Should I Delete That? - The "Wellness" Rebrand

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

The 2010s is a time we have come to think of as the ‘wellness’ rebrand. The era in which we declared that we wanted to be ‘strong not skinny’ and that we discarded what we now thought of as ��fad’ diets and traded them in for consistent ‘healthy’ living. Skin and bones were out, toned arms, visible abs and curves in all the right places were in.Today we’re investigating if by replacing thinness as the thing to which we should aspire to with “healthy”, many of us fell into a false sense of healing, not realising how unhealthy our new and ‘healthy’ habits really were….Thanks so much to our amazing guests who feature on this episode: Alice Liveing, Melissa Hemsley and Tally RyeFollow @tallyrye on Instagram Find out more about Tally’s work hereFollow @melissa.hemsley on Instagram Order Melissa’s latest book Real Healthy hereFollow @aliceliveing on Instagram You can buy your copy of Alice’s book Give Me Strength hereIf you would like to get in touch - you can email us on [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram:@shouldideletethat@em_clarkson@alexlight_ldnShould I Delete That is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Dex RoyStudio Manager: Dex RoyTrailers: Sophie RichardsonVideo Editor: Celia GomezSocial Media Manager: Emma-Kirsty Fraser Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By the turn of the decade, the overt brutality of the diet culture years felt like they might be winding down. Heroin chic was on the way out, replaced by a social fascination with the curves of the Kardashians. Over following years, the TV shows we'd flock to in our millions saw their ratings dwindle, and once revered magazine features like Heat's Circle of Shame were passed up for whatever tip bits were now available to us on social media. Lina Dunham was about to give us a size 14 protagonist. The sun was on the brink of stopping page three, and in the coming years, we'd make space for a body positivity movement that would, in one way or another, change the face of much of what we'd come to expect of the beauty and fashion industries.

And we're looking forward to talking about all of that, the movement that inspired us personally to find our voices and the one that so many of our generation credit with changing their relationship with diet culture and their bodies. But that's all to come in next week's episode. And before we can get into any of that, we must first take a look back to our very recent history and the transformation that diet culture underwent in the immediate aftermath of the size zero era. This is a time we've come to think of as the wellness rebrand, the era in which we declared that we wanted to be strong, not skinny, and that we discarded what we now thought of as fad diets and traded them in for consistent, healthy living.

Skin and bones were out, toned arms, visible abs, and curves in all the right places were in. There were many of us during this time who I think did genuinely believe were cultivating healthy relationships with our food, bodies and exercise after years of existing within a culture that perpetuated thinness as the only ideal. And I say that with some authority, as it was in this period that I found myself with perhaps the most problematic relationship with my body that I've ever had. And that's what makes this episode and the exploration of this period of very recent history, one that you'd have a very strong argument to say that we're still in,

a very interesting one to us, because it's abundantly clear looking back that wellness was only ever a diet in sheep's clothing by replacing thinness as the thing to which we should aspire to with healthy, many of us fell into a false sense of healing, not realizing how unhealthy our new and healthy habits really were. And in lots of ways, I wonder, this didn't make the effects of this period of time the most damaging. Because whilst nutritionally, you can argue that the benefits of swapping out your once-dowy pizza base for one made of cauliflower, there's only so many burgers in lettuce leaves that you can eat before you find yourself wondering how different

this era really was from any other. Given as at the end of the day, you're still too scared of a carbohydrate to eat one. If there's one thing this series has taught us, it's that diet culture works in cycles, and much like with any trend, the female beauty ideal at any given moment is as susceptible as a bell-bottom gene or ballet pump to fall in or out of favour. And that's really all that happened here. A body type fell out of vogue, and so too, therefore, did the means by which we sought to obtain it. Where once we needed to starve ourselves in order to adhere to the body type de jour, our new aspiration was glowier and more muscular. She would, therefore, need to start taking collagen supplements and up her protein too.

My fitness pal could help with that. So could this nutritionist and that one, she's got an app and that one too. He's got an e-book. New gym leggings would be crucial. So too with this PTs workout program, they can get your results in 12 weeks. Oh, hang on, wait, this one can do the same in eight. You definitely to cut out gluten. Have you had your blood tested for deficiencies?

Have you tried cryotherapy or bickram yoga? The keto diet is good, but so is adhering to a vegan diet. Does anyone want to try intermittent fasting with me? All of this was done in the name of health and most of it really was just a diet by another name and an incredibly lucrative one at that. The global wellness market was estimated at nearly $2 trillion in 2010 and in 2023 it was worth an estimated $6.32 trillion. That's having surged annually by 12% since 2020. And the wellness economy is expected to grow by 57% to 8.5 trillion by 2027.

And that's because there were naives like me, ready to fall, hook, line and sinker for all of it. Despite having been hugely affected by the noise of the noughties and literally unable to garner any sort of positive relationship with my body as a result of it, I don't think diet culture really took hold of me tightly until about 2015 or 16. And it's really interesting for me to look back on, you know, because I also consider this time to be the beginning of my body confidence journey. and I think that's really interesting how entangled the two movements were for me.

I was embracing lots of my body, but I was also as thin as I'd ever been. And although I was exercising a lot and eating very, quote-unquote, healthy foods, I realized that everything I was doing was really very unhealthy, and my eating would definitely now be considered as disordered. I'd put apple juice on my cereal instead of milk. I'd take raw spinach leaves and chicken strips in a Tupperware box for my lunch and eat a bowl of turkey mince for dinner, half a packet of cigarettes and however much wine anyone could pour for me aside,

I was prioritising health in a very specific way by in countless fitness programmes and constantly chasing the before and after moment as I went. Raw spinach leaves and chicken strips for your lunch sounds really bleak. It was so tragic and I would be so hungry and I would wait, I was working in a shop and I would wait until the clock struck 12 and then I would like gobble them up like a rabbit. It was so horrible.

and turkey mints for dinner. A bowl of turkey mints? Is there anything with that? God, that's grim. No, but I was healthy, so it was fine. It was so messed up. Like, why did, who eats turkey mints? I swear, that's what they use for, like, dog food.

Literally. No wonder I went vegan. But for now, we want to take a look back of the influences of the time. In many ways, the wellness era coincided with the inception of influences as we know them today. As aspirational content rose in popularity at the, the same rate as our societal obsession with health. When I think back to that time, the thing that stands out to me, perhaps above all else, was the fact that I would spiralise everything and eat it in lieu of pasta.

I told myself it was just as good and it wasn't, but that really was just how it went. So can I ask you, why were you spiralising? And honestly, truthfully, was it because you were trying to get more veggies into your diet? What was it thought? Or was it because you were trying to avoid pasta and carbs? It was because I was trying to avoid pasta and carbs. So at this time, I was, honestly, like, I hit every single, like, checklist for problematic wellness wanker at the time. I had been told by a nutritionist that I had to stop eating gluten and dairy.

And she told me I was allergic to, like, 36 foods. And, like, on that list was, like, like, I don't know, broad beans. like it would be like lamb like I don't know I don't know if you can even be allergic to lamb I don't know I was like okay um but I basically been like given I'd seen this nutritionist who like promised to make me like and I had been having I did I did have a problem with gluten to be fair and like I did stop shitting myself which was nice um but like I had had like quite a bad stomach for a while and I had I basically had IBS which weirdly has been like seemingly cute cured by having babies is the weirdest thing I think I told you like I didn't need gluten for 10 years

and then I got pregnant and then now I can eat it again anyway I'd cut out gluten and dairy because she had told me well I and I what I was a complicated thing because I was I was having stomach problems and I am still allergic to dairy unfortunately and the babies didn't cure that but there were all these other foods within it within it that she'd said like I couldn't have like brown rice or like I should find the list honestly and there were loads of veggies in it It was really specific. And so, and I was so, I took her at the, like, letter of the law. And I was, I got really deep into, like, healthy eating and eating well.

And I just basically ate nothing. And it was, and what I did, it was so weird. Like, I had this, like, really specific veg, um, cereal brand that, yeah, I ate with apple juice, which is really weird. Yeah. I'd like to know your logic behind that one as well. Literally why. and and yeah I spiralised it because I didn't want to eat bread

and I'd go to like Byron Burger and I would have the skinny burger literally was called the skinny burger because it would be with the lettuce leaf and like and I really thought I was in the gym a lot and I kind of was really healthy this is the weird thing it's so unhealthy but it was like everything I was putting in wine and cigarettes aside was pretty like I was pretty like I was pretty health

orientated, which is what makes this period so toxic and confusing to me to think back. It is confusing.

So you can't disentangle the two like health and weight loss. Then... Yeah, like your intentions during that period.

Oh no. So I went into it with health in mind because of my stomach had been really bad. Okay. I remember losing two or three

stone very quickly and I didn't really have that like I was never I was never that big I was probably a size 12 when I started and I lost loads of weight and you know when that happens it's like what yeah and starts a fire it does start a fire yeah so I actually don't it wasn't intentional weight loss at the beginning but then when I lost it I was like on a whole path with it. But I don't think I realized how thin. I look back now and I'm like, Jesus, there was nothing of you. Yeah. I was so thin. And actually it was as I started exercising more, because then I'd be going to like, I'd be just doing loads of sit-ups. Like, I'd literally just do like thousands of sit-ups. Oh my God. It's what everyone on Instagram was telling you to do.

Like, I would buy these fitness programs. And I wasn't getting fit. Like, I didn't have cardiovascular fitness. I was basically starving, but I thought I was being healthy and eating this really high-protein diet, which I didn't really realize was a high-protein diet. because I didn't get any education with this. I just got these instructions. So I wasn't really eating carbohydrates. And I exercised, I did this very specific workouts that I was buying from influencers, basically.

And I could still tell you their names and I can still tell you the workouts within them, which is so weird. And then over the next 10 years, I got into, I did my first triathlon in 2016, did my first marathon in 2019, did my first ultra in 2021. The fitter I got, the more weight I put on.

and it's a really steady incline over the next eight, five, eight years of weight gain with fitness. And probably your body getting to where it should be. Yeah, 100%. And also because I was eating to like actually fuel myself.

Because for a while I was only doing what I could with the energy I had, which was nothing. Whereas at a point, when you're doing some training for like something big like a triathlon or a particularly marathon, well you have to eat because it's you can't you cannot do it hungry and you learn to honour hunger and you have to eat carbohydrates

and you you have to switch things up and I did but it's only now looking back that I'm like I was so thin and I genuinely didn't realise at the time and it's crazy like it's really it's I think it's very alarming to me it's I find it so interesting the like the effect that the wellness era like the impact that that had on that, on you at that time. It's really interesting. Yeah. There were a few things that I took from that period, but I have to be honest and say that there was never,

like health was never an intention. I didn't care about my health at that point. But I don't, I was drinking why. Like I was going out, I drank so much at this time. I actually stopped drinking in 2018, 19, because my anxiety was so bad. Because we would drink, I mean, I would just drink all the time. And I would go out for dinner with my friends and have a fucking goat's cheese salad.

Like, who am? What on earth was that? I'd have it the same one. I mean, that sounds quite nice. It was fine. But not if it's not what you fancy. No, then it's not nice. I don't like salad. I never fucking liked salad.

And I'd eat this goat's cheese salad and like drink gallons of wine. And it was a, obviously it was unhealthy. But I don't know what I was doing it for then. Do you know what I mean? because I wasn't trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow. But I also wasn't trying to be thin, because I didn't think I'd realized

how thin I was. Probably still probably would have thought I was fat. Oh yeah, I imagine so. Well, actually, I don't know if I did. I don't know. It's really weird to look back on. It feels like a blur as well, doesn't it?

Yeah. 100%. Particularly as we go on to talk about in this episode with some of the interviews we do, it's very hard to disentangle health from this conversation. because we do all have to consider our health at some point.

We have to consider our mortality and like our movability. We have to consider things, you know. And obviously, like, fitness has become one of my passions. And I'm vegan now. So I still have a lot of, not restrictions, but like, considerations. Well, things that stuck with you from that period as well. Yeah, I mean, I eat loads of carbohydrates now. I was able to put that fear, but you have to.

If you're going to train, if you're going to be strong, you have to. But cutting out carbs, particularly that time, was massive. And that trend in particular, the spiralising trend, was sparked by Hemsley and Hemsley sisters, Melissa and Jasmine, who were the authors of successful cookbooks at the time. Books that I loved, by the way, I actually think their book was the first one that I, I mean, I also have to stress, before this time,

I literally ate cheesy pasta every single night for dinner. The one thing I can thank the series, are four, and it's that I learned to cook. And it was actually with the, I think it was probably Hemsley and Hemsley was the book that sort of ignited my cooking skills. Total side note, but now I really want a bowl the cheesy pasta. I can make you one of those. But back to the Hemsley sisters, they were two of the many glowing faces of the wellness industry, riding a huge wave and garnering a lot of success in the process. We were really excited that Melissa agreed to come in and talk to us about that time. You brought out your first book with your sister in 2014 and it was

marketed at anyone who wishes to feel better. I don't know I'm telling you this like you don't already know it. Lose weight or have more energy. But the idea behind it was that it didn't include deprivation. So it was making delicious food whilst cutting out sugar and processed food. I was a huge fan. This was my first. It was probably my first cookbook that I bought as someone trying to look after, like eat healthy food anyway. But when we think about the pull away from this sort of overt diet culture of the noughties, your work encapsulated it. There wasn't a tape measure on the front cover. There wasn't like, it wasn't like a big sort of diet book. It was more about health. Was that intentional on your part? Because whilst it was still in effect a book to

help people like lose weight and be healthy, that wasn't something that was marketed. Was that something that mattered to you? Big time. I mean, I don't calorie count. And I think now in 2024 so 14 have I done the maths right 14 what did you say 2010 or 2014 10 years later I feel like camps are more split into either calorie count or not back then it felt like everybody was calorie counting and I've never thought that was a helpful way personally to be so there was no calorie counting we weren't trained nutritionists so it was really important not to have any kind of bold claims that this book was going to nutritionally sort you out because we weren't nutritionist, not doctors, made sure that was really clear. No tape measure.

I mean, it didn't even occur to it. I mean, that would never even occur to us. We started, my sister and I, Jasmine, as private chefs fell into that for bands like take that. Then we started writing up the recipes for Vogue and they were like, people are really interested in this. And I remember the first sort of rules

of conduct with the person we're speaking to at Vogue and we said we're not going to say the word diet, we're not going to talk about weight actually and we're not going to talk about calorie counting. And we were putting that sort of stick in the sand because at the time it was diet culture in Vogue and most magazines. I mean pretty much all magazines, especially in the fashion world. There wasn't wellness magazines then. I mean, there was women's health, but it was very sporty as opposed to more lifestyley. And I remember the Vogue editor coming back and going, great. We don't want to talk about that either because we were worried.

What if we write one thing and then it gets spun as we know media can do? So we felt like that was our stick in the sand. And mostly we just wanted to share recipes that were actually satisfying. I feel like the food world at the time was let's make a cake. Let's make something like really naughty, like, you know, butter dripping. you know three butter mash and it was either let's be diety let's be um indulgent and there was nowhere in between and then nutrition and then there was like a kind of jillian mckeith style so there was like nothing in between not even in between there was no nuance in any of the conversations

so we were like right let's do recipes that people can actually make this is before healthy food delivery as well by the way so it's like you either went to the same sandwich shop. It's kind of before Pratt as well, if I remember correctly, before Pratt and people like that were on there on every corner. I mean, five on every corner now. So yeah, it was a whole different landscape, not just in the wellness world, the food world, the convenience food world. And I remember at the same time, my dad, yeah, 10 years ago, because my dad's death anniversary 10 years this year and he was in the Royal Marsden, his cancer had come back or his cancer had morphed. And we were taking, my sister and I and my mum, we were on shifts for who could take him food

into the hospital. And I remember the other patients or their families and the nurses and the doctors were all like, um, what have you got in your flask today? Now, I've got my water flask, but do you remember when people didn't even carry water bottles around? And, you know, it was just very much like you, anything you bought, you had to get from boots or M&S food hall or the corner shop there just wasn't as much of a culture and attitude of bringing your own food in i think the people that did do that were kind of like gym bros and people with their boiled chicken breasts and rice to like go to the gym but most people didn't bring their own and the oncology section of the hospital were like what's in your floss like you know there's

food here and we were just like but we while we've got the chance and we're able to we just want to see if we can feed him as best we can. And that included, like, foods that he was, you know, when you're sick, you feel like you want more comforting foods or when you're run down, you want more familiar flavors. We were trying to increase the protein because he was eating very little. So we were trying to amp up the good stuff, I guess, like the make every mouthful count. And we were also trying to, I don't know, make you nauseous, more nauseous,

but like we were trying to like titillate him with things because obviously, with all the drugs, taste buds were going crazy. So that was a real learning curve at the same time, like, writing this book and feeding someone who was really, really unwell. But it was the same sort of thing. It was like, eat what you want. How can you maximise the nutrients, whether that means adding in beans and lentils, whether that means eating a more diverse range of vegetables,

whether that means cooking your familiar favorites, but trying to add some more vegetables into them if they're not a veg-focused meal. and talking about buying the best quality you could afford when it came to me. When you were trying to make it at that time as cookbook authors in an industry where there wasn't really the space, did you feel that whilst you knew what your sort of agenda and priority was, did you feel like in order to sell or market or like in the conversations with publishers, that there was still this like weight loss kind of narrative? I think in general, they pretty much respected where we were coming from.

I think if they wanted to find somebody who really wanted to push weight loss, they would have done. We were really careful with what we said. The difficulty was is people would write different things as they do now. So I remember once getting onto a plane and I opened up, you know, the free newspaper and it said something like, oh, I don't know, blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah, you know, have a lot to answer for with their dairy-free meat-free recipes or something like. other. And I remember like taking a picture and sending it to our publishers and going, isn't this the newspaper that published our recipes last week with meat and dairy in them? I mean, they just wrote whatever they wanted to. It was factually incorrect. And our publisher would go back and say, you know, that's just not true. They're not, you know, at the very, at the very starters, that's,

that's not, you haven't, you've, you've just, that's not what they do. And you have published them last week and so they would you know maybe make a what's it called a rebuttal or a correction but no one read that so that was pretty frustrating and you could spend all day doing that so I think we were really careful about what we to explain where we were coming from and I think a lot of the time it was quite frustrating when people wrote different things you felt that you were misrepresented Well, I think, yeah, I mean, it happens all the time even now. People will write a, people will write a headline and it's not what you've said. Yeah.

And then sometimes the journalist, well, quite often the journalist will say, I'm really sorry, I know you didn't say that, but my editor wanted to write that. I guess that maybe part of the problem was that during that time, I mean, let's be honest, still now, people are desperate for weight loss, but it was really frenzied during that time. and I think a lot of people used your book or maybe this, you know, it kind of, all the clean eating revolution used it as another way to lose weight basically. It was like it became their news like silver bullet for weight loss. Like, I'm going to try this now. As anyone who was desperate for

weight loss will do, you know, they'll cling on to something. So I guess that might be what happened when it was not your intention, nor was it taken like that by everyone. But I do think for some it was used, like, and it used more broadly as well, not just your book, but the whole clean eating movement was used as a way to just, I guess, ultimately just lose weight. Do you agree with that assessment, do you think? I mean, I can't speak for, how can I speak for thousands of people? Yeah.

I mean, I just can't. I can't tell you what your average person who bought a book felt or did with it. Lots of people had amazing feedback. And I think in general, you know, you speaking about the clean eating movement, my major frustration was that is that, I mean, quite a few people who I think got lumped into that. The world of clean eating didn't call themselves. clean eaters you won't find anywhere me talking about the words clean eating or calorie counting or tape measures which is what we started off with and those of us that got put by some

not everyone as I as I keep saying because I think it's really important not to generalise for me to not generalise that all the press we had said that because it was actually quite a minor part of the conversations that we had I think if you were to Google clean eating maybe a lot would come up. But then if you were to Google hearty, whole food, nutritious food, that would also come up and loads of articles about that. But I think what was a bit frustrating was is that there was quite a few of us, 20-something, early 30s women in food who maybe our only thing in common was the word healthy was put

into it, all being lumped together, all talking about completely different things. things, you know? Yeah, so there might be one person over there talking about weight loss and one person over there talking about vegan food and then perhaps me talking about, sorry, oxtel and chicken livers and batch cooking dahl and like meal prepping sardine patte. And everyone was like, oh, okay, you're all the same. Yeah.

Do you think that was such a interesting? Wow. I mean, I didn't see any guys getting put in there. No. I didn't see any cookbooks that, whose main tool was the before or after pictures put into that group. Or, I mean, there were people who had clean eating in their book names or in their Instagram names that could have been put in there that weren't.

And I think there were people who had the work. It's calories on their books that weren't talked about it. And then us who weren't talking about calories or clean eating were put there. I mean, I don't really know what else to say, others than... It's super interesting. No, I'm super interested. We could have spent the whole time going, didn't say that, didn't say that, you're completely wrong.

Yeah. But you either do that, because we all know how much time that can take. either do that or you crack on and you just get on with all the people that are responding well and having a good time. I feel bad for like lumping you guys in with a trend that you never actually aligned with or you never publicly said like we're affiliated with this movement, the cleanity movement. I guess it was just indicative of the environment at that time, which is you know, you talked about like spiralising corsette. And for me that that's what I picked up out of all of your, because for me as someone obsessed with weight loss and obsessed with like,

I didn't care about my health at that time. I didn't, I didn't give a damn. Health was irrelevant to me. The only thing that mattered to me was thinness and like, how could I achieve more and more thinness? And so for me, that was the bit that I picked up. I can replace my pasta with courgette, cut down my calories, cut down my carbs. So that was the bit that I took from that. I believe that applies to a lot of people but obviously that's not on you you know that's not your that wasn't that wasn't your intention but it's interesting how that was an outcome given given where we were around food and weight loss is like that's what people it felt like that's what people honed in on it's the weight loss aspect of it which applies to everything still now you know we can we can talk about diets now but

in the true sense of the word diet is like what people actually, you know, what people eat day to day. And we could talk about, you know, new, like new ways of eating, but people will always zone in and hone in on that weight loss thing. And I just, I just wonder if that was frustrating for you, for you guys, when you're like, no, we have so much else to offer. Like, we have this whole, like, we're chefs and we've got this amazing, these amazing recipes.

Like, why are you reducing us down to how can you help us lose weight? I'm really sorry to hear that you had such a horrible time. No, no, no, oh my God, no. I mean, the Cogessi was the least of my worries, don't you worry? No, I meant in general that that was just a hideous, horrible, heartbreaking time of your life. Yeah. That's really shit. Yeah, I think it's interesting, though, that it's like, it's people, yeah, people just see what they want to see.

One thing I wanted to say, Alex, off the back of what you said, I don't know if this is helpful to the conversation or not, you know how I mentioned nutritionists and hospitals and GPs, lots and lots of people wrote to us. Again, there wasn't Instagram then, so it was quite a lot of emails through the website for our publishers, even got letters. That's how long ago we're talking. Actual post. From people saying, could you come and talk? Could we just say this has been helpful, keep doing what you're doing? Lots of encouragement. We had a lot of people who worked with young women, young men, older women, older men, going through eating disorders. And a lot of people said to us, we would love you to come and talk.

We've actually found your books and recipes really helpful. So I just wanted to throw that experience I was told about into the mix. Going back to the very beginning of the conversation, 10 years ago, people weren't cooking. And if you were kicking, you were probably buying a cookbook from a culinary trained Michelin-starred cook. you probably, it was probably either indulgent or it was just, just get the food on the table style. And I don't talk about indulgence and I don't talk about earning food and I don't talk about deserving food at all. And I'm, my dream was people that felt they didn't have the confidence to cook, felt that they could rely on what was out there. I just wanted to show

them there's a different way, which is you deserve to be able to learn to cook, whether you cook or not, because everyone's got the right to nourish themselves. You deserve to know what's going in your food. So even if you're going out and buying food, you're buying it. You have the right to know what's in it. And my happiest would be if one said, I use your book once a month or I use your recipes, you know, I've got loads of free recipes online. And what I do is I make one thing and I make a massive batch and I put it in the

freezer and fridge and it's just my go-to when I don't have any time and I'm stressed. That's my dream. So that's what I think most people use my books for is making, being able to spend less time in the kitchen. So the most popular things I do, which I've done all through my books, have been batch cooking, meal prepping. My mum works six days a week. I've worked every day since I've been, I mean, I started my part-time jobs when I was 14, didn't go to university, constantly worked, loved working. Most of us don't have time to cook, whether we like it or not. people that like to cook don't necessarily get the chance to cook

so that's what I like people using me for as a resource to make life easier through food and people are like I want to eat more veg I want to eat more energy giving food I want to eat less ultra-process food so books about food mental health and I did a book about sustainability and now this book is about how to cut back on ultra-process food

not in a diety way more in a the science is there showing that eating a diet high in ultra-processed food may contribute towards physical and mental health challenges. So if you want to cut back on ultra-processed food but you want your home-cooked food to be as convenient as ultra-process food,

this is some ideas for recipes. Do you find it hard to be the antithesis of that? Obviously, it's then assumed by every, well, just by virtue of the fact that it's offering a salute and an alternative, then it does put you in a, like another camp do you find it kind of do you find that quite binary do you find that frustrating well i don't know if if maybe sometimes the world of instagram or some is an

echo chamber because in general i don't really hear in the same way the conversation is about clean eating they weren't coming to me they were there on a headline let's say um and maybe in another forum but they weren't on mine on mine it was this is really helping me I'm eating vegetables I never thought and I'm home cooking for the first time of my life. Those are the conversations I hear I would say apart from this conversation which I think is really important

to talk about diet culture. I'm here for it and I'm happy to talk about my experience with being told I'm a clean eater when I'm not because I hope it's helpful to anyone that might have thought I was. Hopefully I might have made you think differently and it, you know, I don't disregard the fact that it would have impacted as all diet conversations do some people for better

or for worse. So I'm happy to talk about that. But in general, the feedback I get is super positive. And I think that if it wasn't, I probably wouldn't be thinking, why am I working my ass off seven days a week? Because books don't pay you much to do something that people are not enjoying because that would be a waste of a life. I think that maybe this interview didn't pan out quite as we were expecting and actually we were introduced to a new perspective on this that we hadn't really considered and that was that Melissa Hemsley and her sister Jasmine they didn't actually label themselves as clean eating or part of the clean eating movement. That was something that we and the media

kind of projected onto them. A hundred percent. I think we realised it we're having the conversation how simplistically we view women and how we need to label them, package them up, put them in a box and just sort of leave them there. Never mind their nuance, never mind their contradictions,

never mind their opinions. Like when we label a woman something, that's kind of what she's left as. And I think that this was, you're right, because it wasn't something that we considered hugely before we had the conversation. but as we were having it, it became very clear that this wasn't something, you know,

this was something that we associated Melissa with, but it wasn't really something she associated herself with. But it wasn't just food and nutrition that had us all in a spin at this time. It was a massive movement for exercise. Gyms were popping up all over the place. Companies like Nike and Adidas suddenly found themselves with swords of previously the unknown competition as athleisure wear swept the nation

and personal trainers were garnering huge followings on social media selling us the tools to achieve a body just like theirs I bought them all out I bought them all do you know what and it's so funny isn't it like achieve a body just like theirs

and that's the thing that's what we were buying into we were always buying into how the person who was selling us something looked because it was like well if I do that I'm going to look like them and there was no consideration of like DNA, genetics, like vital components. Right. We've got very different, all of those things.

And I can, that's the truth is that I can never look like. And I do think that's, that's something that's only come around with the body positivity era is understanding that your, your body just can't look like somebody else's. No. I mean, sometimes if you want to kill yourself doing it. Or pay a fortune. Right. then maybe.

To a surgeon. Yeah. Do you remember the BBG, the bikini body guide? Yes, I do. By Kayla it's seen us. Yes, I do. That was one of the big takeaways for me from the wellness area era. It was in 2015 that she shot to fame for her like lean but strong physique, you know.

And she had like visible abs and muscle arms and she released the exercise regime, the bikini body guide, which is called BBG, 10 millions of followers. including me and I was in an office at that time and we all downloaded and bought we all bought and downloaded the bikini body guide printed it out and we did it in the office every single day

and it was like it felt revolutionary at the time because it's like oh my god we don't have to go to the gym we don't need any equipment we can just like improve our body at home but I don't know if you ever did you ever do it oh my god the guide was I'm so sorry Kayla but it was so hard to understand it was so convoluted so incredibly difficult to understand and keeping on top of the routine, which changed every single day, if I remember

rightly, literally had to do a different routine. It was so complicated and it was just so hard to keep on top of. I couldn't find any exact data on how many guides are purchased, but it's reported that her platform sold for 430 million in 2021, which I think is testament to how big the appetite was for for that physique specifically as well. We wanted to be, it's such a specific, like close your eyes, you think of it, she's tanned, she's dirty blonde hair, she's got like visible abs, but under just the right amount of, I'm loath to call it fat. But I'm loath to hear that.

Was exercise a big part of your life at this point? Exercise was something that came and went for me throughout since I was like 12 years old. I knew that it was a tool for weight loss. I was told everywhere that it was a tool for weight loss. But whenever I tried it and obviously I would go into it with a completely like all or nothing attitude. It was like black or white.

I would do like, I would be on the treadmill for like four hours a day for two weeks and then never do it again. And it was something that, God, this is, it's going to sound triggering as well, but it was never an effective enough tool for me to control my weight. Food always trumped that and therefore food was always my focus. There were things that would come and go, like trends like the BBG thing, I would give it a go. And I think maybe this is the one, this is going to cut it. But, and ultimately, I wasn't necessarily concerned with having a like, like, this wellness period didn't really, it didn't really stick with me.

It didn't really resonate with me. I wasn't after looking strong but skinny. I was always just looking for skinny. So it never, exercise never really stuck with me. You said something so interesting there about how, and it is a triggering statement, but it's true, exercise was never as effective as food. that is something that if I had known I would have my entire life would have been different but I was you are not sold that because that's the truth

exercise will never be a more effective tool than starving when it comes to weight loss I think the perhaps the most insidious thing about the wellness thing for me is how personal trainers I use that term loosely because some of them are literally like five minute courses online or whatever or all people who just looked aspirational would tell you that this exercise would change this, this and this, when it wouldn't. And they capitalised on our misinformed, on our vulnerability, on our lack of understanding, on the massive amount of misinformation about the fact that none of us got any physical education at school. And I think that's perhaps the thing that still, the hangover of the wellness, that fitness, the gym brobe, fitness, calorie deficit, bollocks, noise, that's not gone anywhere.

that's fucking everywhere still and they still do this and sell you this workout and this workout and this workout you can't do everything with exercise and you can't do everything with food but that's a hard and complicated thing to sell right so they're not going to do that and also that's not very sexy we don't want to hear that like things are consistency yeah and like a mix of things we want a silver particularly when it comes to weight loss we want a silver bullet and that's and people know that, marketeers know that, and that's how they sell it. Talley Wright is an influencer and fitness instructor. We spoke to her to find out where our problematic relationship with exercise might have originated from.

Why do you think that we, in general, have such a troubled relationship and complicated relationship with exercise? I think there's many reasons. I think we have to look at obviously diet culture. We have to at marketing and we have to look at how exercise has always been framed as a means to an end to lose weight. It is just seen as a tool of dieting and not much house and I think you can see that in fitness marketing, how a fitness journey is looked at as before and after photos where you're looking for a body transformation, which as a personal trainer that never tells me anything about a person's actual fitness. It shows me a body that's bigger and a body that's smaller. But it doesn't tell me if your cardiovascular health improved, it doesn't tell me,

you know, if you're stronger, if you're able to do more press-ups, for example, or you're able to run a mile any fast. It doesn't tell me anything about the metrics that actually equate to fitness. So I think if we're looking at who to put, like, blame at, like, responsibility, I think you can look at how media, you know, whether that be in, like, film and TV, I always think of things like legally blonde. You know, the scene where Brook Wyndham's like the workout guru in Legly Blonde and then all of a sudden like Elwood's whole thing to her is like, you help me drop a few dress sizes. Like, you're a hero because that's always what it's seen as in kind of those mainstream

context. I think the other piece is that not only are we seeing it as a tool to lose weight, we're also always seen it as a tool that should be punishing. It should be a chore. you've got to endure, it's not anything that's enjoyable. And I kind of think of the, the archetypes of fitness. You know, you think of like a boot camp kind of energy, you know, giving a movie reference again, the scene in bridesmaids at the beginning when they're like sneaking up

and it's like this army sergeant major leading a workout. So you're always seeing these kind of tough, hard workouts as being the most effective. And so I think diet culture at large is to blame, but it's also how them that has been kind of filtered and trickled down to us. Growing up, reading magazines, watching TV, the marketing that Jim's put in there. So I think it's hard to pinpoint like the sole place,

but there's a lot that we have to be wary of. So exercise I think has always been shown in media, especially the TV shows and movies that we grew up with in a way that depicts it as something that's painful, it's a chore. I mean, I think of that scene in Bridget Jones when she's like cycling really hard on an exercise bike and like that's the secret to her kind of body changing and her, you know, life transformation. but in that scene she's absolutely killing herself on that bike. She hates every second of it. She's doing it just because she thinks she should do it rather than I think ever wanting to actually do it. And I think you see that time and time again in TV and movies.

I can think of several examples. There's an episode of Friends where I think it's Chandler's trying to get fit and Monica's kind of come in to be the one to like, come on, you've got to get fit. Like, you know, every single day you've got to work out. and he's like in terrible pain and really sore after workout and she's like keep going and he's like I don't want to it hurts and she's like no because now we're just getting like to the good stuff kind of thing and I think it's just this boot camp sergeant major mentality that we're constantly shown bridesmaids is another example where you know the two leads are sneaking up on the military

boot camp and that you know the effective workout that everyone wants to do is led by a sergeant major in that So I think there's just been this really slow kind of subconscious infiltration in our minds that tells us that that is what successful exercise looks like. That is what effective exercise looks like. And so we kind of grow up thinking that if we're enjoying ourselves, if we're able to breathe during what we're doing, if we're able to hold a conversation, if we take things at our own pace, then none of that.

is effective enough and it always has to be, you know, 10 out of 10 intensity. We should always be exhausted, sore, struggling, you know, essentially crawling out of workouts in order for them to be effective and it's just not true. And I think we, like I said, we can see those examples in the media and so we need some new ones. But at the time, we were being sold very specific things, both in the food and the exercise space. And the exercise one is something that I, obviously, I've got a lot of skin in the game and I'm very, very interested in this part of the conversation. And so we were really grateful

that Alice Living, a friend to both us and the podcast, who was another one of the glowy faces of this movement, a woman's health magazine contributor who in 2017 first appeared on their cover with the tagline, Clean Eating Alice, the moves that made those abs, came to talk to us. Alice is an OG. She's been in the wellness industry, certainly online for as long as there's been one. And whilst her content has changed hugely in recent years, as so much of what we consume has, in part, no doubt, is a recognition due to public discourse and appetite, but also because she as an individual has grown and changed too. There was a time when Alice was a poster girl for the wellness era, capitalising not just on a new trend and public interest, but a whole new

career too. Bear in mind, she navigated this time when the influencer industry was growing as fast as the creators that made it. With a 2025 lens, we know a lot of what was shared back then was problematic, but we didn't know it then. And we wanted to talk to Alice about what it was like to be in the epicentre of it all. I entered the industry fresh out of dance college, like had a conditioning that there was only one form of like physical, you know, optimal health. And so I perpetuated that absolutely for, you know, the initial phase of my career. I remember actually, and I wrote about this in my book, that there was this moment where I recognized, and I was working as a personal trainer at the time, like I had clients that I was

seeing on the gym floor. And so I was understanding from a firsthand level, like, what women were coming in and wanting and how they were feeling about themselves. And I noticed that there were some women that were saying, not all of them, a lot of them still came in and were like, how can I lose weight and how fast can I lose weight, you know, and it was still very much that. But there were others that were coming in and sort of saying, you know, I'm more interested in getting stronger. I'm more interested in training for feeling good in myself. And at the time, I was going through my own kind of questioning of like how healthy was my healthy and really was I pursuing what I believed to be like true health or was I actually just, you know, extreme dieting

and over-exercising. I was in an industry that was predominantly men, predominantly based off a one-size fits all approach which was we personal trainers were there for people to lose weight with like there wasn't really anything other outside of that you know as a goal it's funny isn't it because it's like now it's very obvious that of course we can look at exercise independently of weight loss and focus on it for its actual like health promoting benefits other than weight loss but at that time in the mid 2010s that just didn't exist that attitude didn't exist exercise was synonymous with weight loss and it was all completely wrapped up in weight loss. And I don't think, I don't think a personal trainer or an influencer who didn't focus

on, or who actively pushed weight loss aside, I don't think they would have succeeded in that, in that culture, do you, of the mid, of the mid-2010s? Like, absolutely not. You know, like the reason why I, like, if you think about when I was successful in my career, I was 22 years old, fresh out of college, had zero qualifications, you know, bar a two-day, like, whatever it was, personal training course, hadn't really trained many clients, but had a career that was absolutely soaring and had people asking me, you know, what do I do, how do I do it? Why? Because I looked the part. There was no questioning of like, is she qualified? Does she know what she's talking about? Has she got any

experience of training, like a diverse group of people to be able to give this advice? No. At no point, was that ever a question? And at no point, like, you have to remember, like, I think, think I the confidence I had like back then was because I was completely enabled by the situation that we found ourselves in and absolutely I take responsibility for that for sure like now I look back and I cringe at like thinking that I had or this like complete confidence to tell people what to do and how to do it but that was the situation and you're absolutely right you know it was fat loss above all else and that was the only message that we gave gave out and so to your point, yeah, I would not have been successful if I didn't perpetuate that narrative.

And your handle at that time, it was clean eating our list, wasn't it? Which, when did you change that? Probably, I think 20, this is a massive guess because I can't remember exactly. Did you? Sorry, we searched you this morning. I did you actually. 2017, yeah, 2017. Yeah, 2017.

I was going to say 2018. Yeah, 2017. You're ahead of your time. I know. Because that, and again, Clean Eating was a huge part of that movement, the mid-2010s movement, wasn't it? Is that where your handle came from initially? Yeah.

You're like, I want to keep up with this. No, no, no. Clean Eating Alice was literally born out of. So when I started my page, I was training at college. I was in my second year. I had had this like horrific experience in my first year at the end of my first year where basically I'd had a sit-down meeting with my head of year. I'd done really badly in all of my assessments.

I was desperate to be in the West End. basically said to me, you're not really going to get there unless you get stronger and you need to change like your vibe in terms of how you look. That was essentially like the undercurrent of the narrative that she was giving me. I start second year and I'm like, Jesus, like I want nothing more. Like I've sacrificed so much to be at this college. Like I've got a place here. I want to be, you know, a West End star. And I was made to believe that unless I changed how I looked, that wasn't going to happen. So I started the page because I was like, I need to lose weight. And I had spent my entire childhood, like desperately wanting to lose weight. Like my focus and obsession on fat loss had

started way before that. You know, I had been dabbling with dieting and, you know, not eating and all sorts of like really complicated relationships with food from, you know, 13, 14. But when I was at college, it was like, I'm going to do it differently this time, you know, rather than the special okay diet. I'm going to eat, you know, what was popular at the time, protein and veg and it was going to be really clean. And I think I'd seen the word online and just kind of took it and was like, well, that's what I'll call my page. Never in a million years did I think that I would end up having like this kind of massive platform that I did. It was more like, this is an online food diary. I'm going to start this, what I believe to be, like healthy lifestyle change. And I'm going to use that

name as a kind of way of describing what I was doing. So I guess at some point, yeah, I picked up on the subliminal like trend of clean eating at the time but I don't think that I truly knew like what I was doing it was more just like oh I'd seen this name that will make sense you know like when you choose your first like email address like it's just like that I was just like okay cleaning Alice off we go you've spoken since then quite openly about having some guilt for like the fitzbo content mm-hmm hashtag fit we can't say fitsbo without hashtag can you talk about that like such a weird word um can you talk about that did you have any idea at the time that you were perpetuating something unhealthy or did it feel genuine when you

were in the midst of it? I think, yeah, like hindsight's a wonderful thing and I look back and, you know, yeah, I feel an immense sense of guilt because definitely I played my part in causing a lot of problems at the time, I think for a lot of people. At the time and in the moment, I wasn't conscious of that because I was so wrapped up in the world that I existed in, which was that everyone was doing the same and I didn't feel that there was anything wrong with what I was doing. There was a point where I truly believed that what I was doing was healthy. And I think that was the problem that because of myself and many others at the time, being in that same environment where it compounds your belief that what you're doing is right.

And also, like, not many people questioning that, you know? Like, I didn't have the wherewithal to, I guess, be critical about my own decision making. I just was like, well, nobody's telling me what I'm doing. doing is wrong and I think I'm you know being healthy and I remember like you know the people that I was surrounded with at the time and the environments that existed in it was absolutely like validating of my behaviours so no like I I I I didn't if I'm being completely honest I definitely did later on but yeah not at the time it's you you don't know what you don't know and as you say you think you're doing your best for yourself and because it is so tied up in health

and cleanness you think it's all really good but you've spoken since about how your health was suffering at that time, like, massively. And you got, you lost weight to the point that your period stopped. Was that your kind of moment of like, oh my God, this is not as healthy, quote unquote, is what I feel like it is? Or how was that shift when you found out that you, when you realized that you'd made yourself ill with it? Do you know what's crazy?

It's like, when I lost my period, I didn't question it because I had had terrible periods when I was a teenager. Going on the pill really helped me with that, you know, in terms of like pain and all that sort of stuff. And so I just kind of was like, well, this is nice. And I genuinely, I know this sounds awful now because like I could never do this now, but I just kind of forgot about it. Like I just buried my head in the sand. I didn't really think about it. I was so laser focused on exercising, eating very little, continuing to do those behaviours on such a cycle that my world became so small and my focus became so narrow that this sort of stuff might pass through my thoughts once in a blue moon but then I kind of

move on to the next thing and forget about it. The only time that I started to then question it and I fully credit her with like my recovery basically was when I met Emma Cannon who was a fertility expert and I think that she it was very serendipitous how we met but she was a client of a trainer that I was working, I was working in a gym, she was a client of another trainer there. We became sort of friendly and I'd said like, oh, I'm having some issues with my period and she was like, come and see me. We have this sit down. And she asked me all these questions. I was like, oh, she's really asking me like a lot of weird questions. Like she was looking at my tongue. She asked me how much like exercise I'm doing, what my bowel movements,

but like all this sort of stuff, like such a potted history of like my life. You know, she sort of said to me like, do you want to have children? And I was like, oh, I mean, at the time I was I don't know, like mid-20, early to mid-20s. And I was like, yeah, I would really love to have children. Like, there's always been something that I've wanted. And she was like, well, and she said it in a very nurturing way. Like, it sounds really brutal when I sit now. But she was like, well, darling, if you want to have children,

you're not going to be able to carry on doing what you're doing now because that won't be possible. Like, basically said that. And I think it was the first moment where I was like, there are ramifications to what I'm doing. I think you can carry on behaving in a certain way without questioning it, especially in your early 20s where you feel in Vinny's, you don't really think about your future kids life like you're just so wrapped up in like

I mean I was incredibly selfish and very self-centered and so that was the first moment where I was like I am impacting like my future here and I think from there it was almost like the complete unraveling of everything it was starting to question absolutely everything and be like oh my goodness like what am I doing but that was the first moment that happened did that scare you then because you were held up as the poster girl health and fitness purely but you know not purely I don't want to minimize the like the hard work that you did and everything but a huge part of it was for what you looked like so the idea of looking different to that did that scare you yeah yeah the consequences of that absolutely and it was it was scary and it was also an unlearning of so

much and I know for anyone that's experienced diet culture like those learnings run deep you know whether it be you know as simple as like going into a supermarket and picking like the lowest calorie option for something or like you know looking at the back of a food packet when you're in a restaurant choosing the you know the lightest whatever it might be like all this stupid stuff that we ingrain in ourselves believing that we're like this you know kind of virtuous being, it runs deep and it takes a long time to unlearn. And so, you know, yes, it was scary. Yes, it felt challenging. And it was definitely like a long undertaking of, like I said, like an unlearning of things. But it was definitely spurred by the fact that I

saw there being so much more to life. There was like a moment that I had where I was like, what am I doing? And I do actually think that age and having a partner who was never involved in diet culture and was so the antithesis of that who had this like, you know, I look at Paddy and think he had this like full life where he'd be like going out with his friends every weekend, like socialising, like doing so many fun things. And I had this tiny small life like my life revolved around such few things. And it was so, I see. and I just looked to him and I was like oh my god I want that like I want to be able to have that freedom of you know like doing all those things so it was difficult but for me it was there was

so much more that was going to benefit me about making that change than there was that scared me about doing it thinking to the industry at the time you know like you say we all have those kind of like ingrained little things that informed our decision making and still inform a lot of our decision making now, wherever we picked it up. Are there ways that you can think of, or examples in which the wellness industry took advantage of our kind of like vulnerability in this space or misunderstanding of food and health as a whole, an exercise? God, so much. I mean, for a starter, like that being thinner as being better, you know, like that's prioritised over anything else. I think where I feel the fitness industry

have its biggest problem is we are not qualified to be giving half the advice that we're giving firstly. Like as an industry, unless you've done further qualifications to basically you know, be qualified as a nutritionist or anything kind of in the nutrition space or you've done kind of a further degree or qualification, the majority of personal trainers out there are not qualified to be telling people what to eat, giving people diet plans, giving people calories to eat like and what's happening is that as a result of that we and I understand it because there's this big gap right that people don't have the means to see you know a nutritionist who might be a lot more expensive than going to your local gym and seeing a personal trainer for however

much an hour I get that but it means that we are damaging people basically you know and I'm causing a lot of issues as a result of that and I think that that's pretty problematic. just like just all the conflicting information like that's so like more harmful I think than okay not more equally as harmful as the wrong information is just everything conflicting it makes eating so complicated but you not think that's that's why they do it it's like let's make it really confusing and let's confuse people to the point that they can only come to us for the answer and we are the solution that's what diet culture essentially is like let's just give people consistent mixed messaging like think about when we were growing up I know that we're like

roughly similarly just like, I cannot tell you how many diets I saw my mum be on. You know, it was like Atkins, then it was the Ducan diet, then it was a special K diet, then it was this. It's like you just replace the problem with a new problem because to keep people confused is to keep people engaged in the system of constantly feeling as though they need to do the next thing to lose weight. That's how it works. I genuinely like believe that if we can break people free from thinking that there is this like big solution, you know, we talked about, I know we don't want to go there that much, but talked about OZMPIC, like why are people going to OZMP? Because it's like,

oh, it's the next thing that's guaranteed to make you lose weight. And, like, people are just spending their lives chasing thinness. And it's a constant hamster wheel that you will find yourself on. And unless you have the confidence to break free from that and to recognize that, like, that is a really horrible place to find yourself and can be for some women, like a lifelong pursuit that they never lived up to, then we're going to continue having these. problems and women are going to continue being, you know, fed stuff that keeps them on that

hamster wheel. Big question for you. Oh, wow. Has there been anything over the last 10 years that you would do differently if you were given your time again? Yeah, a lot of things. Like when I think back to why everything happened the way it did, like it makes so much sense to me now that I've been able to reflect on my life. When I was at school, I never felt like I was like, I was like, like the popular girl. You know, I always felt like I was a bit of a nod one out. I was like desperately trying to be in like the group of girls that were like really popular and whatever and I never felt like I quite fitted in. And so when I started my Instagram page, it was like, oh my God, like I have hundreds of thousands of people who are telling me that they love me and that

like they love what I'm doing. And so this is what I've wanted my whole life. Like I wanted to be popular and liked and you know all those things and suddenly I have it so obviously I'm going to cling on to that like why wouldn't you like I suddenly felt like I like hit the jackpot of course because of that you turn a blind eye to a lot of the things that you're doing that maybe at the time you were like you know maybe this isn't so good but but above all else I'm getting everything that I want um my career is soaring you know I'm having people tell me every day like oh you're great you're this you're that you're inspiring and so yeah like I clung on to that for way longer than I should have so when I look back on things and I think

I wish I'd done that differently it wasn't because at the time I was like oh like what I'm doing is awful but it was more that I was so swept up in this like adoration that I couldn't see that like massively under eating you know and also so not being 100% honest about what I was eating. That's another big thing. Like a big regret is that definitely for a while there would be this like showing what I was eating but that not being the full picture. And I know that that to be true for so many other influences that obviously like at

the time we were in the same vibe, there was a lot of smoke and mirrors and I hate that. I hate that I did that. I'm not a liar and I don't like, you know, being dishonest, but that was just the reality. Can you elaborate on what that? Yeah. So like if I was having like a breakfast, you know, I might have like two slices of toast on the plate with the picture of whatever it was I was having. And then before I started eating it, I'd take the toast off. I remember going for a dinner with another person in my world. And we both had our partners there. And we both ordered salads, I think. And our partners both ordered burgers. And we both took pictures of their meal and posted that as like, outfit. dinner having a burger and that wasn't true and obviously like that is so bad but particularly in that scenario and in others it was like you just I don't know I just didn't question it and I I had that if there were one thing and I write about that a lot in the

book like this guilt that I feel is probably you know like I I feel I feel that there was a level of dishonesty that I'm really uncomfortable with now but that I definitely did at the time. So yeah, I would say like that and just more generally like maybe not being open about how it was mentally feeling as well. You know, I had a lot of that stuff.

I think the number one thing that I would say happened to me as a result of diet culture is like this like chronic loneliness that my world became so small and I prioritised, you know, going to the gym and like eating off like such a restrictive menu that I barely did anything that I had not really many friends at all or the people that I was friends with were doing the same as me. So it was kind of like

we just all validated each other. And I just felt like unbelievably lonely. And so I think that like I regret that because I think I missed out on a lot of my 20s. The reason why now, like I am so passionate about like having this like full social life and like probably why I haven't had kids yet and stuff is because I'm like I feel like I'm making up for like the life that I missed out on when I was in my 20s. Like I'm now going out loads like having so much fun with my friends and doing all the things that I just really like missed out on and that's that's sad like I'm sad that I did that. So yeah there was there's a lot of regrets. There's a lot of things that I would do differently. But like I said at the time, it wasn't that in the moment I was

like, this is really bad. It was that I was so swept up in only seeing the good that I didn't really recognise that that stuff was maybe more problematic than it was. Yeah. Can I just dig into that guilt that you mentioned, you know, the guilt that there was a level of dishonesty to what you were telling your audience. Obviously it was a big audience. How do you like now reconcile of that guilt, and as you were coming to the realization that you hadn't been honest and that they were, it was smoke and mirrors, how do you, how, that must have been hard

to feel that guilt suddenly and try to like grapple with that. Yeah, I think, yeah, but I'd way rather be honest about that now than not. Like, I could easily just sit here and be like, you know, everything was great. I never really did anything wrong. Like everything is fine.

But that doesn't really solve the problem because also like I see now that same problem being perpetuated by like this whole new generation of people that are doing the same thing that we did when we were growing up and it even more in a terrifying way because they have access to so much more. But I think, you know, I've had, you know, had to work on that side of things. But I don't sit here like wanting sympathy.

Like I'm not, I hope it doesn't seem as though. I'm like, oh, where was me? Like, you know, I make choices and they were the wrong ones. And ultimately, like, I have to be conscious of the fact that, you know, and by the way, like it wasn't that I was doing that loads. I wasn't like every day, like posting different things. Like, if you scroll back on my page, like a lot of the meals that I was posting were silly low calories and eliminating carbs and blah, blah, blah.

But, you know, on the times I did do that, yeah, for sure there's guilt around that. But, you know, like everyone makes mistakes in their lives and everyone makes choices and has, you know, an ability to reflect and learn from the choices that they've made that might not necessarily have been the right ones. How I reconcile with that is that I just try and do better now. Like, how else can I change it? Like, I can't go back. I can't do anything except be like, I hold my hands up and I did this and it's really toxic and I'm really ashamed of it. but I want to do better and be better. And so that's all that I can do.

I actually think that's more powerful than anything. Like this is something that we come back to in this series time and time again. We're constantly saying that everyone is only a victim of their own environment and culture at that time. And we only knew what we knew at that time. And I think it is incredibly powerful to hold your hands up and be like and acknowledge that and be like, hey I just didn't know any better at that time and actually I think it's super impressive like rather than double down and like and I guess try and fight away the cognitive dissonance by being like no what I was doing was right it had purpose I had good intentions like rather

than I'm not saying you didn't didn't have good intentions but rather than leaning into that and doubling down to recognize and accept this wasn't right and I don't agree with this anymore and like I want to change my perspective on this and be open and public about that I think that's cooler than anything and so i don't mean to like put blame on you when i talk about you know guilt or push you on that you know just it's it's a journey isn't it i guess understand but i think that's such growth and it's so empowering to be able to make that transition from like hang on this isn't right what i'm doing isn't right recognizing it and i'm going to go from here and and make a difference to my audience now i think it's really cool thanks

Like everything about this series, our conversation on wellness grew so much bigger than we initially imagined. So we've decided to split this episode into. We're going to be back tomorrow to uncover the truth, lies and deception of the wellness industry to find out what we can believe and what is, well, bollocks. See you then. Should I delete that as part of the ACAST creator network?