The Break-Up Diet - Maybe Feeling THIS BAD Isn't Normal. ft Olympia Anley

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

This week I'm joined by Olympia Anley and honestly... this conversation made me question SO many things I thought were completely normal.Because why are so many of us walking around feeling exhausted, stressed, bloated, overwhelmed, anxious, burnt out and just generally a bit "off"... and acting like it's completely fine?Olympia shares how she went from living the typical university lifestyle of constant nights out, hangovers and ignoring every warning sign her body was giving her, to completely transforming her health and becoming obsessed with wellness, longevity and feeling her best.We talk about the surprising symptoms that made her realise something wasn't right, why so many women have become disconnected from their bodies, and how we often normalise feeling tired, inflamed and burnt out when our bodies might actually be trying to tell us something.We also get into alcohol, dating sober, burnout, stress, meditation, gut health, hormones, emotional wellbeing and why some of the things we do every single day could be having a bigger impact on our health than we realise.And because this is The Break-Up Diet... we couldn't not talk about relationships. Olympia shares her thoughts on healing after a breakup, why closure doesn't come from your ex, the mistake so many of us make when we're trying to move on, and why constantly looking for answers from someone else can actually keep you stuck for longer.Plus, we talk about learning to trust yourself again, reconnecting with your body, and why feeling your best isn't actually about perfection — it's about finally listening to yourself.This episode is eye-opening, thought-provoking and one of those conversations that will probably have you questioning a few of your own habits afterwards.So if you've ever found yourself saying "I'm just tired", "I'm just stressed", "I need closure", or "I guess this is what being an adult feels like"... this one's for you.🎧 Maybe Feeling This Bad Isn't Normal. ft Olympia Anley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you think you have to consciously try to break that thought pattern to actually move on? In my experience, you are the only person who can offer yourself closure. And by bringing them into the picture and, you know, giving them the virtual microphone in your life, you're wasting your time and your energy. And it's only going to make things harder at the end of the day. Buckle up, bitches. This is going to get bumpy. This is the breakup diet. Today I'm joined by Olympia Anley.

So welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. And I thought it would be really fun today to talk about like longevity because I actually don't know much about it and overall wellness. So that's why I thought I would have you on. Awesome. I'm very happy to be here. So before we get into that, who are you?

What do you do? How did you get into like the wellness space? My name's Olympia and I have been creating content on social media full time for about a year dedicated to wellness and my journey with it and things that I'm learning. I got into the wellness space because I overdid it as a university student, pretty much. Okay. First year at Bristol was pretty heavy. It was just kind of non-stop going out. It never became a problem, but it got to the point where my body started to have symptoms that were big red flags.

Like rashes or something or bloating? Blooting, a lot of inflammation. I was passing at some point. blood in my stool and I thought I was dying. So, you know, when you just like aren't listening to any symptoms and I'd have the worst hangovers and I'd be coming back from a night out and my flatmates would be going to their lectures and it was just relentless to the point where I was like, this has got to stop. And so alcohol was the first thing that went for me and that was the start of my road into wellness because I felt incredible, you know, stopping drinking as someone who had really enjoyed it previously. And then I really kind of came back to myself.

was able to listen to the cues from my body and was like, what else is there? What else am I missing, you know, in this wellness game? And it kind of positively spiraled from stopping drinking. So you're sober now? Yeah. Did you go sober when you were at the uni? No, I phased it out in probably my second year of uni, which was a really interesting experience because...

That must be really hard, actually. Like, I know I get all the benefits for it, but I think I would find that very hard. Do you drink regularly? I want to say no. I do drink. I probably do drink too regularly now because of like summer more if I'm being completely honest. I'm quite a black and white person. So once I like learned the science that there were absolutely zero benefits and it was and and for me it was, you know, drinking was a bit of a form of self-harm. It took me so far outside of my body that I couldn't even register like whether

I was really having a good time or wanted to be there or be with those people or you know. And so phased it out, would occasionally have like an occasion drink at Christmas or a wedding kind of thing. And then I was like, what's the point? This for me doesn't feel like a struggle to cut it out completely. And I, you know, wouldn't have any expectation for it to be the same with anyone else. But for me, I just, I didn't need it. And I feel okay without it. And now I've got to the point in my life where don't miss it, don't think about it, not interested. That's so great. Six years ago, me would be like, what are you on about? Because in the UK, we start. drinking when we're like 13, all these house parties. Yeah, it's super young. I think that,

I think mine was like 13. Yeah. First off, do you have a boyfriend? Yeah. But did you have a boyfriend then? When I stopped, no, I didn't. Did you find it hard when you were dating at the start then, not having a drink? Because that's the automatic thing of people go, let's go for a drink. That's a great question. And honestly, I found dating a lot more invigorating and real because you didn't have that social lubricant, you didn't have that like atmospheric relaxant of like going for a drink, which is how most people connect and bond and then build their relationships through, you know, this commonality of drinking alcohol together. And so instead, I would go in broad daylight for like a coffee or a walk, you know, as a first date. And I felt like it was a fast track way of getting to know someone

and, you know, seeing whether there was something real there rather than like, you know, three dates in, you've been drunk every time. You think you like them. because you've got the beer goggles or whatever they go on. I mean, depending on what your vision for your future self is and your future relationship, if you want to have the kind of relationship where you're cracking a bottle of wine open, you know, over dinner, then so be it. But that's not the lifestyle that I'd envision for myself. So I wasn't going to compromise when it came to the dating scene

and give a potentially false version of myself to this person I was meeting to then go, actually, let's change the narrative. I don't like drinking. And, you know, this isn't what our relationship would look like in the future. Yeah, you should be doing that. Cut the bullshit, you know, let's get through to whether there's something going on here or not. Yeah, I think also it must have been hard, though, at the very start, just making the change if you, maybe not you specifically, but in general, if you're somebody that, like, uses alcohol to, as a bit of, like, Dutch courage. And I'd experience that with partying and going out.

It was courage. Like, I had the courage to stand in a freezing cold club queue line for about an hour. And then as soon as I went sober, I was like, this is. boring and horrific and I'm leaving. So yeah, it was an entire lifestyle shift. Amazing. And now you're a longevity coach, is it? Yeah, yeah, I did a qualification. I'm always learning and studying and taking on board new, new ideas and science. Yeah, related to longevity. And for anybody that might not know what longevity is, what is it, in your opinion? I think the definition of longevity is just a long, a long time. So, you know, longevity of a glass water bottle might be longer than that,

but a plastic water bottle. But as related to humans and health, it's unique because it takes into account not just your lifespan, which is how many years you live, but also your health span, which is how many of those years are spent disease-free, you know, not in a wheelchair, because there's no point living till 100 if the last 30 years or so are spent, you know, on your bed. way that you got into like longevity and wellness is through your own experiences. So how did you know where to start on yourself? Okay, you said the alcohol you cut that did you automatically see results from doing that? Or was it more you went into deep diving into research of or did you see specialists? Like I went down the, you know, healthcare route, saw my doctor. She told me this was an

NHS doctor that the gut microbiome and gut health was all just research and that there's no science or evidence behind it. And I was like, well, I've tried a number of everything and nothing's working here. So then I kind of went into slightly more alternative holistic medicines or a naturopath or, you know, racheologist, a kinesiologist, all these things and people who give you different interpretations and diagnoses. And through that process, I learned so much. And it's, it's hard to exactly quantify where the starting point is, because when you're able to draw upon lots of different types of holistic healing and medicinal practices, they all end up integrating. But really, what I learned was it's about energy.

Tuning into how you really feel is that my illness, when I got to the bottom of it, it was psychosomatic. What does that even mean? The symptoms are felt and experienced, but it's come from, so emotions, emotions are energy in motion, and you can get blockages and trauma and things that are stored in the body, or, you know, I remember reading this book and it said, like, pain in the knees can represent a fear of moving forwards or like every body part kind of... Trauma response. Exactly.

It can hold and respond differently to events in your life that have happened or our minds are so powerful and they ultimately affect our biology depending on your mindset. So psychosomatic, psychorelating to the mind and the brain and somatic, you know, as relating to the entire being. For me getting to the root cause and the start of my journey was realizing that it started with me, not with any, you know, treatment or cure. It started with how I felt about myself and my, you know, self-development practice and doing some inner work. There are things that we could be doing like in the day to day that might seem small to you because, you know, you know about a lot of stuff that like will improve our general health, like maybe a non-toxic product that we should be using or a toxic product that's actually. wax out our body loads, like lots of people talk about deodorant, for example.

There's so many. But because it's fresh in my mind, a fun but unexpected one that most people use and wear but aren't aware is potentially really ruining their health is perfume. You definitely don't want to hear that. But the term puffin or fragrance, whether it's in a moisturiser or a you know, body lotion or a shower gel or even just the perfume that you're actually spraying on yourself, it can contain dozens of undisclosed chemicals. And what these chemicals do is they get into your bloodstream and then they mimic estrogen. And so the endocrine system, which is the hormone system within your body, is a messaging network that then gets confused, which is why you ultimately end up with, yeah, hormonal imbalances and problems that can result in things like PCOS.

What about somebody that sprayed it on their clothes mostly, not on? on the direct skin. Is that better? Better. I mean, the worst is spraying it right on your neck because you have the thyroid gland here, which, yeah, is an important gland within the system. So spraying it on your clothes is better, but you're still inhaling it and it contain, you know, fallates and parabens and all sorts of unwanted things. And it's the kind of thing where you get used to it, the smell of the perfume, but as soon as you don't wear it, you become hyperconscious of it, and then I get a headache now if I were to wear perfume. Oh gosh, sorry, you're definitely going to get a headache from being in my house.

Good. But I feel like most people don't ever think about that one. No. But in terms of the cosmetics lineup, is an easy one to, you know, either reduce or swap out because they're in great non-toxic options now. Do you know any of like in where you can get them and that sort of thing? I really like moods, aromatherapy. They actually have some like clinical trials and studies to show the effects of the essential oils

on your brain. So they have ones for improving concentration or sleep or going to the gym. and basically like empowering you with these different sensations as resulting from the smells. There we go. Moon. Moods and you can get them on health. And for somebody that like might feel burnt out because I keep seeing like on social media, that's a big topic that people talk about is feeling like burnt out and overwhelmed. What's something that you would suggest for them to do to reset? 100% it would be meditate. If you're feeling burnt out and I experience burnout all the time,

it's because I am too in my head, you know, and I've got a million thoughts racing, a million things I have to do. I'm like trying to do it all. I become slightly manic and ADHD and I'm all over the place. And meditating gives me the spaciousness to kind of create some awareness of what's going on in my life and in my mind and just, yeah, drop in to my body.

On the whole sliding scale of health, what are your priorities? I just want to feel healthy and, yeah the best version of myself internally because for a lot of years I didn't so I guess that could actually be a question to you for somebody who wants to like feel great in themselves well would you suggest that they start with there's everything and anything like and I feel like it can be really overwhelming because there are so many things you can do there's your clothing to think about there's the food that you eat there's not even thought about my clothing oh my gosh that's a that's a

Not wearing it. Like I didn't like there's going into my skin or something. The dyes, the chemicals, the microplastics, the BPAs. You know, brands like Sheen and Lulu Lemon are under investigation by the Texas Attorney General for containing these toxic chemicals. I love Lulu lemon. Fuck. Lulu's are the worst.

No. Yes. They have the best types. They have the best eyes. Trust me, I used to be a Lulu die hard. Not anymore. I've had to chuck it all out. So how do you know what clothes are safe then?

You know, they legally have to put the fabric composition on the label. So in your Lulu Lemon leggings, if you have a look, it will likely be polyester, elastane, both of which are petroleum-derived plastics, right? So they're not only harmful to your health, they're also harmful to the environment and really unsustainable. But aside from that, the dyes, the chemical processes that are used, that then sit against your skin, when you exercise, your pores open, and you're subject to absorbing all of those, basically like plastic, crab and chemicals that are in the leggings.

It's effectively like wearing a plastic bag wrapped around your most intimate parts that are very sensitive and absorbent. Jesus, so what else is there? I know plastics about plastic bottles and coffee cups. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be having a hot liquid in plastic and most paper cups are lined with plastics

otherwise they would disintegrate as soon as you put the hot liquid in. Microplastics within diet is a big one. And the worst sources of those are heat. And then spicy foods, fatty foods, because they leech the microplastics extra. So let's say you've got your serracha sauce in a plastic bottle. That's a no-go. Or like, or going upstairs and I'm chucking it out.

Or a plastic ready meal that you then put in the microwave, you're like double baking the plastic with the heat. with the food that's ultimately going to get contaminated and then you're ingesting that directly into your system. This is quite hard to avoid all these things. Like if you think about everything. There's so much. Well, or is it more about limiting it? Because like as in clothing, then are you having to switch out your entire wardrobe? Yeah. Yeah, you are. If you want to go to the extreme. But I would say the important places to start are where you're getting the most exposure. You're able to limit that. That's what's going to move the needle most for you. So it might be through diet.

like let's say you have a habit of drinking out of a plastic water bottle. I do, yes. You don't know how long that water's been in the plastic bottle. It might have been in the heat on a shipping container, you know, for however many months before it's arrived. And you might be drinking it fresh out the fridge thinking, oh, crisp cold water, but actually it's been heated and the microplastics have been leached. And there's lots of testing and studies that show the level of contaminants in plastic water bottles. So maybe if you're doing that every day, you would want to reduce that. or if you're wearing polyester underpants every day,

maybe you would want to like invest in some cotton ones or bamboo ones with a closed loop echo tech certification. It's a whole world of like non-tocks. But I think the important thing to remember is only the incremental changes will be sustainable. It's hard to full send everything at once without getting overwhelmed. Everything and anything. If you try to go all guns blazing at every single element, you just burn out. Definitely.

And then you've got to meditate. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Meditation comes first. With the meditation, for somebody that doesn't know how to do it or where to start with it, is there like an app that's very helpful in your first beginning that you kind of listen to like a guided thing? Or is it you close your eyes and listen to the breath and you try to just like not think about anything? There are definitely apps you can get like headspace and things. But for me, I find it really helpful to have it stack it.

So in the morning I have a red light mask that I'll put on and it lasts. and it lasts for 10 minutes. And during those 10 minutes, it's a really bright red light, you can't really do very much because you look like Dar Fader. So I just sit there and I meditate for those 10 minutes and then I don't have to look at my phone for a timer or anything

because it's an automatic 10 minute thing. And for me, it's just a process of, yeah, coming back to my breath, tuning in to how I actually feel that morning because quite often we begin the day and we jump straight back into the story of like who we are and what we've got to do. and, you know, we buy into this narrative that we've created and this identity, whereas if you wake up and you feel, how am I actually feeling this morning, you know, and you practice that deep self-honesty of what's coming up for you. Maybe you are feeling a bit anxious, maybe you feel really light. And to carry that awareness then with you throughout the day, I just find it makes life so much easier to navigate. I'm feeling like a unwell human. I'm deep down the rabbit hole of like, and I've been.

spending years kind of exacerbating and perfecting my routine and trying out all of these different techniques and seeing what works and what feels good for me. And so it's a lot. How do you like navigate what's actually just like a trend, like a hype or a trend? So for example, at one stage, everyone was like obsessed with beef teller. It's research. It's seeing who's behind the marketing campaign. Is it a brand, you know, and is it, do they have, have you looked at the ingredients? Let's that it's a product or, you know, a beef towel and moisturiser, have you actually looked, you know, how much beef tallow is in it? And then, of course, it's trying and testing. Does beef tallow work for my skin? Does it smell bad? Like, it's trial and error, but it's also like doing your due

diligence around these brands because often they will create a big marketing hype by, you know, injecting budget into these campaigns that go viral for a moment and then they sell those of products, but what's actually in the product and is it, does it work for you personally? And is there like a site where you can like check things? Omri, yeah, which is like a products list that you can have a look at like standards and a whole breakdown of the product. There's also the toxic free foundation where you can search an ingredient in their database and it will tell you about the toxicity of the ingredient. Okay, that's good too. Yeah.

I mean there's the Yaka app, Y-U-K-A where you can scan a product's barcode and it will also give you a breakdown of the ingredients. but that's also to be taken with a pinch of salt because it doesn't flag things like, you know, perfume fragrance. I think as a rule of thumb when you're looking at an ingredients label, are they all things that are identifiable, that you can recognise, that you can pronounce, you know, and a good, it shouldn't have 50 ingredients

that you don't know what half of them are. Yeah. They're ridiculous statistics about, like, most women will put something like 3,000 chemicals on their face in the morning before they've even left the house. Oh, God, I don't even want to know. And make up to things. about to.

Yeah. Going back to your thinking, where's my biggest one right now? I'm thinking, oh God. Yeah, your biggest exposure. I do drink a lot of water from plastic bottles. That might be a good place to start. And for somebody that maybe has just had a breakup and is feeling a bit, you know, self-critical, low, maybe a loss of confidence, that sort of thing, what's something

you would suggest that they do to try to get them out of that space? So I did a, I've done two 10-day silent meditation retreats. Silent. Yeah. Okay. Which I learned so much on because there was an evening discourse by this very wise old man who shared a word called Anitsha, which means this two shall pass. And so whenever I'm in a sticky place or I'm not feeling good in myself, I remind myself

that this two shall pass. and whatever sensations, emotions, thoughts are arising are ultimately not here to stay. And I like to pop them in a imaginary vessel in front of me. Maybe it's a bowl of water. Maybe I'm writing my thoughts or scenarios on leaves that are floating down a river. And I just observe them. And I create that distance where I don't need to identify. I am not my thoughts.

I am not my feelings. I am not even my situation. But I can just observe it happening. and with that awareness you're able to relax, take that weight off your shoulders and come back to the awareness that it's going to pass and whatever you're going through is only temporary and it can't last. Whatever comes to your head, you just put it in? Put it in the bowl and then I take a third pass in perspective.

So I step away from whatever's going on and I look at it objectively in my bowl of water. And the bowl of water holds that all for me. And then that space that you're creating, you can see it for what it is. You know, and you don't have to take it on board as your absolute truth and identify with it. Because otherwise it's easy to spiral. And if you say, oh my gosh, I'm feeling like so depressed, I'm feeling so rejected. These affirmations that you tell yourself will embed it in your reality and it'll become even more true for you.

And then you'll, you know, search for the negative, like the reticular activating system in the brain, looks for things in your environment that confirms its beliefs in order to reinforce them. So you said about obviously, you know, not taking on board those thoughts and stuff like that and like obviously letting your energy basically let go of it, not hold it so tightly. Do you think to move on from somebody you have to fully let go of them so you can't be even having that small tie of like that habit of like looking at their socials, even if you're not speaking or bringing him up? Do you think you have to consciously try to break that thought pattern to actually move on?

In my experience, you are the only person who can offer yourself closure, and by bringing them into the picture and, you know, giving them the virtual microphone in your life, you're wasting your time and your energy. And it's only going to make things harder at the end of the day if you're still caught up. I think it's okay as part of the process to let them visit you in your mind now and then. but you don't want to be the person banging on about them when it's long gone and finished. It's funny actually. Sometimes I have dreams about, you know, boyfriends from years ago.

Yeah. And I'm like, you know, that's my subconscious still processing, you know, and that has to happen. But I don't need to give them any more time of day, you know, and waste my time throughout the day. And for somebody that doesn't know how to give themselves closure, how, where did they start? All these questions I'm asking you today are like, where do they start?

And everything. Well, that's because it can be a bit, it feel like a big mountain to climb. I think offering your self-closure comes from real self-love, self-honesty, self-belief. You know, words like self-lover thrown around all the time and what does that actually mean? It's, it's authenticity, it's self-acceptance, it's knowing that whichever version of you is showing up today, whether you're sad, angry, excited is welcome and that you're going to put her needs first, you know, no matter what they are and feel able to express yourself and, yeah, just loving yourself unconditionally no matter what's going on for you in that scenario,

because you're the only person you're going to spend, you know, the rest of your life with in your head. And so having a good relationship with yourself is comes first and foremost before you then, embark on the journey of giving yourself closure, climbing the mountain, you know, having having boundaries, saying goodbye, protecting your peace. Very hard to do, especially after the breakup with a lot of the time people feel, not always, but you feel very self-critical and a tip that would get yourself out of that state. It would definitely be speaking intentionally positive affirmations over my life. and affirmations are, look like I am and then whatever you want to affirm to yourself. And over time, the subconscious mind will believe what you're saying.

So I am beautiful. I am confident. I am radiant. I can do anything I want. I love myself. I feel amazing today. You know, it's a little bit of fake it till you make it, to be honest. And through the meditation, you become more aware of what your thought process is because you're

observing your thoughts, right? And so when you have a thought come up, like, oh, I look so bad today. You go, ah, when you're going there to those places and just remind yourself, that's not true. And then it might feel really stupid, but look at yourself in the mirror and say, I am lovable, I am worthy. Say it till you believe it. Say it like you mean it.

And that's the, you know, practical thing that your mind doesn't know the difference between the reality and what you tell it and being really mindful of the way. you speak about yourself. Even to other people like, you know, people say, oh, that's so funny, I'm dead. It's like, no, we don't, we don't want to be dead. We don't want to bring that in. Or like a photo. Oh my God, I look so ugly in that. Don't say that. Just say, hmm, can we take another one? Like, that's not my favorite. Like, your language is so powerful because it's ultimately the seeds that you're planting in your mind that create your reality and your self-perception. Crazy. It is crazy. But you can, you can, you can, you can,

change your life if you change your thoughts and you deserve you know to feel lovable you deserve to feel worthy and if you are able to convince yourself that you are then it will be true for you there we go it's as simple as that it's as simple as that oh my god