The Wellness Scoop - How to change habits, taking life off hold and mindful eating with Shahroo Izadi

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

I’m joined by behavioural change expert and author Shahroo Izadi. After working in addiction treatment within the criminal justice system, Shahroo realised she could utilise the same tools to help the masses change their unwanted patterns of behaviour and now helps individuals with binge eating, negative self-talk, low self-esteem and social media use to name a few. We discuss: Why you need to take life off hold to change your habits The mindset and practical tools to help you do difficult things How to make lasting behaviour changes The power of self-kindness and self-awareness Understanding what purpose your habits serve Each week I unpack a wellness trend with GP Gemma Newman. This week on Fact or Fad we’re looking at mindful eating.  DISCLAIMER: this episode touches on eating disorders and Shahroo’s personal experience in this regard. Please take care listening and talk to your GP if you need support or guidance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, hi there! I'm Norma, the unofficial mayor of the Town of Destiny. Speaking of, FanDuel's Kick of Destiny 3 is happening live Super Bowl Sunday. You should watch. It's gonna be a hoot! While you're at it, download FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook. You can bet on touchdowns, turnovers, heck, even total kicker points, don't you know? Anywho, enjoy your podcast or whatnot. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling

or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connectsontario.ca. Wellness. What on earth does it mean? And why would we need to unpack it? With over 58 million hashtags on Instagram, the topic has really never been more prominent. But, and there is a but here,

three in five of us feel that wellness is incredibly confusing. We want to feel healthier, we want to feel happier, but we have no idea what's clickbait and what's genuinely health enhancing. Who's an expert and who's peddling absolute nonsense and look I am right here with you on this at times I've also found this world really hard to navigate. So welcome to Wellness Unpacked our new podcast hosted by me Ella Mills author entrepreneur and founder of Deliciously Ella. This series aims to do just as it states, unpack the world of wellness with expert guests. These guests will be sharing with me and with you their three pieces of advice for a better life, to feel healthier and happier. This is a show and a conversation that's about progress it is not about perfection it's about

helping you make small simple sustainable changes and within that I'm going to be testing out a different wellness trend every single week intermittent fasting celery juice, collagen, ketogenic diets, CBD, you name it, I'll try it. I'll then unpick the trend, separating fact from fad, with my friend and NHS GP, Dr Gemma Newman. And together we'll be equipping you with the tools that can genuinely make a difference to your life and well-being, and equally helping you potentially put to one side the trends that may make a difference to your life and well-being and equally helping you potentially put to one side the trends that may make a little bit less difference. So are you ready for episode two of Wellness Unpacked? Our second guest is behavioural change specialist and author Sharu Izzardi. After working in addiction treatment within the criminal justice system shiru realized she could

utilize those tools and help the masses change their unwanted habits or patterns of behavior i know we all have some of those shiru now helps people with everything from binge eating to cutting down on drinking negative self-talk low self-esteem procrastination and even social media use. In this interview, Sharou will share with us her three pieces of life advice based on her understanding of addiction, psychology, human behavior and most importantly for her, the power of self-kindness. Just a quick caveat before we get into it, this episode of Wellness Unpacked does touch on eating disorders and Sharou's personal experience there. So please do take care when listening and do talk to your GP if you need any more support or guidance. So Sharoo, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure

to have you here. You're obviously also one of the guest contributors in our new book, which is out this week, which is so exciting. So it feels like serendipitous timing. So can we kickstart? What does wellness mean to you? I actually really have a complicated relationship with the word wellness. I don't really like it. I've grown up to associate it with being quite elitist and made for people who don't look like me and sound like me and have the same thoughts that I do about things. And it always felt like there was no progress to be made. You kind of had to be perfect in it. And I just couldn't fit into it. So I just I just don't like the word. I'm getting on board with it a lot more. And I, you know, I do like wellness festivals and things like that. But I remember being allergic to that word big time.

Yeah, no, I do completely understand that. I think it can be a very loaded word. But I wondered if we were going to park that word then, but you were going to use something to kind of describe how feeling good in yourself feels and how you'd measure that. What would you call that? When my values and my behaviors align, I feel good. When I feel empowered over the habits that I create every single day, I feel good. When I feel like they're my choice, when I feel like I'm able to impose a space between trigger and response, I feel really strong. When I notice something happening that would normally give me anxiety or a year or five years ago like for example we were just discussing how the last time I came on your podcast I was nowhere near as calm and I've used this as a way to

punctuate how well I've done by really addressing my anxiety and the things that I do the breathwork the journaling that whatever else that all falls into wellness. And that's helped me enormously. And now here I am, totally chilled, strolling here, listening to music, delighted to be talking to you. It's all very, being able to punctuate my progress. When I'm able to do that, I feel very well. I love that, actually, that transition from wellness to actually just thinking about it in quite a simple way of feeling well and if we take that then for the framing of today's episode I'd absolutely love to take your three pieces of advice we really want this podcast to help make this year a better year for everyone listening and for all our guests to share their three pieces of advice on that so could you let us know what your first one would be absolutely take life hold. I cannot tell you how many people I speak to,

whether it's in my coaching practice or when I go into schools or whatever else, where people will say, once I've achieved that thing, I will reward myself by doing the sorts of things that make me feel calm and positive and resilient. And I believe that the things that make us feel calm, positive, and resilient are the things that enable us to do difficult things. And so we really need to turn that on its head. And when I, many, many, many years ago, when I was in counseling, I remember I was struggling a lot with binge eating disorder, and that was manifesting itself as me being very overweight by medical standards. And I was just obsessed with it. I was obsessed with it. And I had been my whole life and gone

on horrible diets and all that stuff. And I remember the counselor said to me, what if you never lose weight? And I was so angry with her. I can't tell you. And I didn't realize that I had been holding off all this stuff I was going to do. I was like, well, then I won't go on any dates and I won't go on holiday and I won't wear a bikini and I won't wear bright colors and I won't, you know, like my whole life is waiting for that day. And it occurred to me that at some point I'd picked up this belief that someone who looked a certain way didn't deserve to be taken care of. And so for as long as I looked a certain way, I didn't deserve to be taken care of. And then the irony, of course, was that it meant that I wasn't exercising. I wasn't drinking water. I was eating crap. So it wasn't actually helping my

situation at all. And it wasn't until I unpacked that and I looked around and I thought, gosh, when I think about how I think my loved ones should treat their bodies, it's got absolutely nothing to do with how they look or what they've managed to achieve at any time. And now I speak to so many women who say the same thing. Like once I've changed in this way, once I've fixed myself in that way, I'll deserve to do something that makes me feel good and makes me feel valued. And aside from the fact that I don't think any of us deserve to live that way, it's also really counterproductive when it comes to changing habits or doing difficult things.

That's what I wanted to pick up on because I think it's so interesting. You know, I'm really fascinated by the fact that we all know, I think it'd be fair to say that we should eat our vegetables and move our bodies and drink water and try and sleep a little bit more. You know, the really kind of foundational elements of our well-being. But so many of us really struggle to do that. And yes, there's absolutely kind of practical elements of time etc but I'm really curious how much of putting things off is associated with this kind of when I'm perfect I'll start taking care of myself like when I look like x oh then I'll go to the gym because I feel really confident to do that or when I feel I look amazing

I'll be able to wear those clothes or whatever else it is but I just wonder how many of us are kind of putting off making these or implementing these healthier habits that would really change potentially the way we feel every day because we're waiting to be perfect and obviously just a caveat that with the fact that perfect clearly does not exist. Absolutely yeah and I think a lot of us have come to believe that we're not deserving yet of that sort of thing that there's a criteria we have to meet first and I'm sure we picked that up pretty early doors. I was going to ask you that because I totally agree and I think that's something that certainly I can relate to and I'm sure a huge number of people listening can relate

to this sense of you know not maybe feeling quite good enough or obviously this kind of strange online world we live in where there's a huge amount of comparison going on. Where does our self-esteem come into this and this having this more robust and more elevated sense of self-esteem in order to kind of live the life we'd quite like to live for ourselves? I think the world is changing thankfully when it comes to representation. First of all when I was growing up people who looked the way that I did whether it was for cultural reasons or body size reasons were not people who were shown to be taking care of themselves or worth taking care of. There were people who were laughed at or sort of disregarded.

I mean, look, I always use the example of like Monica in Friends, like this hilarious character by virtue of nothing other than the fact that she was overweight or bigger than the rest of them at one point. And frankly, when I look back now, I think she actually actually wasn't like you know they they made a joke of her and and so I think stuff like that doesn't um doesn't leave you easily yeah absolutely and I think that's such a interesting case study and as you said the world has luckily really really changed that being said I'm sure there's people listening who really struggle with that sense of self-esteem at the moment. And I wondered if there are any kind of quite practical, I guess, real life examples that you've seen in your life or with clients and patients that you've worked with where they're kind of able to take this advice of taking life off hold and starting to

kind of bring in these habits every single day and really take care of themselves because they feel really worthy of it. What those start to look like in real life absolutely I mean cut to the end I think a lot of us have this mentality of like there'll be an activation phase where I white knuckle this and I really do this in a grueling boot camp way and then I will just maintain it because I'll be the sort of person who can just maintain things um and what we don't do is cut to the end and think, okay, if I waved a magic wand right now and all the changes you want to make to yourself you'd already made, how would you start treating yourself?

And people will go, oh, I'd probably wake up earlier and I'd probably drink water and I'd carve out time for myself and I'd be more boundary and I'd ask for a pay rise. Make a list of that stuff and order it from the easiest one to the hardest one

and start going through them. You know, I did that. Easiest first or you know I did that easiest first always easiest first but I yeah I did that I was like I want to sit mine was I want to sit in a bikini on a beach and eat a pizza regardless of my size that was something I was waiting to do to eat in public um because you get used to being like mocked and stuff. And I did and the world didn't end. And then I did it again and I did it again until it was just what I did, regardless of my size. And then I moved on to the next one. I went on a date and I didn't wait. And I ate that day and I thought, OK, the world didn't end again again and I started disproving this stuff for me a lot a lot of the self-esteem bits came from actually realizing that um I needed proof I needed proof that I was wrong I needed to unlearn

um all that stuff I'd been told or come to believe somehow about what I was worthy of and I needed practical proof so I went through and I did them one by one. But start with the easiest one. And you may notice it's tiny things like, okay, when I achieve that goal or when I get that pay rise or when I have a partner or when I, whatever, I'm going to be the sort of person who puts ice in my water, you know, or puts a slice of cucumber in my water, or I'm going to be the sort of person who drinks wine out of a beautiful wine glass. Like these aren't huge things. They're not Everest things. But it's just an interesting exercise to start noticing all the tiny things

and choices and habits and ways that you expect to be treated by other people that you've associated with ticking a certain box. And I have to ask actually within that, because it's one thing that I always come back to, is where this sense of comparing ourselves with other people comes into because my sense is in the world we live in today, we have this very skewed view into other people's lives through social media, through to kind of keep pushing that self-worth and that self-belief down and down and down because you see someone having that perfect glass of wine in the perfect cup in the perfect house. And again, I feel I can't help but wonder if it's exacerbating that I don't look like them.

I'm not as quote unquote good as them. So I'm not really worthy of that. Yeah, I think it does. I think it's really bad for that. I don't think there's much we can do except try to protect ourselves from it. You know, on days where I don't feel great, I don't go on social media. But that's so easy to say. How do you do it? Do you delete the app? Yes, I delete the app. I take out my details. I take out my login details. And I don't go on the app for 24 hours or whatever, usually right before my period.

I don't want to know that everyone's making money and looking great. No, thank you. You know, when I have to sit and cry and like, I'm just like, you know, and on other days, but then I totally believe in like showing that you've done well, you know, and that you're working hard and, you know, and using that grid for whatever you need to use it for. This is totally unprecedented. None of us know the damage that this is going to do or indeed how helpful it's going to be to people. It will be fascinating

on reflection to see the impact that it's had. Because I also know that a number of young people, I've been working more with young people recently, that's also where they go for some of the best mental health advice that, you know, that is most useful to them. So I think it's about boundaries, tech boundaries with a lot of that. And with my friends, certainly, I mean, I'm very lucky in that we're very open with each other. No one's PRing anything. And everyone gets their fair share of crap. And good stuff. And to support as you're kind of thinking about that real life connection, because I think one of the things before we move on to advice too, that I'm really keen to kind of just press on, because I feel like you've been saying that is that taking your life off hold

and starting to do the things that scare you and the things you've been holding back from they're not easy to do and you have to work quite hard to do that and I think I guess it's a dual prong question number one is like how hard did you find it or how hard should people be ready to find it to make these changes but then second of all where did these connections come in do you feel like sharing your aims your goals with people close to you is important or is this something that is a more kind of solo task I wanted it to be a solo task but I'm a bit of I find accountability a bit annoying and it makes me want to rebel and kind of push against

it like having buddies and stuff but equally loads of people find it incredibly useful and I see it when I am used or you know utilized as an accountability buddy and with my clients you know so I think with a lot of this stuff it's about giving ourselves the permission to create the combination of tools and components and strategies that suit us best and I think a lot of the time especially in wellness we feel like we have to subscribe to a very specific program or way of living or whatever but you do get to pick the bits that suit you and take out the bits that don't you know sometimes I'll meditate sometimes I have a glass of wine it's for the same thing whereas a few years ago I wouldn't

have known that I had that option. No, I completely agree with that. And I think this, again, if we not to repeat ourselves, but that's what makes me most nervous about the online world is emulating other people, people not feeling that they can take wellness or feeling well and making it work for them. I think that's such good advice. And then, yeah, I think kind of circling back to that initial bit of the question, how hard did you find it? or how hard should people be ready to find it to make these changes? I know changing my life, I found really, really hard. And definitely there were days where you just didn't want to do it anymore.

And you just wanted to. I mean, I was very, very ill when I changed my lifestyle. And there were days where I was like, I give up. It's fine. I'll just lie in bed forever. This is too hard. It is really hard. And it annoys me massively when people suggest that it's not. Because when it comes to behavioral change, behavioral change is simple. It's doing something

in a row that you find difficult until it's easier. But it's not easy. It's really hard. And I think that we're far better off focusing on our capacity to do difficult things than hoping we can create an environment for change that will make it easy for us and so that's why my focus is so much on people really working on self-efficacy and working on their belief that they can make the right decision for themselves on the spot that they'll be glad they made the next day as opposed to working on sort of controlling everything and isolating themselves and creating environments and hoping hoping so much that it doesn't get hard because they've done everything right I think that puts way too much responsibility on you preemptively and not enough and doesn't put enough focus on your capacity to do difficult

things on the spot yeah that was my last question actually related to this piece of advice which is that when life feels easy when you don't have really kind of challenging events outside of your external control it kind of feels like yes I could make those difficult changes or yeah I could carve out that extra time I could get up earlier to do this it feels hard but not impossible whereas when life throws you a curveball and you've got difficult kind of emotional challenges going on whether that's to do with your family whether to do with your work or you're absolutely exhausted you've got little children whatever it is you've got these factors that are so far beyond your control how do you make the changes then because it feels like it's one thing to say I'm going to do the hard things when life's

easy but how do you keep doing the hard things when life's quite hard? Because those events can just happen in a, you know, the flip of a switch, really. Absolutely. I think, first of all, from a practical perspective, if there are things that you do to keep yourself well, strip it down to the skeleton. Like, what's the minimum I can do every single day if I've got nothing else? Like for me, that's like 20 connected breaths, talking to myself in the shower. Like what are you anxious about? You feel anxious today. You've woken up anxious. What are you afraid is going to happen today? And there are basic things like at the moment, I'm also doing like 10 squats, you know,

and that isn't about exercise. That's more about setting me up to make choices throughout the day that reinforce that my body matters. That's my own thing. I give myself little signals in the morning to put it could do that would increase the likelihood of me going to bed feeling more proud or more calm or more positive? I totally agree with what you do in the morning. Even if it's something that's as short as 10 squats, I'm the exact same. If I set myself up, kind of, I'm going to look after myself today. I'm going to nourish myself today. I'm going to feel really good today. Oh, it makes all the difference in the world. It's unbelievable.

But that, I think, leads us on quite nicely to your second piece of advice. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. 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 ads, email Bob at Libsyn.com to learn more. That's B O B at L I B S Y N.com. My second piece of advice is around self-kindness. I talk about self-kindness a lot.. I talk about self-kindness a lot. People ask me about self-kindness a lot.

Why isn't kindness just doing whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it? And is it indulgent? And I have had to think about this definition a lot. And I think that self-kindness is essentially taking the same advice that we would give to the person we love most and making a decision we'll be glad we made the next day and making the decision when things are difficult that we would want the most intelligent person we know to witness us making and making the decision for ourselves that we would want the person we love most to make because the interesting thing is when when it comes to people we love, kindness is not defined by do whatever you want, spiral, you may as well start on Monday. It's defined by reminding as just that, a learning

curve that they are fully capable of getting back on track with. So it isn't about doing the easy thing. It's about doing the thing that moves you closer to your most meaningful goals long term. And the great news is we all know how to do it because we all know we all know someone hopefully who we love enough to um to support in believing that they can withstand that short-term discomfort in the pursuit of something that really matters to them and so that's what I define as kindness now so being kind to yourself is that kind of gentle nourishing love but just as much as it is tough love and kind of, you know, giving yourself that talking to that's really important. The example I always give is, let's say, for example, one of your children is used to getting a treat every day at 11am. And then you know that you read an article

and you're like, oh, dear, I'm not going to be giving this. I'm not going to be doing this as of tomorrow. What would you anticipate would happen? I've literally just done this. Amazing. So what happened? Okay, so it was three weeks ago. Literally, this is so funny that that's your example. And just to listen, we did not talk about this. No. My older, my two daughters, she's never been like a massive eater.

And they became obsessed with snacks mostly through their friends but they just stopped eating meals they literally were just obsessed with packaged snacks and even if you're like I've made you muffins she said that's not a snack because it's not in a package because it's not in a shiny package and I just got I'd made them like delicious meals which they'd normally like. And they were just like, snack, snack. And I was so fed up with it. And I was like, they don't make them anymore.

And I just, yeah, I was like, they just, yeah, they don't exist. And I know I'm a terrible parent, but I just, they just stopped eating actual food. And they were just eating like puffed corn, basically. Did they kick off? Yeah, they were livid absolutely livid um and but it didn't it didn't last long surprisingly but initially yeah they weren't thrilled okay I love that that's exactly what I was trying to say so if you you anticipated that they'd be livid right yeah you you knew this was about to kick off with good reason. Fair enough. I've just disrupted what they love to do and taken it away from them.

Exactly. That's the conversation you want to have with your body when you start making changes. I've disrupted what you are used to. I've disrupted your status quo. I understand that you don't want this to be happening. It's in your best interests. You have every right to have a tantrum. That does not mean you get to make the next decision. Yeah. And it's really

interesting when we're thinking through this because they've since been, they've been eating really well. And instead of they've been eating their meals and there's like snacks, they're having peanut butter rice cakes and apples and bananas. And quite quickly they got used to that and they haven't been asking for them. But it's a really interesting, I think, I guess I'm living out in my brain as well, this example of the fact that it's not what you want to do in the moment. It is really frustrating. But then in the long run, like they're certainly, I think, happier and healthier for it. Absolutely. And also, also, you held your line and did it in a row until they just got on board. Until it became normal.

Normal, exactly. And that's what we need to do with ourselves. Do it in a row until it feels easy and you barely remember. Plus, they also came out unscathed, you know. Yeah. That was the thing we also need to kind of remember when we're looking at impulse control or there are periods where we feel like we really want to revert back to what we know desperately it's about showing our bodies that we can come out unscathed it's going to be okay i just want to collect some examples of

having not had the snacks five days in a row it's easier than it was on the first day there's no denying that and by the 10th or 15th day you forget snacks were even a thing right but if you had disrupted that process and done three days and then given them a bunch of snacks, couldn't be blamed for thinking you have to start again to some extent, you know? Yeah. It's an interesting one. I want to ask you about this. This is a real fixation of mine. This kind of very strange contradiction that we have, because I think in talking about this, being kind to yourself and kind of really treating yourself with a lot of compassion. That sounds really lovely. And it is. But then in reality, it's also a huge amount of discipline and hard work. And I think there's this really interesting kind of dichotomy in the world at the moment. And it speaks very much to everything you've just been saying, which is that we all want

to be happier. And we know that we have a kind of fundamental challenge with collectively being happy at the moment. But equally, being happy is not very easy. And I think I've really learned that over the last 10 years, which is that now for some of us, it does come a little bit more naturally and it is that bit easier. And I definitely, you know, my husband's great example of that, like that's quite his natural state. I say, I would say I have to work a lot harder at implementing those healthy habits and when I do I genuinely not just saying this like I feel really great and I've got loads of energy and I'm super excited and I'm optimistic and I'm passionate but if I kind of let go of those that energy goes quite quickly as well and I can feel a bit

and a bit stuck and I'm really fascinated by your view on that the fact that like being kind and being compassionate and and you know getting to this happier, healthiest sense of being well in yourself requires a huge amount of discipline because discipline is just not a word we associate with happiness and kindness. No, discipline and I think combined with self-awareness, I'm saying my jumping off point is different to yours. So, for example, there'll be days when I wake up and I am inexplicably anxious beyond belief.

Just there's no story to it. My body just feels scared. And that's my jumping off point. And so then I have to prioritize whatever I have to do, whether or not anyone understands it, to calm down. Yeah. Essentially, whether it's journaling or whatever else, breath, breathing, exercising breathing exercising talking to a friend just telling someone that is going on asking someone to reassure me because I've you know my anxious brains told me that they hate me or whatever um but yeah those choices are difficult and I think that they become easier when you have

the self-awareness and you've done that sort of internal compassionate inquiry into what combination of things you require that for example um matt doesn't you know yeah i found that quite frustrating to start with though i was wondering other people have listening find that too which is that yeah some people just comes a bit more naturally to whereas i feel like i really need to meditate and do yoga and eat vegetables and make smoothies. And I really don't feel great if I don't do that. Like he'll often say, if I'm feeling a bit kind of frenetic, he's like, have you been, have you done yoga? No, he's like, go. Whereas he just doesn't have that. Oh, he's very lucky. But I'm sure there are things you don't struggle with that he does. For sure. But I just mean, I think it's interesting to

your point of that self-awareness of realizing what is it that you need? And maybe some listeners have more discipline and need more discipline in that sense to get to that happier, healthier, feeling well point and that that's okay. Absolutely. And protect what you need. Own it, protect it, communicate it to other people. We're always scared that people are going to think that people aren't going to quite

understand. we're always scared that people are going to think that you know people aren't going to quite understand and I have to say I've been so it's been so concerning to see how frequently people really appreciate someone saying look I need to do these things for myself so that you get the best version of me too by the way and I think that's such an important way of looking at it it's not selfish it's like truly like for the greater good it It really is. And I think, again, that actually does lead us on quite nicely to your third piece of advice. And I wonder if you could tell us what that is. My third piece of advice is around habit change in general. A lot of the time when we approach habit change, we're used to focusing on what's wrong with us and what's wrong with our habits. Why am I so weak and stupid that despite having all the information that I need,

I'm not implementing it? And why am I continuing to and stupid that despite having all the information that I need, I'm not implementing it? And why am I continuing to behave in this way even though I know the outcome doesn't benefit me and the people that I love? And aside from anything else, that does not give us any insight into how to change our behaviors, where the unwanted behaviors came from. Often what is now a problem habit was at one point a solution to something or continues to be a solution to something. It's a far more insightful and compassionate approach to take to start thinking, what am I afraid I'm going to have to experience if I stop doing this thing? When did I start doing it and why? Has it been my friend? What am I afraid will happen if I disrupt the status quo?

If I achieve my goals, am I actually scared of getting there? Because then I have to do all the stuff I said that I was going to do when I got there. There are so many reasons to stay the same. But also to really think, why am I finding this difficult? Because I'm an intelligent person. I know what to do. I have the resources and the knowledge. So the fact that I'm finding this difficult probably means that I have quite a profound relationship with staying the same way. And I'd really like to know why with curious compassion and that insight can also help you like for example I used to struggle massively with binge eating and aside from the fact that I felt disempowered and out of control and like I had an addiction I also didn't like the outcome of it on my body and how it made me feel and I used to think to myself like okay you should you should know better you know all these people

are here to help you and there's all these books and everything else and you you know what why do you hate yourself so much why are you sabotaging yourself and it wasn't until I worked in addiction treatment that I started learning that there's a lot more insight to be gained um when looking at why we're staying the same and so I was like well, so what's the binging giving me? It's helping me to numb out. So that's a need that I have. What am I numbing out from? Could something else help me with that?

Do I still need to numb out? Or did I start when I broke up with someone and now it's just become like an automatic habit? It feels like a sort of private relationship that I have with myself. So I can go off and isolate myself and you know eat loads and just tap out and even if I wanted to you know even if I had responsibilities I couldn't attend to them because I essentially incapacitated myself with the amount that I was eating a lot of the time and also you know it made me feel good for a short while a lot of the time and so I thought right well these are your needs you need to feel good for a short while, a lot of the time. And so I thought, right, well, these are your needs. You need to feel good.

You need to feel calm. You need time by yourself. You need, you know. And rather than demonizing it, I saw it as a friend and that I needed more friends so that it wasn't on such heavy rotation. And that's the insight that it gave me. So it actually helped me enormously to change when I accepted that I was staying the same way for a reason a good reason and if people listening which I'm sure everybody is nodding along saying like absolutely whether it's a similar habit or a different habit but everyone will have those habits that don't make them feel empowered and and perhaps they're like a default when they feel anxious

or overwhelmed or their life's out of their control as we were saying earlier that happens a lot what are the kind of practical steps for that self-reflection and for looking at that coping mechanism or that habit that we don't love about ourselves and trying to kind of unpack it and unpick it and then find more enjoyable more empowering habits that we can effectively swap in for? If they're coping strategies for things like boredom and stress and anxiety, first of all, doing nothing can be really empowering. One of the greatest things I've learned to do is nothing for 10 or 15 or 20 minutes. And to give myself the opportunity to learn that my body has an extraordinary capacity to self-regulate and that I have the capacity to change my mind about what I do next

for some people that won't be as profound a realization as it was for me but it really really was and so in the first instance before you try to distract and replace and whatever else see if you're not accidentally not giving yourself enough credit in your capacity to withstand that moment, that craving, that urge, in your capacity to put a space between wanting to do something and actually doing it, because you may be very pleasantly surprised. And you may find that the, you know, the craving changes or the urge changes regardless of what you wanted to do. The other thing a lot of the time, I think just write down the words that come to mind. If you take out the judgment, is it calm?

Is it grounded? Is it privacy? You know, is it unconditional love? And start thinking, OK, what are my other sources of these things? And do I want to diversify them and start going looking for them? Because everyone's going to have a different map in front of them. Yeah, I think it's such a great way of looking at it. I wondered in your life what those are. It sounds like journaling is a kind of really important one for you. and really changed the way that I speak to myself. And writing has helped enormously with that because there's something amazing about seeing it on paper

or even hearing it aloud and thinking, my God, I would never say that to someone else. Least of all, if I was trying to help them. And so journaling has helped me a lot, but also just doing nothing. I know this sounds strange, but I'm historically so impulsive that I end up having to do all this like damage control afterwards because of the things I did when I was stressed or anxious or whatever else. as opposed to quickly try to change how I feel has been huge. And also realizing that an urge or a craving, it's an alert from your body, very often a very predictable one. It's not a command

that you have to obey. It's a jumping off point for negotiations. And that for me has been a real game changer. Yeah, no, that completely makes completely makes sense for me it's been when I get kind of overwhelmed I can become quite which is why it's frenetic I feel like that's the best description of I become kind of very very busy and doing 72 things at once and kind of rushing around like a headless chicken and really stop thinking about anything I'm doing to some extent it's like a more more more it's like my brain's like craving dopamine here after dopamine here and for me meditation it's could like it's like craving dopamine hit after dopamine hit. And for me, meditation, it's extraordinary the impact it's had.

And it is, it's that ability, it's learning that ability to sit with yourself. I did a mindfulness course, it was like two and a half years ago. We did 40 minutes of meditation a day for 12 weeks. And Matt was calling me like Ella 2.0. I was like unrecognizable and it was so interesting. I mean, I say it's a small thing,

40 minutes is a big chunk of your day, but it was just interesting learning to be able to sit with myself and with all feelings and emotions and not kind of just get busier and busier and busier. And with my life, that's quite easy to do. And the effect that it had, it was, I found it really, really impactful. It was, yeah, it sounds simple, but it was quite revolutionary. You know what i think is important with the meditation thing too is again in the spirit of giving yourself signals that you matter and for anyone who's listening because meditation can be really tricky and for a lot of people can be triggering like there's a lot going on there but just the fact that you decided to do that

should give you should make you feel proud just the fact that you decided to go sit down as opposed to scroll through your phone or whatever else is another signal that you've given your body that it matters. And I think that's the most important thing. It's not necessarily, you know, yeah, meditation's great and we know that it's great for our brains and stuff. But ultimately, from my perspective, it's another way that you've shown yourself that you matter today and that you're making new choices that move you in the direction of being a calmer person in general. And do you think within that trying to have like, even if it's so small, I mean one or two minutes, a daily routine that you, every day you kickstart your mind, your body, your brain with, yeah, I do really matter and I am going to look after myself today no matter what happens. Absolutely. with yeah I do really matter and I am going to look after myself today no matter what happens. Absolutely every morning just spend a couple of minutes anticipating the things that are likely

to test you that day and very often unless you're like I don't know like a lion tamer or something your day is probably going to be pretty similar and the things that test you and the things that tend to throw you off track are probably going to be the same so anticipate them and when they come let the realization that you guessed them disrupt your status quo and make you just take a moment to go, oh, I knew this was going to happen. Or I thought this might happen. And I guessed it. So self-awareness points and the bit of, you know, makes you feel a bit smug and it's nice. But then also, now I have an opportunity to respond differently. Because when you wake up in the morning, very often, you know, when the world hasn't had a chance to get to you yet you know you start with the best of intentions and by 11

you're like I don't even remember the person from 7am anymore and it can be really useful to just have something written down that says look at 7am you knew this was important to you um just anchor yourself in that throughout the day and all of a sudden you find little ways to pepper things. You know, like when you start doing practices of gratitude, you start noticing more to be grateful about. When I started with the self-care thing and I didn't put pressure on myself to transform, I just thought throughout the day, if you can find a window, even if it's 30 seconds, like if there's a patch of sun, stand in it instead of going on your phone. If you could put some lovely music on while you're doing an undesirable task like an excel spreadsheet whatever do it um these are not profound like

wildly difficult things to do that i'm asking people to do again i don't think it's about the act itself or the content of the act i think it's all about how many signals can i give myself that i matter throughout the day just pepper it it. Yeah, that's such good advice. Well, thank you so much. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you for having me. Honestly, every time I read something that Sharoo's written or I talk to her, I feel this kind of sense of inspiration and calm and I can do it attitude and I just I just love being around her um so I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did and took a lot of advice on the importance of self-compassion because I think that is something

that we forget so often and just isn't talked about enough within this industry either and we're going to be moving straight from that into our fact or fad where every week Dr Gemma Newman and I road test all kinds of different wellness trends things you could have seen on Instagram or TikTok and find out if they've got any basis in fact or if maybe they're just a passing fad and this week our fact or fad is mindful eating so why this trend well first of all you asked for it and second of all it reportedly helps curb binge eating emotional eating and helps you eat a healthier diet here is what shiru had to say on the topic i'm gonna seem really hateful here

um but mindful we love honesty okay mindful eating annoys me because I do eat mindfully now, but it took me the best part of a decade to get there. So anyone who, like me, as a result of a life spent dieting, believes that they have developed this on or off, good or bad, binging, restricting cycle. It annoys me if they're made to believe that by buying one book or going on one course, they're going to be able to unlearn all that stuff. And all of a sudden, all their bodily cues are going, oh, now I want broccoli. Now I want chocolate. You become so disconnected from your body. And I read so many books about mindful eating and loads of them are amazing. And I reread them now because I finally got there.

But I needed something more hardcore because I couldn't trust my body at that point so is it a fact is it a fad let's find out what Dr Newman thinks so we've got quite a nice trend I would say this week Gemma of mindful eating so I've checked my hashtags 34.4 million hashtags for mindfulness. I mean, I knew this was obviously a massive topic, but enormous. And 1.4 million specifically for mindful eating. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's something that people are becoming a lot more aware of. And how would you define mindful eating? Well, it's basically an awareness of your food intake without judgment. And it's an extension of mindfulness in a way that mindfulness involves awareness of your situation in general, you know, your experiences, your thoughts, your emotions. And, you know,

it's been used scientifically for an array of things like anxiety or substance abuse and more recently on eating and it's been found quite useful for things like binge eating or emotional eating or so-called external eating where you're eating in response to external food cues like you've seen something that you like the look of or you're in the supermarket and you think oh well that looks tasty I'll grab that. So there is some evidence to say that mindful eating practices have been scientifically useful for curbing those things, for curbing binge eating, emotional eating and external eating cues. So it'd be fair to say the data is quite strong actually in potentially supporting you in eating a healthier diet because you're

more aware of what you're eating. Yes for binge eating for example there's been two literature reviews on mindfulness-based interventions and they specifically addressed eating behaviours and combined them with CBT which is cognitive behavioural therapies and interestingly the results did not improve when the intervention was just a general mindfulness based stress reduction it only improved if they were specific on eating habits and the same for emotional eating there was a systematic review that found eating for emotional reasons like if you're feeling sad was improved across the majority of studies that they looked at targeting eating behaviors, but only when it was specific

to that behavior alongside cognitive behavioral therapy, rather than a general kind of mindfulness education. And again, with external eating, so eating because you've seen something around you that looks good. There was a literature review on that with mindful eating and again it was helpful but only when paired with so-called like acceptance therapies or cognitive behavioral therapy so it was a combination that's been found to be useful very interesting we actually asked our guest shiru about this um before we recorded our episode and she specializes in behavioral change and she was recovering from binge eating disorder and she said that for her initially it wasn't enough on its own it was too simplistic which really speaks to your data yeah but then

when she coupled it with the work that she was doing outside of mindful eating and now for kind of long-term management, she finds mindful eating extraordinarily helpful. So that's very, very interesting, speaks very much to your data. Oh, I'm glad that it kind of correlates because yeah, I think it's true. If you're just told to be mindful or if you're just told, you know, just to be aware of what you're doing, it's not necessarily helpful in and of itself. It's about looking at all these different strategies together and using them in the most effective way and would you say that for anybody trying to bring that slowing down to meals that taking a minute to kind of be aware of what you're

eating presumably you would say with your kind of gp hat on it is just generally a very helpful piece of advice because helping us make healthier decisions has numerous potential benefits because if that helps us eat more lentils and more carrots and more potatoes and more chickpeas and slightly less ultra processed food that's a really good thing absolutely and interestingly it was incorporated in the Canadian food guidelines which I think is fascinating. They actually said, look, eat with your family, eat at the table, take a moment, eat slowly, enjoy your food, have water as your main drink. These are all ways to be aware of your intake and therefore potentially digest the food better, chew it more, have more amylase in your mouth to help you digest the carbohydrate rich foods, which then improves your digestion overall. Make sure that you generally probably eat less calories because you're not doing it in a way where you're just kind of eating on the go or

eating at the office, not really sort of thinking it through. You've really taken a moment to enjoy the food, notice the food, how it looks, how it tastes, what you like about it the texture and that actually improves the eating experience as well so would we say mindful eating is a fact or a fad i'd say it's a fact what do you think hella no i would agree with that myself and as someone who can get very very busy when i have over the last few weeks really consciously tried to take those extra few minutes I have noticed myself eating a lot more healthily because certainly I can have days where I get to the office early 7 30 8 o'clock my days can be completely back to back until 6 6 30 I race home to see my children and I can sometimes just not take a second in that time to think,

okay, how many portions of veggies have I eaten today? You know, did I have a balanced meal, like were there, you know, whole grains and fats and proteins? So I'm going to feel full and satisfied. And I just noticed that taking five minutes around my meal, just think it through for a quick second, sit down and eat eat it just made me a lot more satisfied a lot and I felt a lot more balanced I had less cravings less kind of crashes and it was a small task although I'd say easier said than done but definitely I did notice it cued me up for a healthier day that being said I feel like it's anything but a magic wand because it still takes quite a lot of thought process to consider making a healthy meal. Yeah, I agree. It's definitely not a magic cure.

It's helpful. It's one of the things you can do and use as a tool in your toolbox. But it does take thought and you have to remember, oh, OK, what am I doing right now? Maybe I'll sit down. Maybe I'll really think about this rather than just kind of grabbing the first thing that you find so yeah it's it's not magic but it definitely helps and that's it for me this is the end of the show and I just want to thank you guys so much for listening and coming on this journey of feeling well with me I would absolutely love to hear from you please do rate it review it review it, share it on social media. It makes all the difference. Plus, if you have a wellness trend you want us to put to the fact or fad test,

or if there's someone you'd love me to interview, I really want to know because I want this podcast to be reflective of you and your wellness journey too. So just let me know. You can find the brand on social at Deliciously Ella or email us podcast at deliciouslyella.com and just remember if you are going to make any big changes to your lifestyle it is always worth consulting your GP so thank you guys so much we will be back here next week next week we are

talking to Russell Foster who is one of the most prominent sleep experts in the world, a professor of circadian neuroscience. And my husband, Matthew, is honestly so obsessed with sleep that we have been really prepping for this episode for a while. So it should be a good one. And we're also going to be looking at matcha versus coffee. Where should we get our caffeine from in our Fact or Fad? And huge thank you to Curly Media who are partners in producing this podcast. 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 ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.