The Wellness Scoop - Diet Myths Unpicked

Episode Date: January 8, 2019

In this episode with acclaimed nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert we talk through the do’s and don'ts of January diets; evidence-backed insights into all the latest crazes from intermittent fasting to carb-cutting; why we should stay clear of quick fixes and the problem with our tendency to rely on a number on the scales when it comes to our health. With a focus on the importance of proper nutrition and how the way we eat impacts on our bodies, this episode looks at how you can reach your health goals in the most sustainable way. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Delicious Yellow podcast with me, Matthew Mills, and my wife and business partner, Ella Mills. So today because it's January and it's that time of year that sometimes we can maybe do things that aren't the best things for us and get a bit intense about our New Year's resolutions we wanted to I guess kind of do a little bit of myth busting a little bit of clearing up and general conversation

around why yo-yo dieting crash diet dieting, kind of really extreme things are not the way forward in January and hopefully give you ideas to support and help you instead. And I just before we dive right into it and introduce a very special guest, I wanted to start with a couple of stats which actually slightly blew my mind. They were higher than I was expecting them to be when I was doing my research. So according to a YouGov poll in 2017, in 2017 almost half 48 of those who made a new year's resolution said that it was to lose weight and then a further 31 percent of people said that it would be about improving their diet and then these stats are even higher in women but then the bit that's pretty nuts is according to a piece that i read in The Guardian, 95% of weight lost on a diet is gained

back. And then two thirds of dieters end up weighing more than they did before they started losing weight. So I feel like that's a good place to kind of ground in why extremes aren't the right thing. And to help us clear that all up, we've got the most brilliant nutritionist with us, Rhiannon Lambert. Hello. Thanks thanks for having me guys. Thank you for coming on. We're pretty excited about this episode. It is such an important topic isn't it especially this time of year. Yeah you just can't move but for promises you know six week abs and everyone's trying to make big changes and I know we talked about this when we talked about the episode is making healthy habits is a brilliant thing using this time of year to set kind of sustainable positive intentions to look after yourself to look after the planet to

look after your family to improve your mental physical health is a brilliant thing and no one should feel that making positive changes is a bad thing but it's just how do we strike the difference between a positive change and an unsustainable extreme change? And how do you kind of cut through the minefield of information that we can be feel a bit overloaded with at this time of year? Totally. I mean, that statistic 95% that is extremely I mean, I'm not surprised because something I do obviously in my clinic on a pretty much a daily basis, especially this time of year with people coming in, it's the regain of the weight again.

It's because they're unsustainable. We're not looking at, um, uh, crash diets also make you miserable. Like they are, they can't be any fun just to starve yourself or cut out all the kind of, and that's the problem. Fat diets,

they are not the answer. And there's a lot of science behind why they're not the answer as well. But I think the messaging out there is wrong. Obviously, we're going wrong somewhere in the country where these fad diets are the ones breaking through for people this time of year. They're the ones telling people, oh, you can lose a miracle amount of weight in a set amount of days, whereas realistically speaking, the slower and long term weight loss, the better. And for some people, it might just be wanting to feel more happy and energize this time of year as well.

And when it comes to taking things out, I want to think about what we put in. There's so much to take into account when people are on a restrictive diet. First of all, there's the malnourishment aspect. They'll be deprived in vitamins and minerals, more than likely if they're taking out a whole food group, especially. Is it usually carbs that people take out? Okay. Is that is that the go-to yeah let's delve into the carb thing

because it's really interesting so first of all 90 of our serotonin is made in our gut so that's and just so everyone knows yes serotonin is what we need for our happiness right oh yeah if you hear the word serotonin you want happy happy happy in your head that is the happy hormone and the remainder amount is coming from our diet so we're looking at carbohydrate rich items of food that contribute to that production in the brain just as much as an amino acid from protein, which are the building blocks of protein called tryptophan. If you put those things together, that's creating that happy hormone. But of course, if you're taking carbs out of the diet, you're not going to be getting much of that. You'll feel weak. And also because carbs are the brain's preferred source of energy so glucose if you know you've heard of glucose

you can find it in your starchy veg you can find it obviously in the complex carbs that we'll be talking about today because not all carbs are equal and it's not fair is it they are vilified I would say and also I think one of the things that I come back to a lot is this confusion about what a carb is as well is it's people like say, Oh, I'm cutting out carbs. I'm like, are you not going to eat carrots then? I know what I mean. And it's actually Yes, I appreciate there's like, there's a big spectrum here. And maybe you feeling like you want to just kind of make a few healthier changes in January, and you want to eat less pizza, but you're not cutting out carbs, because you're gonna, you know, that's about the whole scale of which carbs are, right? And it includes everything.

Yeah, and carbs do not equal weight gain. Let me just clear this up right now. Because to one molecule of carbs, you attract around three or four of water. So to a lot of people, if they look on the scales, which are not a good indicator of health, the number on the scales is not what you want to go for, that will result in a little bit of extra weight potentially, because of the water retention you get with it to help the molecule even be processed inside the body so it's just water it's water a lot of the time but then you've got to look at our different lifestyles if you have been very inactive there's there's three different things to take into account here's the environment that we live in the lifestyle that we have and of course

a genetic component too which is why one size will never fit all. And we are completely unique when it comes to our nutrition and what we need every day. But types of carbs, there's a big difference between the refined variety and the complex variety that we encourage more. You want more of that fiber, which comes from the whole grains, that feeds the gut, that's what we now know, which is essential for weight maintenance, if you're looking at that long term as well. But those white carbohydrates, the refined type, they have a place too. And for some people, they're a really good source of energy. It's the two Qs. Quality, which type that you guys need. Let's say if I know you're both into your

running now. So if we're talking about running and refueling a white carbohydrate is very fast to be released into the body perfect for after a run however if like me you're sat down a little bit more maybe you want a little bit more of the complex type of carbs so the type of quality you want is the whole grains with the slow releasing energies instead of going for white pasta you may get some more brown pasta that day and then there's the quantity the portion size and of course we're all unique with that aspect too and surely again it depends on what you're doing because if you're sitting at a desk for 12 hours that's very different than if you're out and about all day walking around maybe you

work in you know the fitness industry or something like that exactly we are definitely in one of my favorite sayings and I feel like I say it everywhere I go is you are as unique as your personalities because we all deserve that tailored approach and this is where January diets go wrong because how physically can it be possible that one diet takes in those aspects the environment the hormones even your genes how can it physically know what's right for you and how long from people you've seen or studies how long do these typical last? And then how long does it take for the weight to then just come back on? So you've just kind of wasted the time anyway. Yeah. So I have some stats for you. So the British Dietetic Association, they were looking into this, and this is really scary. So they said around 60% of dietists say they're pretty much on a diet all year round. So just so you know, it's not just

even January. Wow, this may be the hype that is that tends to be what happens and nearly a quarter 21 of young people are now getting their dietary information for social media so this is where the time difference kind of changes because something that used to appear in the media only let's say around a certain few months of the year predominantly is now all year round it's in our faces constantly and it's available 24 7 as well exactly so you can get access to these things all the time. And then we're also looking at things like the weight gain afterwards. And they also said that a third of the people surveyed, this is in the British Dietetic Association, in their recent research said that they ended up heavier than their original weight only weeks after. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So the thing is, I think

it's the unsustainable aspect if you are depriving yourself of anything your mind kind of flips a switch and all you can think about is the food that you're depriving yourself from yeah it kind of gives long-term health a bad name doesn't it because it's like oh i tried to be healthy for a couple of weeks i tried to lose loads of weight hated it and then they're like so i might as well be unhealthy at least i was happy then so you've just nailed it it's that black or white mindset which I talk about a lot and I actually have a have a TEDx talk on how to have a healthy relationship with food and that is because this cycle of restriction shame guilt binging overeating if you don't allow yourself enjoyed

items occasionally it will you can never keep that up for life yeah but they weren't being healthy and losing the weight which is which is which is the myth but the other thing also and i know again we talked about this when we were talking yesterday was just that there's this issue again as well that if you set yourself it's like anything right you say i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do that and then you don't achieve it you feel like you're failing and again you've set yourself such an impossible task that of course you're going to fail yeah you know any human would and the reality as well is that and be really interesting to hear what you think is then the impact that has on your brain yes so the neurology aspects the psychology and nutrition work really

closely together and of course as um matt's just said as well with the all or nothing mindset i've blown out might as well go and do whatever and like you just said setting yourself up to fail we're not approaching this from the right angle, first of all, but the effects on the chemistry inside are fascinating. So if you're looking, first of all, let's take carbs as an example, like we've said earlier, you're not producing that serotonin. That could also have a knock-on effect on melatonin, which regulates your circadian rhythms in your sleep cycle. So you need serotonin to play an active role in developing this, then your sleep is also affected as well. Not only is your mood going to be low,

you're not sleeping as well. This then has another impact on the other pathways in the brain, which may compensate and you reach for things you don't want to reach for. And before you know it, this cycle is going absolutely haywire. And also hormonally, if we're speaking about hormone production, that then has a knock-on effect because if you look at your you should look at your body like a big uh wheel i'm actually gesturing my hands here like the shape of a wheel i love it i don't know how else to describe it all the cogs need to be in place to make that smooth exterior to keep the ball kind of rolling keep the wheel rolling and if you take out that one element then nothing's going to work even things as simple as dehydration. You've really got to look at your diet on such a complex level because neurology is massively affected by it as well.

And I see a lot of people that engage in disordered eating behaviors. One element I work with a lot is people with unhealthy relationships with food. It wreaks havoc on, especially for females, the menstrual cycle yeah if you're not providing enough of the healthy fats in the diet because fat's another component that's often very quickly given up as well even so very confusing topic i think that and you know there's obviously new kind of quote unquote good fats and bad fats and what's good fat and what's bad fat and then i think you know people are nervous of nuts or an avocado or olive oil and things like that. Yeah, I mean, we know that we need fat, basically. And I think there's a very unrealistic ideal out there still that exists,

even though we're embracing more of a health at various sizes now, we still have one painted ideal. And men suffer with this too, just as much as females, the pressure to look a certain way. But as women, you're meant to have more body fat. It's the way we're designed. And if you're not eating enough of the right fats, like you mentioned, the monounsaturated fatty acids, things like avocados, the polyunsaturated ones, rather than the saturated fats. The saturated

fat comes from things like animal produce and cheese, those kind of things. And we're only meant to have 11% of our overall diet, according to the NHS, should be made up of those components. But when it comes to the good fats, they make the building blocks of hormones. Hormones are kind of made from fats. So what you're doing by not eating and restricting is also having a knock-on effect on oestrogen production for females, which if you don't have a lot of circulating oestrogen, can put you at risk of bone loss as well, if you're talking about bone density or bone mass. And you've got to think long term here so quick fix diets you may think oh eight weeks 12 weeks that's it that's what i'm going to do or sometimes a week you know these extreme things that can have

a knock-on effect on your bone mass it's crazy isn't it exactly the fact that you think you know i'm just doing this but actually the impact is having that you can't see and we'll see later on is huge and they are so i want to ask you about two things so first of all the thing that always strikes me about it is kind of actually the issue I always see when you change stuff really drastically like that and you do something very very strict is almost I feel that obviously not everyone but there's almost a part of our kind of culture that needs to relearn how to connect with food, how to eat, how to cook, how to take food as a celebratory, delicious, but also like nourishing, but still abundant way. And actually, instead of saying, right, I'm just going to eat half a,

I don't know, protein shake for lunch, and that's it, or whatever it is, actually learning how to connect with food again, how to eat that to me again seems like something that you could then carry on for the rest of your life exactly rather than something that you just carry on for two minutes because you can't stick to a plan for life like you can't have a regimented approach for the rest of your life it's just not possible no food should be a positive aspect of life and that's something that's very very quickly you know lost in terms of how we currently see food. Food isn't either just fuel. It's for society. You know, you go out, you celebrate with food just as much as you commiserate with food or culturally or religious reasons.

It's a huge factor. And we have to learn to develop this healthy relationship with it. We're not eating mindfully either. We're eating with technology and distraction and screens. We're not acknowledging what is right in front of us. So it becomes such an easy thing to just slide through. So if people are starting out in January and they're saying, right, I actually, I've got a New Year's resolution.

I really do want to start some kind of new diet. But to help them with something that then doesn't become a fad, but something that can become long-term, what would be your top three or four recommendations for what they can do to actually create long-term sustainable something that they'll also enjoy? I love this. So the first thing is I'm actually going to mention stress

because high cortisol levels are associated with more body fat storage long-term and that can impact the choices we make. So if you're very, very stressed, try and have a think about, first of all, the trigger of this and how you're going to cope with it. A lot of people turn to food to cope with stress. It's, you know, it's there and fair enough. It's quite a clever adaption if you think about it instead of turning to something else. But we need to find another way of a bit of self-care instead. So tip number one, which isn't actually nutrition related, is to look at that because that could be derailing you long term, how you deal with that stressful subject. The second would be try and build balanced plates. If you're not sure what

to eat, you don't need to restrict a whole food group. You want to be looking for color, lots of color and lots of fiber, which comes from veg and maybe a handful of carbohydrate on the side, a good bit of protein which you can get from a variety of different sources now for any vegans or veggies listening you know lots of beans and pulses and we can get everything these days tofu tempeh hummus is everywhere exactly and that includes healthy fats too so a balanced plate is healthy fats veg protein and carbs that's tip number two build a balanced plate the healthy fats, veg, protein and carbs. That's tip number two, build a balanced plate. The third one is the hydration aspect because it affects mood.

People don't think that hydration affects how you feel. You will feel 10 times better if you are getting a lot of water. And it's weird because you don't notice the difference until you are hydrated. It could be such a simple, small switch. And then there's... See Matt reaching for his water. There you go. Matt's like, hydrate, hydrate.

You drink. No, exactly. And I think trying to make sensible switches. So instead of turning to heavily processed items and packaged snacks on the go and things, if you can, or make sensible choices with them. So know and try and be prepared and get cooking.

Like Ella said said just get in the kitchen once a week make a batch of stuff and then freeze it we're also busy and on the go we don't have time anymore so let's at least make good choices when we don't have time exactly and the other thing i want to say kind of tapping into your point number one which we actually talked about a lot not completely in relation to this but sort of in general relation to happiness on on season one was this idea that we live in in this world that's like when i look like this i will be happy when i achieve this i'll be happy and as a result like it's our number one takeaway almost from season one which is that we're not

present in like being happy because i'm here today and we're talking about this it's super interesting because i'm thinking oh well next week if this, I'm going to be like a magical floating unicorn. I know. And well, you never know. We wish. We hope. Or in your case, maybe a fizzy cherry. Exactly. Your favourite sweets. So what I find interesting about this as well is almost like looking at why,

why do you want to make the change? And we're quite obsessed with the concept of why and everything we do and about the fact that when you have purpose behind it, it's so much more powerful. So do you want to make changes in your diet because you're just feeling a bit heavy from Christmas that's so normal you shouldn't be ashamed of that because there's a lot of shaming for people out there at the moment that want to lose a little bit of weight and I think it's completely up to you you know in fact there is a there's a fine line between being optimally happy and healthy and also if you know that you're going on an unhealthy path

making small changes will have a big result it's okay to want to do that exactly so that's what i mean so acknowledge that why do you want to do it is it that you're just feeling a little bit full from christmas as is very normal your jeans a bit tight and you just want to kind of come off naturally anyway and johnny wants to go back to normal and you just want to kind of energize yourself is it that you're looking to make changes for your family across the year because you're motivated, for example, by the environmental thing? So why do you want to do it? Or is it because you're actually not feeling very happy in yourself right now? Because weight loss won't equal happiness.

And that's something, weight loss can equal health for some people, but it's not the answer, is it? No, that's the thing. It's like, you're not going to be a happier person because you weigh four less pounds. And so it's also looking at, yes, January might be a time to make some healthy habits with your plate, but it's not just focusing on your plate. It's about your whole life.

Can we talk about that number as well, the number on the scales? Because I hear this all the time that, oh, if I just lose two pounds, I'll feel so much happier. You fluctuate every single day. If we go back to kilos, you fluctuate two to three kilos a day in weight. Wow, really? Yeah, a day. And especially for, Matt, you're so lucky being a man. What can I say?

But women, you know, we get water retention a lot more in times of the month where we can be, some people can put up to eight pounds that time of month. It's a lot of weight. Throw your scale away. Yeah, throw the scales. It's about how you feel, isn't it? Totally, 100%. And like Matt was saying, what people can actually do.

So there is a big, big trial of studies. So there's the National Weight Control Registry. And they tracked over 10,000 people. So this is huge. And the things that helped them be happy in terms of long-term weight loss, they found 78% of them ate breakfast every day. 75% of them stopped weighing themselves daily. That made a huge difference on that subject.

62% watch less than 10 hours of TV a week. And 90% exercise on average for one hour a day. And they're the successful people. For an hour a day? Yeah. But that includes like a walk and things, doesn't it? You're going for an hour long walk. There's a big misconception with the exercise thing that you have to do like an hour class you

don't you can do 10 minutes spread out throughout the day or even 10 minutes could be more effective than an hour if it's depends what you do like a 20 minute sort of yoga stretch at home in a 40 minute walk or something like that which feels when you break it down like that feels very different i hadn't quite realized the effect i started going to the gym again about five months ago and i used to exercise a lot and then I just completely stopped for a few years and I forgot how much better I feel as a result of exercising like literally transformational and even now for weight loss don't they yeah exactly exactly even now even back to the first point you raised on stress as well I noticed that the days

that I don't go to the gym now I just even if I have a day that would be completely comparable to the day before and workload or anything else, that I still just feel much more stressed if I haven't gone and exercised. Well, it can help you tap in, like, it depends on the type of exercise you're doing, but you release, I think they're called ectocannabinoids. So it's similar. People think it's endorphins. It's not. It's something else in the brain, but it does release those happy kind of feelings. And that will relax you and the more we can tap into and i'm sure ella can pipe in here with parasympathetic nervous system which you probably do a lot in yoga

which calms you down because a lot of us like we're stressed you know from a to b we're in sympathetic nervous state all the time we're fight or flight mode even stuck in a traffic jam or we're late for somewhere and then you go and pound a hit class at the end of the day exactly and i think i mean i'm a yoga advocate but I have really realized like how and that's I guess what I meant when I said that earlier it's like it's looking at your why and it's actually looking at the picture as a whole because if you're not feeling the best in yourself right now and look January is not the easiest time of year to have to feel your best you know it's dark it's cold you know it's after christmas like

it's it's not you know so again just be honest about something it's okay if you're feeling a bit low in january you're not alone in that oh we all get it no one is superhuman exactly but it's looking at like your whole lifestyle and what you can include in it to help kind of nourish your whole self rather than not just your play and i do think that is exactly like trying to do some yoga some meditation just things that are kind do think that is exactly like trying to do some yoga some meditation just things that are kind of calming and nourishing and not to expect but that also helps yeah slightly left field on this one but what's the effect on your liver if you drink quite a lot in december yeah you go cold turkey in january well dry january is a big yeah exactly

and then and then you start and then you start drinking again more in february what does it have a good effect or is it? I encourage any abstinence from alcohol if possible because it will help. You know, I'm not actually going to tell people they have to abstain from it forever. But if there is an incentive like dry January, it's actually really useful. But the mindset of that is similar to the diets that people tend to go full pelt at Christmas and New Year's and then think, oh, it's okay, I'm just going gonna drink myself into oblivion because i've got january coming on so actually then it could trigger a yo-yo system so what we should have is the same usual line of

moderation rather than um constantly you know pounding it and then and also we almost make january so much harder for ourselves as well that's why i always come back to this because it's that all or nothing mindset it's like okay for 10 days at Christmas I'm just gonna literally like eat and drink everything I can find and it's okay because I'm gonna be on an aggressive diet and completely sober before January. We've been groomed to think that way haven't we if you think about growing up everything is tailored towards that aspect and that time of year it's in the fashion world it's in the music world it's in the media it's in the foodie world every different industry will have a january thing yeah like oh it's new year now now it's time to start again new year new you it's like you actually weren't different you're not different today than you were 10 days ago like it's actually really not

quite true i mean i came up i was thinking of things that people could look out for and in terms of things i think health professionals would never say yeah this is quite a good thing for people to be clued up on so never take someone seriously if they're going to say it's time you go on a detox that's the first thing that that's alarm bells for me completely because your liver as we've discussed about the liver it's an amazing thing it would do that naturally for you anyway and then it worked for me it will work for you too i mean like we've said. We're all so different. We all need completely different things. I mean, Matt, now you're hitting the gym a lot more,

you know, probably need to change your diet a little bit if you're going to go. Yeah. Keeping that one up, it always changes. I mean, our diets are evolving as we age because our brain's evolving, our body, our muscle mass, our bone density, everything changes as we age.

And you're actually meant biologically to put on little bits of weight as we get older, which is another contradictory thing because we always feel we should be the same way our entire lives. It's not actually evolutionarily supported. We all have a set point, which we can discuss a bit later. That's good to know. I'll remind Ella of that as I get a bit porky and overage. I like to call it winter plumage when it's in the winter.

A little bit of comfort factor. And then the other one would be, are you eating enough superfoods? And to be honest with you, all foods are super. So putting one miracle on one item of food and just because you're having blueberries every day, it's not going to make a difference to what you have in your overall diet.

We hear that a lot. It's like, what's the one thing I should do? And it's like, there is not one thing. the reason the thing i see a lot with that as well as people is that you read about giving kale was the thing a couple years ago like beyonce wore her kale jumper and then we were all about kale and you couldn't move but for kale chips and the rest of it now i hold my hands up i like kale very, actually. I do like to massage my kale with tahini. Oh, I love a massage kale. I know, very good. But it's also okay if you hate kale.

Yeah, definitely. Doesn't make you unhealthy. Guacamole, also a vegetable, which I always say, like cinnamon roasted chili sweet potatoes, also a vegetable. And so it's also that sense, as you say, that we get really fixated with we need this one thing, we've got to have this one thing because it's so good. And they think that healthy doesn't taste good so whenever i give

lectures so i go to a lot of universities at the moment i was in bath the other day and i have this kind of diagram on one of my lecture slides and there's a picture of leaves and a picture of a burger and chips and i always ask about which one do you think is healthier and of course they go straight for the leaves whereas actually nutritionally speaking that particular burger was way more nutritious than just a pile of leaves with nothing in it, but maybe two olives and a few slices of tomato. And you're going to feel so sad after you just eat a plate of limp lettuce. And also, you know, if people are doing veganuary or they're kind of joining us on plant-based January as well,

then I also think this is exactly the right moment, again, to come back to that concept that, you know, awesome to increase your plant intake. But please, please, please do not think that we're trying to make you eat rabbit food. Like that is not what it is. And I think we should discuss plant-based eating because we know now that we do need to be reducing our animal consumption and our dairy consumption for the environment. It doesn't mean you have to give it up if you're listening, but just increase the amount of plants you're eating. That's what we mean by plant-based is get more veg in and because people don't see veg as being tasty exactly or cool like you said a plate of leaves they see plant-based as

a plate of leaves yeah actually if you go to ellen's deli or you know i'm trying to cook more stuff it's the most delicious tasty food in the world totally and it's all about loads of flavor loads of texture i never feel like you have to have something you don't like. I hate crudités and stuff like that. I hate celery. Can I just say, I hate it. I can't do it. Ellen started having this celery juice every day. I saw.

I'm controversial right now. You're not claiming it does anything magical. It's just something you enjoy. Yeah, I think this is a really good moment for it actually. Because I think it's really an interesting example of the something works for me so work with you concept but also the confusion that something can cause so for me I will hold my hands up and say I saw it online I've got I've got quite a few friends who've done

it and they've said I actually feel really good doing it great so I was like okay well why not try it now the difference is if you want to try something that's okay again we've got to be allowed to try different things but please again do it in a sensible way as you said quite rightly about the other day it is not a replacement for breakfast if you want to wake up and drink you know some green juice and get hydrated first thing in the morning that's cool it's not a bad and you're feeling good on it that's awesome because there's nothing negative about it but what is negative is when you feel like these special things need to come in and replace everything else and you become fixated with them I know and that's the really challenging balance that we need to strike great I mean you've

noticed big yeah I feel really good doing it yeah I feel really good doing it but I think what you're not promising everybody out there that they'll feel great doing it that's the difference you're doing it because you've enjoyed it you're not out there telling the world yeah go do it because it worked for me at all exactly but there's exactly so that's the thing that i always find challenging in terms of the balance to strike you know some people think adapt you know adaptogens for example like medicinal mushrooms make them feel amazing and i've definitely met lots of people do it yeah but then other people are like oh my gosh it's so much so again if you want to try try it but again using these things in sensible ways rather than getting rid of everything that's come before to replace it with something that feels a bit it's almost like

we're trying to shrink our diets it's a very funny thing we're always thinking about let's eat less let's eat less but if you get you keep the diet and add these extras in exactly you're bulking up the fiber content which we know helps if you're if you're thinking diet and add these extras in, you're bulking up the fiber content, which we know helps. If you're thinking about weight loss because it's January, that will help you. You need more fiber in your diet. It will help you poo more. Let's just be honest about what it does. Let's just get it out there.

It'll help that morning poo. And we all know that poos are good for us. And you'll be more hydrated because if you are going to drink something like that, it's 95% water. So at least you're getting water in your system. And that feels good. Yeah. So I think, yeah, the whole danger is out there. It's when it's not an evidence-based method and people are perhaps saying, so a lot of January cleanses I see in my clinic that come in, either intermittent

fasting, people are just skipping meals. Can you just tell us a little bit about skipping meals and intermittent fasting? I think it's been jumped on a lot recently without enough evidence behind it, like most things that get caught up in the media um at the moment we know that energy in energy out if you do eat less and you skip a meal it might help with weight loss and for those of you out there listening that don't get hungry in the morning that might be a good lifestyle choice for you but only if you eat really well at lunch and really well at dinner and some healthy snacks because otherwise you may not be getting all the nutrition you need over a day. Yeah, it's just saying, because actually malnourishing yourself is a really negative thing for the long term.

It is. It's not a good mindset. And for a lot of people out there, any meal skipping could trigger binges later on and an unhealthy relationship with food. The studies are only done on rodents. I mean, they did the first human trials, I think, this year, just gone, so 2018. And we're waiting for results with that because there's a lot of claims out there that it helps with cellular repair and growth and some pretty big claims that are coming out, particularly from Surrey University, I think, is where they're starting to investigate all of this. as a registered health professional i will not be advocating this as an option for the majority of people out there because we know that breakfast eaters maintain a healthy weight for a long time but the research is there they then don't get hungry till lunch it can be a really good energizing

start to the day but it stops you also fixating with food and as we said earlier like we've what we also most people desperately need to do is almost fix their relationship with food create that positive thing so if you don't eat breakfast you're constantly probably looking at your watch like oh i'm hungry now if you wake up one day and you're not hungry fine that's totally different story can do that like i know some people that just don't have an appetite some clients it suits them to eat at 11 or 12 and they're fine but for the majority of people i see so i think this is i think everyone has a relationship with food every single person has one it's developed in childhood it's what your mum did what you did every weekend as a family how you see it

is unique to you and that creates problems and for the bulk of the population as we said earlier we've lost touch on how to eat for what works for us so skipping meals will just exacerbate that problem in my opinion and can I ask one more question which I feel like taps into that as well is because i think it could be really helpful is that sense of the importance of balancing your blood sugar for your mood yes okay so the blood sugar roller coaster is something that i find a lot of people especially if you're busy especially mums um people working in banks or in a city or you're a teacher or something if you are skipping meals, your blood sugar tends to get a little bit low and you end up craving or reaching for fast, high energy items. Often those will be the croissants, the carbs, the sugary things, even caffeine because you want a hit. You want something that's going to lift you up.

The problem with that is you then create a spike in blood sugar levels, which will then crash again pretty quickly. So I call it a roller coaster because for a lot of people out there if they're skipping meals and they've not eating they're not eating balanced they're not having a balanced plate yeah they're not having their balanced plate the balanced plate will keep your blood sugar levels pretty steady and also we know that when blood sugar levels are up and down up and down it does mess around with our body fat storage as well so it's not helping with that as well as functioning optimally and we all have a set point so if we go back to that yo-yo dieting aspect that people do with skipping meals and suddenly eating once you lose a lot of weight your body will never want you to do it again you are not yeah it's not if you think about it common sense i mean we're adapted

to survive your body would just want to cling on to more and more so you never ever go through famine again. It's kind of what happens and then your set point goes up. So a weight range that is comfortable for you. And a lot of yo-yo dieters find that over the years, because they've dieted so much, their set points actually increased and they've become a little bit heavier than perhaps they would have been if they'd never dieted at all.

And fat cells are very clever. So once you deplete them, the minute you start to eat again after starvation, they fill never dieted at all. And fat cells are very clever. So once you deplete them, the minute you start to eat again after starvation, they fill up very, very fast and they can actually divide into two and create more fat cells. It's like the mother cell splitting into two. And in periods of immense famine, this is something I see on the other end of the spectrum, especially my eating disorder clients, is periods of starvation to protect the brain can release serotonin as well and protect them from feeling the pain of starvation so people think they're getting this amazing endorphin high when

they fast actually sometimes it can be your brain protecting you from feeling the fast because it's actually damaging your body yeah interesting it's so so interesting that's fascinating but then the counter argument is we are meant to go through periods some people believe we're meant to go through periods of famine then we're meant to eat and you know that there's cultural reasons why people may fast which is fine you know like ramadan that's completely different though because that's not about a diet it's a lifestyle your personal relationship with food exactly so i thought an interesting point to finish on was it may sound obvious so just bear with me one second if you're listening to this but this idea that we are all built as you said the beginning so fundamentally differently

inside obviously that's very much affected by our different lifestyles but there's also the point that like our genetic makeup's so different so as we said the other day like something's promising your abs in six weeks but for most people you do not have the body composition to ever show your abs so it will never happen yes we spoke you know this is something that i find is is everywhere and i'm always wrong i get telephone calls by journalists saying how do people get abs i'm like i'm sorry but some people always store body fat in that area and unless they are unhealthily underweight it's like cover stars on magazines they're getting to really lean shape that is not sustainable and a lot of the time they become so gaunt and malnourished especially for women their periods stop to even look like that for one day one day and then they'll go back to eating normally so it's just what you're the shape you're

built with we have to try and embrace different shapes not everyone's going to have a six-pack it's under a layer of fat and that's okay yeah exactly and so it's trying to do what someone else does to look like them is a a bad way you can't fat spot reduce fat that's that's the biggest thing I get it a lot oh can you help me lose weight in my legs I'm like well if that's where you're predisposed to storing your weight or if it's around your middle probably be the last bit to go if anything it may not ever be the shape that you've got in your head that it will be but on a positive note we should be embracing these amazing different shapes and sizes out there because we're all pretty cool and I just I'm bored of seeing one image and then looking and then going back to the idea that then

looking at the rest of your life and looking like why do I need thinner thighs like why am I not happy in myself as I am today now if you're just feeling a bit like you know too bloated and sluggish and you need some energy that's a different story but you know I mean I do indulge at Christmas who does that out there exactly and then you know you kind of there's nothing wrong with them saying i want to balance that out but if so that's a kind of different story but if you're feeling i'm not happy you know full stop really because we're around exactly and it's like let's actually look at why that's the case and then start to look at is you know your relationships your work you know the way you look after

your body, maybe exercise or not exercise or the type of exercise you're doing. Maybe you need a bit of calm in your life. Because a lot of the people I see in my clinic, I actually work alongside a team. So especially a lot of the time a psychologist or a psychiatrist, because I think we all to some degree need to address that psychological component of how we feel about ourselves. Something's happened along the way to knock that inner confidence. And it's about bringing out that inner child in us or that person and acceptance of who we are and how amazing it can be, you know, that we can get from A to B or we can think and we can write. Exactly.

And feel grateful to be on our own skin. Yeah, totally. 100%. Amazing. Rhiannon, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been really, really fascinating. I think, on today it's been really really fascinating i think um i hope it'll be really really useful to our listeners one thing that we do uh with all of our guests that come on um is you just ask them what a daily practice routine um that they that they live by what is it for you um every single day without fail, I wake up and I fix my

breakfast and I sit there and I always think about something that actually my granddad would have told my dad and he told me is that try and treat others how you would like to be treated every day and you can't judge a book by its cover. So I know it sounds un-nutritionally to say something like this, but I find it helps me in every aspect of my life because you don't know what someone's going through so you can't make quick judgments you can't judge a book by its cover and I think kindness and compassion with everything and even your own body because I want to treat my body in the best way I possibly can and actually nourishing it and eating a variety of foods for me is how I would want other people

to be treated too and I'm waffling a bit but basically that's how I feel because you just don't know what someone's going through and there's also a lot of interesting research showing that when you do kind acts for other people it boosts your self-confidence and your happiness as well so it becomes this really brilliant cycle where you're making someone happy in making them happy it makes you happy they're probably feeling better so they'll pay it forward and it kind of if we could all bring that slight sense of kindness compassion to who we meet and we're designed to be interacting with one another and i find obviously working on a one-to-one basis of clients and things that you everybody goes through a hard time and we need to be compassionate 100 amazing well thank you so

much and if people want to find out a bit more about you where will they find you so the social media handles are called at re-trition so i kind of were emerged the word nutrition and my name yeah re-trition i also have a podcast which ella's been on which is called food for thought and a book called re-nourish a simple to Eat Well and that's on Amazon and bookstores and yeah, anyone can say hi at any time on social media. Amazing, perfect. Thank you so, so, so much. And if you enjoyed this episode,

please do rate it, review it and subscribe to the podcast and we can't wait to see you back next Tuesday. Thanks everyone. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn