'm just gonna have to get a snack because i hate going to bed when i'm when i'm hungry like when my tummy's rumbling but then another part of me was thinking like oh but then it's not gonna digest and it's probably gonna like mess up my gut and all this stuff. And it's like,

if you're having like a massive meal, like at midnight, it's probably not the best thing. Right? It's not the best thing for your sleep quality to go to bed feeling absolutely stuffed full. It's not. But then again,

you don't want to restrict. You don't want to restrict. Exactly. So it's again, finding that middle ground. Like I think had some granola should have a little sun a little sun but again like going back into my restrictive days that would also happen and some days i would restrict and not and just go to bed hungry and awful or some days i would go into the kitchen and then that's when i would like you know maybe have a handful granola and then find myself something the kitchen and then that's when I would like, you know, maybe have a handful of granola and then find myself. Something else.

Yeah. And then starting that binging. And then you would have been better off just having like a healthy snack. Just a normal, yeah. Or whatever you're craving. Like a, whatever it was. Like a normal size that satiated you and then went to bed. So, yeah, that's interesting.

Talking of meal timing, something that I used to be so obsessed with and literally I let it consume my life intermittent fast oh my god me too oh my god I forgot about this let's talk about this I forgot about this whole phase of my life because wow yeah like fasting I think again looking at it from an objective perspective as a coach helping females lose body weight um it can be a helpful tool it can help in a weight loss journey but but you cannot live by the whole intermittent fasting and you cannot let let it control your life like intermittent fasting can be a good tool but not if you're letting that stop you go for brunch with your friends yeah or like say if you are hungry and it's like yeah you know if you're starving 9 a.m but you you only allow yourself to have it at like 11 12 p.m or 12 a.m sorry then then that's

when it gets really bad because obviously you're again ignoring your bodily cues and like that is just not what you want to be doing because it's just inevitably in the long run messes up your body cues anyway so it's like when when i was ignored for all those years when i was ignoring my my hunger and satiety signals it completely messed up my whole signals and like also when i wanted to try and like come off tracking and just eat more mindfully and intuitively i found that really hard because i just ignored them for so long and a lot of that time it's because of i was intermittent fasting yeah and i was setting certain times between when i can next eat or like i was literally up up at night and like counting the hours like okay so if i if i go to bed now if i

stop eating now then i've got one two three four five seven eight okay 12 hours okay then i can eat then it was so restrictive yeah and i i think the thing i used to be really caught up on with intermittent fasting is i genuinely thought it was like a magical protocol where if you only ate for eight hours in that window you were automatically going to like burn all this body fat and that if you dared to eat in your fasting window oh my god you it was not gonna work no you've ruined it yeah well done emma well done you like fuck off actually, it's not like that at all. It's nothing magical about intermittent fasting. All it does is it shortens your eating window,

which means it's a little bit easier for you to stick to your calorie deficit. But you don't need to completely live your life by sticking to these timings. Like, for example, a lot of people will do the, you know, start at 12, finish at 8 at 8 16 8 eating window and they will not go out for dinner or drinks because past eight o'clock and they won't go for a brunch with their friends i did this during um my uni did you yeah and i also got into the habit of like bulletproof coffee did you hear of that coconut oil in the coffee or something and i thought i was instantly gonna make me drop that And I also got into the habit of bulletproof coffee. Did you hear of that? Have you heard of that? Coconut oil in the coffee or something.

And I thought that was instantly going to make me drop that. Can we just talk about, right, people who think that, people who think putting a big old dollop of coconut oil in your coffee and butter is going to make you automatically burn body fat. It's not going to work. Because for one, there's calories in that. You're just drinking you might as well just have a good old piece of toast yeah and just satisfy your hunger yeah i i was yeah i was very wrapped up on that i remember like that's when i still have my fitness

page and i was like promoting it and all that stuff again so sorry if you were following during those times yeah i remember like my uni friends would like question it i never could say oh it's to help me lose weight it's just like it's just one of those things like i'm just trying i just thought i'd try it do you know one thing i did when i was intermittent fasting this is back when i was at uni it was so unhealthy but i used to use intermittent fasting as a way of masking my extremely disordered eating of hiding it to other people so like it was like you know it's always been a bit trendy okay right yeah so what i do is i get up go to the gym do my workout go straight to uni no not eating anything go to uni be that all day lectures oh my god workshop

working still no food no food and people be like you're not eating i'd be like no i'm intermittent fasting uh no i was starving myself i'm pretending that i was intermittent fasting right because as soon as you've kind of put some sort of a label on it yeah yeah people are okay so it kind of like makes people not question it as much but like i was honestly just not eating the thing is like i don't know it's so sad that this both happened as well during our uni time. Because that's when our brains need the fuel. Like, they need that food. Because, like, your brain powers.

It takes up so much energy. Is it 80%? Yeah. Like, your brain needs glucose. You need to eat carbs, guys, if you want to be functioning optimally. And you will just get brain fog. Yeah. I found it so hard to concentrate

it's gonna be and it's like why do all these people who do promote intermittent fasting they say like i feel the best i've ever been like this is incredible blah blah blah like maybe that maybe that is true for them but they're probably also masking something else under that you know so my experience of intermittent fasting now because sometimes i do do it i personally don't like to eat a big meal before i go to the gym because i actually feel better because i get up and go to the gym first thing right yeah i actually feel more kind of focused on my workout if i haven't eaten if i have a coffee and i'll eat my post-workout right away after it's different for everyone i do it because that works for me.

See, I can't do that. See, a lot of people, a lot of my friends can't do that. You have to tune in and do what feels right for your body. And I have no negative effects on my strength or performance from not having a big meal beforehand. Well, then that's so good. But I know lots of people do. And sometimes if I feel really hungry

and feel like I need an energy boost before the gym, I will have that. It's not like I'm not letting myself. Does it change with your period? No. Interesting. No. Is it more stress on your body? It can be more stressful on your body, especially if you're recovering from like HA or something.

So like during my HA recovery, I was making sure I was eating something before I went to the gym. But like because I get up and go to the gym first thing I just go there eat my post-workout meal after and that works for me I remember when I tried to when I was getting my period back you were like you need to eat before your workout yeah you need to yeah it's that whole restricting with timings and stuff you just need to like really signal to your brain that food is readily available and you can eat and you're not restricting anymore my point was back when i used to have like an unhealthy relationship with intermittent fasting because of all this diet culture telling me online that it was you know the magical thing

i would like i wouldn't dare eat before the gym like oh god no yeah and like i would not eat until my eating window began and if you did like i was a failure yeah yeah so no much more balanced approach of it now i don't intermittent fast all the time sometimes i do sometimes i do that's when you feel like it so with this whole anti-diet culture thing it can get extreme can't it oh my god yeah so i have also seen things like on instagram that are so so so so so anti-diet culture that it takes it to the other level end of it which again extremes aren't healthy i think we've established this yeah like it is okay to want to be healthier it's okay to want to change your habits and make them more balanced and nutritious and you know incorporate more exercise into your lifestyle and it is okay to

want to educate yourself on making more nutritious choices not from the perspective of wanting to be skinnier or to change your physique but actually just to be healthier and to fuel your body better and to get more nutrients and vitamins and minerals into your body like millie like she craves the bloody prep salad sometimes it's okay people are are gonna be thinking like how do you change that perspective like how do you suddenly wake up and just change that perspective like for me like it was because it was so ingrained in me that my i don't know eating salad meant that i would lose weight or like going to the gym or stomach meant that i'd lose weight like that was so ingrained in me how did how did i actually change that mindset and to be honest like i don't really know how i did that i'm not gonna lie how did you how did i i think like it's a process so

isn't it i guess like a lot for your coaching journey you slowly replace those habits with other ones and you slowly over time realize like you you don't need to do those extreme things. The hardest thing for me was when I stopped tracking and I was trying to really tune into when I was hungry. And sometimes I thought I was mistaking boredom with hunger when actually it probably was just mental hunger. And I was just like, I don't know, I found it so hard to balance just wanting food for the sake of having food or wanting food because like i was craving it if that makes sense yeah like i found it really hard to distinguish between the two either way i still ate because i knew that you know if my body was calling for that then that it needed it if whether it's mental or physical hunger like it needed it so do you

know what for people who have tracked their calories and their macros or been on yo-yo diets it is so difficult to tune into your true real hunger cues one thing that i recommend to my clients who are struggling is to kind of get up like a hunger scale and mentally make note of like where they are on the hunger scale but then how do they know where they are yeah that's the thing like i thought to me right now i've had lunch you've had a snack i could like usually when i go back home i would grab some food because it's like that's my habit if i'm hungry or not i don't know but like it's kind of my habit so it's not a bad thing to do if i weren't to grab some food then i feel like i would be subconsciously restricting do you know

i mean yeah so even if i'm not actually hungry i go for the food but then like if i go for the food i'm still not hungry so i'm not really tuning into my body signals but i want the food yeah do you know what i mean like this is when it gets this is where it's confusing yeah and that's also what you need to not do people overthink it just be balanced like if you want to eat a protein bar eat a protein bar if you want to eat a salad eat a salad whatever just don't second guess it don't overthink it don't think oh don't think oh i've just i've already had a protein bar today like like think how much more productive and how much more you can achieve in life if you don't have you just don't even yeah all day long if you don't have these little arguments in your head yeah

little dilemmas which aren't actually dilemmas it's just you just need to go for it i also used to like not have more than one banana a day because I thought that that was like another diet thing do you know why I actually remember why I saw I'm not going to name her but it was an influencer would I know

I think you would yeah from Australia and I mean I don't I don't know her personally but she I was watching one of her four days of eating

on YouTube she was making a smoothie and she put a banana in and she was like oh actually no she took the banana out and she was like, oh, she took the banana out and she was like, I've already had a banana today,

I'm not going to have that. But it was so just normal for her, like, oh, I've already had a banana today, I'm not going to have to put that in. But I was like, so I was like,

what's wrong with having two bananas? So then I instantly thought, okay, well, I can't have two bananas in a day. And then there's that opposite diet, like the banana diet, where you literally just eat bananas.

No. You've heard of that one. Yeah. Also, another awful diet culture toxic diet culture we're not planting ideas in people's heads no just if you want banana you want five at five get the message that we're trying to get across no it was um that was i didn't really watch netflix but i heard about it there's like a cheerleading documentary oh my god yes and they all have like some watermelon watermelon

yeah where they oh my god yeah they only eat watermelon yeah what on earth and I when I was watching that

I was like oh my god they really should be showing this because yeah because people like you picked up on that person

who only ate one banana and wouldn't dare eat another people are going to be watching that and thinking oh god the cheerleading girls are exactly how I want to look and they only eat watermelons eat another people are going to be watching that and thinking oh god the cheerleading girls exactly how i want to look and i need watermelons yeah i'm only going to want to eat watermelon that is so unhealthy to do that it's so bad and i think also like

netflix shouldn't be sharing that no they shouldn't america no no no no no no no but i think america i think it's a America, I think it's a lot worse. I think it's a lot worse. I think diet culture, a lot of it comes from America. Do you think? Yeah. They're very extreme. They're too extreme, yeah.

Because, you know, they're heavy on the fast food. Very McDonald's, very massive portion sizes. Five guys. But then also, they're on the complete opposite end. Yeah, where they do the bloody watermelon diet. Juice cleansers and all the shit. Yeah. Anyway, I wrote some, I guess, like a little tip.

What did you write? Some tips on diet culture, which I think is good to try to implement. Okay, let's do it. If you're struggling with it. So, thinness is not worthiness. Yes. Happiness is not a smaller body. Uh-huh.

All bodies, no matter what shape or size are good bodies and you are enough like do not you are enough yes your self-worth on how big or small or how you look yeah in any way eating needs to be enjoyable you need to eat food you love all food groups are good and there is no bad food there is absolutely no food on the planet that is morally bad. There's nothing that's too high in fat or too high in carbs. There's nothing like that. No. Starving yourself is not healthy.

Equally. Overeating lots of... And binging and, you know, all that. Processed, high-calorie, dense food. Overeating that is also not healthy. Diets that restrict and deprive you do not work and they never will and they will leave you back feeling more of a failure than when you started because like we were talking about at the beginning that is what the diet

industry thrives makes money from you always need to be skeptical of weight loss products and like fear-based nutrition advice and just be mindful of all of the perfect idealistic bodies you see on social media because majority of the time those bodies are not even real bodies and they're not perfect they're not perfect no one's perfect can i just say something as well so when people say like healthy foods do you think there is such a thing because i personally don't think there is i think a burger can be just as healthy as a salad it's just what you want in that moment and what's gonna fill that balance for you do you know what i mean right so there yeah i would say there are foods that are more nutritious than other foods but it's

your overall diet in the day and in the week determines whether it's quote unquote healthy or not. Because, you know, a blueberry is healthy. But if you eat blueberries all day long for a week, that's very unhealthy. Yeah. That's so true. Also, a burger can be healthy. You know, it could be a good balance of proteins, carbs and fats.

Healthy for your mental health, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to fuel the soul. Yeah, you've got to fuel the soul. Yeah, you've got to fuel the soul. If you eat a burger for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I mean, that's just weird. Not happening. People are going to be like, what about the chips? Where's the chips at?

But yeah, that's something that I want to pinpoint on there. Take a more holistic view of your diet overall. Stop with the restrictions. Make it more balanced. Stop with the extremes. It's okay to eat a burger. It's okay to eat a salad. Put your salad in the burger.

Yeah, get both of them in. I want to challenge anyone here who's listening to have whatever it is they're craving right at this moment. Right as you're listening to this go grab something that you are craving and if that is a salad great if that is a burger great if that's some sweets great if that's milkshake smoothie whatever it is grab what you are craving yeah and also really be true to yourself to reinforce it is also okay if you personally for your own goals want to lose weight it's okay if you want to gain weight it's okay if you don't want to have a goal you need to do it for you though in a healthy sustainable way and not be looking at other people or what they're doing or how they look or what

their goals are for any like male validation validation yeah any social media validation like you need to just do it for you and the most important thing is whatever your goal is whether it is fat loss weight gain maintenance nothing do it in a healthy way yeah see you later see you later i'm gonna have a burger you know what all that burger chat i'm actually craving one now what's your favorite burger like do you know i've not had a burger for a long time i had a burger actually quite recently and it was so good. It was like a vegan chicken burger and it was breaded.

Do you know what? Burgers are so not pretty to watch. Pretty to eat. Yeah. I don't, I wouldn't advise like, we'll get on a whole episode of dating, but you know,

eating on dates, it's a whole, it's a whole topic to work on. Yeah. There's a lot of tactics to that. You want to, you don't want to be eating like a burger because that's going to be going all over your face.

Oh my God, yeah. Or mess up the lip line. Yeah. No, we don't want to mess up the lip. Imagine like having some lettuce in your teeth. Well, like, you know, when you bite into a burger, like all the like ketchup.

Juices like, yeah. Oh, they run down your like arms and shit i cannot eat pretty at all like i watch myself when i like vlog or something i watch myself eating and i'm like oh my god can you just like i don't know i don't know i don't know what it is i just don't eat very much do you have any weird like food eating habits that you do like actually whilst eating i kind of like i kind of like use my tongue to like like I I you know when like food gets on your teeth I really really go in with my tongue to get that out of my teeth and sometimes it looks a bit a bit ugly I hate it.

I hate it. It's so ugly. Oh, my God. What's yours? Well, when I eat a meal, I have this really weird habit of, like, eating one of the foods first. Oh, you're so... I don't know why I do it. They call them, like, a mean girl's, like, burnouts or something.

I do. You know, like... It's really odd, but, like, I actually like doing it. So you do one thing at a time. Yeah, so, right, let's just say but like i i actually like doing it you do one yeah so right let's just say i've got let's keep it simple some chicken potato and some veg oh yeah that's really just boring yeah but like what about pizza pizza i mean oh yeah you're not gonna like take the toppings all right i'm gonna eat the tomatoes first. I think some people can do that. No, just if I have a meal like that,

which is a bit of separation. Some elements to it. I'll eat the separate elements first. Another thing that my friends say I do, but I don't believe them. They say when I go to put something near my mouth, I do a little head wiggle before I bite it. That's so cute.

I don't think I've ever noticed that. Do you eat with your mouth open? No, never. I mean, speak've ever noticed that do you eat with your mouth open no never i mean speak with your mouth open not eat with your mouth because you have to no okay right okay try to speak with your mouth shut no i do not eat with my mouth open. That's disgusting. Oh, God, that's actually really hard to not open your mouth when you speak. Oh, my God. Oh, God.

Anyway, on that note, sorry, guys. Right, look, quote, quote, quote, quote. Shit, I don't have a quote. Okay, I'll just go for mine. Okay. The human body is imperfectly... No, let's start again. Rewind.

The human body is perfectly imperfect, ever-changing, and never was meant to fit an impossible standard of perfection. Impossible standard of perfection. Wow. Because perfection is... That hits hard. It's impossible. Impossible.

Impossible standard. Yes, love that. Apart from you, you're perfect. Aw, honey, you're perfect to me and my world. Love you. I hope you guys enjoyed that video. Video? Oh!

I am not. I am not okay today. Wow. I think you need a burger. God, I need a burger. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Love you lot. As always, please leave a review.

Yes. And like and share and share away. And yeah, send us in your questions for next week I guess we'll see you then have a fab week love you love you goodbye

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