Secret Mum Club with Sophiena - Mums On A Mission: How To Eat Right

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Week three of Mums On A Mission, brought to listeners by Lingo by Abbott. Sophiena and Emma are making good progress and starting to feel the benefits of tracking their glucose levels, but the time has come to talk about nutrition. Today they welcome Dr Rupy Ajula onto the podcast to talk all things nutrition. What should they be eating? What shouldn't they be eating? And what role should food play in our lives? Find out more at hellolingo.com/uk Lingo is not for medical use. 18+ only. © 2024 Abbott. The biosensor housing, Lingo, and related trademarks are marks of the Abbott group of companies. This podcast and the guests are part of a paid advertisement for Lingo. #HelloLingouk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to this very special mini series of the Secret Mum Club. Mums on a Mission brought to you in partnership with Lingo by Abbott. If you missed the first couple of episodes, firstly, where were you? And secondly, you know what to do. Scroll back and take a listen. We've been wearing our biosensors which we were gifted by Lingo. So we have been tracking our health data. How you been feeling? Are you feeling good? Yeah I feel good. We've got the biosensors haven't we? It's really helping me to see what's happening at different times of the day, keep myself accountable you know. Yes and to know what certain foods agree. Yeah yeah the triggers.

The triggers yes that's a great word. We're seriously striving to hit some health goals. We are Mums on a Mission. Remind me Soph, what was yours? Fueling my body. Fueling it, understanding it, just treating it with a little bit of love because being mummies, it's, we neglect it. Yeah, we do neglect our bodies. So it's just knowing what I'm putting in is all the right stuff. Yeah. To like it's so bespoke for us, isn't it though? Yeah. And we've learned along this lingo journey that it is so bespoke. So what works for me doesn't work for you. Yes. Teaching us to understand our body.

Yeah. And I'm loving that. That's what I'm here for. I just want to eat less rubbish. Okay. Less reliance on like sugary foods, convenience foods, refined carbohydrates. I know I do too much of that. No more cereal for dinner. I want to fuel my body properly and just have a bit more energy to sustain me through the day. Keep you going. Just keep me going. I need it. All that natural good energy. God knows I need it. And today we're talking about my favorite topic, food.

So we're learning how our bodies respond to different foods. Yeah, like craving and hunger, isn't it? Learning the difference between the two. Because I find as well, like I'll just like grab, I'll miss a meal and I'll grab something on the go, which is not always the best thing. Not always the best thing to do. No.

Forget breakfast, have an almond croissant. Adrienne did give us some advice, is to have switch a sweet breakfast for a savory breakfast. I've been doing that. Have you been having eggs and things for breakfast? Yeah, eggs, avocado, salmon. Is that making a big difference to your energy levels? So much, yeah.

The only thing I do find is where I am, I tend to be busy, is I've not been hungry in the mornings, but I'm actually waking up and I do feel like I fancy breakfast, you know what I mean? You know when sometimes I feel like I need to feel hungry, I either eat for the sake of eating because there's biscuits on the side and I'm just like, oh, I dunked that in my tea

and away I go. So now I feel like my body is telling me it's hungry. So like when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, oh, I fancy my avocado. It's nice, that's a nice feeling, isn't it? It's really nice. Yeah, we're so excited, aren't we, to learn a bit more about the food we put into our body

and how it can help us reach our health goals. Because we are not the experts. We are not the experts. In nutrition or exercise. But Linggo have lined us up with someone who is, and today we're lucky enough to be joined by Dr. Rupi Aujla, who is an NHS GP, fellow podcaster and host of Doctors Kitchen. So I feel like he might be able to give us some good insights. He's going to be the man with the information.

He's the man for the job. Hello. Hey guys. Hi. Hello Doctor. Hello Doctor. Could you tell us a bit about yourself? Yeah, sure. So I'm Rupi. I'm a medical doctor. I've been working in the NHS for over 15 years, completing a masters in nutritional medicine.

Wow. And just like you guys, like I'm obsessed with food. I love food. I think food and flavor and enjoying different cuisines is one of the best pleasures of life. And it's also one of the routes to better health, energy, better mood. And I'm excited to dive into how sugar and cravings and what to eat can impact that. Sugar, I feel like you are the guy for me.

You're gonna be able to give me a lot of good advice, I feel like. You've also got a podcast. Tell us a bit about that. Yeah, the Dr's Kitchen podcast and cookbooks and all that good stuff. But the main thing that I love to do is cook, right? You don't want to sacrifice the enjoyment of delicious

food for health goals alone. And I'm a big believer in marrying that flavor and function. Nice. And you're about to be a dad. I am. Yeah. Yeah. About a week's time. So I'll be part of the Secret Dad Club. So you may have heard us talk a bit there about what we want to achieve with lingo so for me personally it was to stop reaching for sugary snacks and convenience foods and actually take time to cook proper food and fuel myself properly and you know sit down and have a proper meal in the evening and don't just grab a bowl of cereal after the

kids have gone to bed. So how do you think lingo can help me with that? Well, I think the first thing is actually the data and the graphs that you're now aware of, of how your body is reacting to certain foods, I think is empowering in itself. And this is the thing and the reason why I actually think continuous glucose monitors are really impactful is because without that information, you're sort of none the wiser. Unless you're really diving into intuitively how you feel, whether you feel sluggish or whether you feel like you're having a crash or whether you feel like after a crash you now feel hungry again, without that information, you don't

really have too much of a visual representation of how you feel. So I think that's the first way in which I think these can be really impactful. But in terms of reducing those spikes and the crashes, what I would say is something that you alluded to a little bit earlier. High fiber and high protein, first thing in the day is actually really, really important. We've kind of got like this culture of eating refined carbohydrates and sugary snacks

because they're marketed as breakfast meals, where in reality, that's probably the worst thing that you could break your fast with first thing in the morning because your gut and your body is craving the nutrients it needs to power itself throughout the whole day and maintain that focus and energy. first thing in the morning because your gut and your body is craving the nutrients it needs to power itself throughout the whole day and maintain that focus and energy. So high fiber and high protein in the morning. So salmon, eggs, tofu tempeh. I have leftovers. I know that sounds a bit weird to some people, but leftovers from my dinner for breakfast

with sometimes like an egg cracked in it. Like, oh, bubble and squeak on Christmas unboxing. Oh yeah. With a fried egg on top. Oh, with a fried egg on top, something like that. Or like yesterday I had this, um, uh, bean harissa and kale sort of stew. And then this morning I just heated up some of that and I cracked an egg in it, put a lid on the saucepan and cooked it through. And that, that was my breakfast.

And when you look at cuisines across the world, that's basically how people egg in it, put a lid on the saucepan and cooked it through. And that was my breakfast. And when you look at cuisines across the world, that's basically how people eat. They eat a lot of savory breakfasts. Yeah. What about you, Safina? Well, obviously we did go over it and we've spoken about it a lot. Mine is just to, I just want to know what I'm putting into my body because I'm a bit of one of the, I'm a bit of a yo-yo. I have spells of where I'm eating really healthy and then I go through spells of where I'm eating really bad. I'm not saying I don't notice a difference because I do obviously notice a difference, but I just want to know the impact of what certain foods or what it's doing to me. One way in which to become more mindful about what you're putting in your body is, you

know, wearing a glucose monitor. And that will give you one perspective of the food that you're consuming. Not everything. It doesn't tell you about the quality of the food. It doesn't tell you about the macronutrients in terms of the protein and fibre. But it gives you some insight as to whether this is good or not so good for you, particularly if you pair that with how you feel afterwards. But I think snacking is a really important strategy personally. I'm a snacker, like I have to have snacks every now and then, but the snacks I choose to consume are things like nuts and seeds and I try and get rid of the sort of processed foods because I lack the willpower. And if I can curate my environment at home to be sugar free or, you know, processed food free, then that's

better for me because I don't have the sort of stringency that I perhaps should have when I'm like surrounded by palatable and ultra processed foods. So snacking, smart snacking, smart snacking is something that I would, I'd highly recommend. That was a mouthful wasn't it? It was, yeah. That was a mouthful. That's so true though, I just need to not buy biscuits. And you know, we're becoming more aware of this, particularly with fatty liver and fat

around our organs, which is the worst type of fat, because it's metabolically active, it's associated with high levels of inflammation. So we want to be really careful that we're not judging the healthfulness of somebody by their aesthetics alone. And actually, what's going on inside is super important, which is why I think monitors of your sugar are a window into actually what is going on when I consume foods that seemingly not having an impact on my on my weight. So yeah, it's just a one way of determining whether something is helpful, or at the detriment of

health for us. So Emma, I feel like you need to share with Dr. Rupi what your diet looks like in a day. Do you know what? I was a bit embarrassed to get a glucose monitor because I know I'm not that good. And I was, we were talking with Adrienne about this. I've been a little bit guilty of kind of adapting my diet since I had the monitor on because I was like scared of what it was going to show. She was like, just do it as normally as possible.

Because otherwise you're not going to get the real reading. She's like, you need the real results for your real life. She's like, don't try and game it for two weeks, because it's not going to be a realistic measure of what you actually do. At the first morning, I had it on, like I said, I normally have a tea and biscuit every morning. I did not have a biscuit on the first day, because I thought that's going to be bad for my glucose. So normally I would. But then like today on a podcast recording day, I normally don't have time for breakfast. So I'm like running to the studio, grabbed a coffee and an almond croissant.

And I was like, I know that's the worst thing I could do. Obviously then my glucose level spikes on the app. So my worst thing is that I'm always just like- A grab and go. A grab and go. And I do also have a very sweet tooth. So I need to basically look at reducing how much sugar I eat. I know I'm bad. I know I'm bad.

What is your, what's your lunch and dinner situation? Do you know, and then I'm so lazy, like Stefan, my husband is always like, eat a proper lunch, eat a proper dinner because, so then I'll have something sugary for breakfast. Then I'll normally like have a crash because I haven't eaten something to sustain me throughout the day. So then I'll have like something mid-morning, maybe like again, a cup of tea and a biscuit or a slice of toast.

Then I just always have like basically a child's lunch, like beans on toast or whatever. If I'm having that, I'll have what I'm making my toddler. And then often for dinner, if I'm on my own, I often don't even make dinner because I'm like doing bedtime routine. By the time I get downstairs, I'm shattered. I want to go to bed. I don't want to do any washing up. So like I say, I'll grab like a bowl of cereal or I'll make a sandwich or my fruit and veg intake is absolutely dire. So that's me on

a typical day really just very, very lazy and just grab and go. Mason Hickman Yeah. First of all, don't say to yourself that this is bad or you're not doing the right thing. You're basically working within the confines of your day-to-day, you're super busy. So what you tell yourself again is super important. So don't beat yourself up too much. And what you just described at the start was really interesting. That's basically the Hawthorne effect. So it's this type of human behavior reaction where you're aware that you're being watched and then you change it to sort of like do the good quote unquote thing. So that's really, really funny.

But yeah, I mean, when you describe your 24 hours, I see a lot of refined carbohydrates. So, you know, biscuits, slice of toast because you've had a crash, and then something else on toast, and then cereal, it's sugar, sugar, sugar. So, these are the kind of products that will turn to sugar pretty much in your mouth. And so, by the time it gets to your stomach, it's being absorbed and it's going to create that sugar spike and the corresponding crash as well. So again, that's just one way of looking at what this food is doing in your body. What I would say is if you can come up with a strategy in the morning, particularly to try and add some fiber and fats before you have something sweet. I'm not saying take away the biscuit, but before you have something sweet, that fibre could actually mitigate the sugar going from your food into your bloodstream.

It slows it right down. So maybe having a handful of nuts or a handful of seeds in the morning before you have your sweet treat is the easiest, simplest thing that you could do straight away tomorrow when you find yourself reaching for that biscuit. The other thing is, you know, beans on toast, not bad at all. Maybe start with something like a salad or greens or something leafy, because again, that's adding fiber and fiber is going to slow down that sugar absorption if you have to rely on something on toast. And there's nothing wrong with stuff on toast. I love stuff on toast. I have smashed chickpeas on toast.

I'll have like posh pesto beans on toast. Like it's actually quite- You'll sound much nicer than mine. Yeah, but very simple to make. Check out my Instagram, I'll show you. And then the cereal at night. Look, I mean, I used to be in the sort of habit of having cereals at night,

particularly when I was coming back from a night shift or a late shift, let's say, and you just can't be bothered to get something out. If you can batch cook something and freeze it, and then make sure that that has got beans in and maybe some leftover chicken run through it, that way you're getting your fiber, you're getting your protein. It's going to help you sleep better as well. It's not going to spike your sugar level just before you go to bed. That can actually disrupt the quality of your sleep.

So these are little hacks that you could try and do before reaching for those sugar laden treats and sugar laden items. So, but go easy with yourself. I wouldn't do everything right at once. I would say the easiest thing you can do is have a handful of nuts before you have something like a sweet treat or a biscuit. It's hard, I find in my head to know what is the right thing because people say you shouldn't eat salad because salad, like not having a salad, like having a salad and nothing else, like you need to add in fibres and you need to add everything. Yeah. And sometimes it's so overwhelming that I just, I look at all these delicious meals and because I don't know when or what or how I should be eating them and like what sort

of order I kind of just go, I'm going to grab myself a meal deal. Yeah. Yeah. You see all this info on Instagram and you're like, okay, I'm going to have a jacket potato. And it can't because then you think, oh great, I've had avocado on sourdough for breakfast with a poached egg. Wonderful. We get to lunchtime and you're like, okay, I'm gonna have a jacket. And then you think, oh great, I've had avocado on sourdough for breakfast with a poached egg. Wonderful. We get to lunchtime and you're like, what can I have now? Should I have another can I have another sourdough or should I have a have a salad? And then you get to dinner and you're like, oh gosh, can't have a jacket potato because I've already got my one carb

of the day. Like it's sometimes it's so overwhelming for me that I, I tend to go sometimes as well. I don't really eat meat. I mean, like I say, I'm a little bit of a yo-yoer. I go some weeks I'm great, some weeks I'm poop. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like one thing I would say, you know, for any carby Barbies out there, and I used to be exactly the same carby Ken. I just can't get enough. I just can't get enough of them. The simplest thing that you could actually do that has been demonstrated in studies to improve your glucose levels and flatten them out is simply slow down the eating.

I tell you, there was a running joke with our family is that we can be in and out of a restaurant. We were a family of five. We could be in and out of a restaurant in 20 minutes. That was food, order, eat out. My could be in and out of a restaurant in 20 minutes. That was food order eat out. We use, my dad used to make reservations at a restaurant. They go, oh, sorry, the table's booked for, for the next, like the hour later. My dad used to be like, give us half an hour, be in and out. So I was really surprised. I had a matcha and I was going to share this with you.

I had a matcha smoothie, so it had like oats and honey in it. I thought this is going to be great. This is so healthy. This is so healthy. And it went massive. Can you see this? Okay. Okay. Well, and how long did it stay like that?

20, 29 minutes. But that was the first thing you ate today. That was the first I didn't have breakfast today. Oh, so that was the first thing you ate. That was the first thing. Yes. Which is good. Like from your advice is quite common.

Had I've had something to eat, maybe my body would never reacted to that as it did. Will Barron So what was in the matcha? Georgie Tunny So it was coconut milk, matcha, oats and honey. Will Barron Oh, so milk, sorry, or oats. Georgie Tunny Actual oats. Georgie Tunny Actual oats. Will Barron You just blended them in, did you?

Georgie Tunny Yeah. Will Barron Okay, interesting. So I mean, like oats in very simple Oats? Yeah. Actual oats. Actual oats. Yeah. You just blended them in, did you? Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So I mean, oats in very simple terms are starchy carbohydrates and the quality of oats really does vary massively.

So you've got, on one end of the spectrum, you've got pinhead oats, which are the ones that you don't really see in supermarkets anymore because they take like 45 minutes to cook and they're very sort of Fibrous and they've got really thick husks on you have to soak them overnight And then you've got the you know all the way down to the instant oats Which are kind of pulverized and they usually have like sweeteners and all that kind of stuff in and that can turn into sugar Very very quickly And so if you've got some that are in between, like some refined oats that most supermarket oats are, and you're blending that with honey, and I'm not too sure if there's any sugar

in the coconut milk, but you blend that all together and that's your first meal, it's sort of not surprising that that's going to have that spike of sugar. But obviously now with what you've been saying, that obviously makes total sense, but you would automatically just go, oh, this is the healthiest thing on the menu. I'll go with it. And it's just proof that it's not necessarily about it being the healthiest thing or making the right choice. It's making sure that you've started the day correctly for your body. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying that you should never have a mattress smoothie like that ever,

but perhaps when you choose to sequence having that mattress smoothie has a big impact. So let's say you had a fiber-rich breakfast before that. You had a little bit of beans, you had some nuts or whatever you've got left over on some toast. And then you had the smoothie, it will probably have less of an impact. An impact. Yes. Yeah. I was thinking about the lunch that we had here today. We've had a beautiful lunch here today. We all had a lovely salad from the salad bar, some edamame, some cauliflower, some tandoori chicken. There was like pomegranate seeds in there. There was celery. There was cucumber, tzatziki. Beautiful. But afterwards we all had some

chocolates because they were chocolates from America in the studio, Halloween chocolates. But we counterbalanced it. But my app didn't spike that much because I had it after a salad. Yeah. No, mine didn't. Mine only went to 6.1. So basically if you're going to eat chocolate, have it. Have it after your salad. Have it after your salad. That's not like a typical salad, right? Like most people think

about salads of like, you know, like a Caesar or like croutons. That's got edamame in, it's got chicken in, it's got tzatziki, you know, all these different beautiful ingredients and that's going to be wholesome and it's going to be supporting your gut microbes. So it's no wonder that if you want to treat yourself afterwards with some American chocolate, I personally go for dark chocolate. I don't like American chocolate, but you know, you do you. It's not going to have that much of an impact on your sugar level. So it's a really good insight. Yeah. That's been really, really helpful though, hasn't it?

So helpful. I could talk to you all day. I could honestly talk to you all day. I really love to have a GP on speed dial. It's so helpful. I could talk to you all day. I could honestly talk to you all day. I really love to have a GP on speed dial. It's really handy. It's really, it's not, I always say it's not about what you know, it's who you know. So keep you in the DMs. Stay in touch. And we'll be doing a cook-off. We'll be cooking up some of your meals and having a cook-off. I feel like we need to bring a meal in. We'll make one of Dr. Roopy's meals and we'll do

a taste test. I'd like that. That'd be awesome. On the meals. But so incredibly grateful and thank you so much for stopping in today. Oh thank you both, I appreciate it. We've learnt so much, I feel like a whole new woman. Like it's true what they say though isn't it, that you, we're still learning as grown-ups every day. I thought we were going to say knowledge is power. That as well. Whatever I said. So thank you so much for dropping in today. Join us once again next week as we sit down with another expert and strive to hit that

personal health goal. And if you have your own personal health goal to hit, then why not visit hello lingo.com forward slash UK to find out more. Lingo, your body has the answers. Lingo is not for medical use. 18 plus only l Lingo and related trademarks are marks of the Abbott Group of Companies. This podcast and the guests are part of a paid advertisement for Lingo.