The Wellness Scoop - Is having it all a myth, embracing discomfort and protein powders with Farrah Storr

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

This week I’m joined by journalist and author Farrah Storr. Farrah was the editor of Women’s Health magazine, Cosmo and Elle. In 2018 she published The Discomfort Zone: How to Get What You Want by Living Fearlessly. She is passionate about personal growth, the need to embrace discomfort, the implausibility of having it all (at one time) and making space for a creative outlet. We discuss: Wellness trends and shifts within the industry The need to embrace our fears How pushing ourselves can feel at odds with current societal narratives How life is a series of choices, which we must learn to live by The myth of having it all The need for creative expression   Each week I unpack a wellness trend with GP Gemma Newman. This week on Fact or Fad we’re looking at protein powders.   More about Farrah: The Discomfort Zone https://www.amazon.co.uk/Discomfort-Zone-What-Living-Fearlessly/dp/0349415358 Farrah's newsletter: Things Worth Knowing https://farrah.substack.com/ 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 11? Our 11th guest on Wellness Unpacked is the writer and journalist Farrah Storr. Farrah started her career as a journalist in magazines, working her way up to

editor-in-chief on Women's Health Magazine, Cosmo and Elle and she's now heading up writer partnerships at Substack. Today we're going to be digging deep into the concept of embracing discomfort and why we all need creative outlets. We're going to be talking about regret, how to banish it and how to find a little bit more peace. It's a fantastic follow-up I think on the conversations that we've been having with Sarah, with Sam, with Roxy and with Tara about our values, our life and how we bring all of those together. So let's get into the show. So Farrah, welcome to Wellness Unpacked. I was just telling you you've got some mega fans in our office, so we're very excited to have you here today. And I wondered if we could just kickstart with the same question that we ask everybody, which is what does

wellness mean to you? Oh, I think it depends on the day you ask me I think some days wellness to me is having time to just read a book and have an hour to myself sometimes it's sort of eating sensibly so sort of it depends there's sort of two answers the micro answer is day by day that what wellness means to me actually changes depending on what I need the sort of macro answer is I think think wellness, and this is very hard, by the way, I think wellness is you feel spiritually nourished. I think you feel mentally challenged and satisfied. And I think you feel not physically fit, but physically able, I think. And I think if you get all those three things, I think actually on any day, if you get one of those, it's a win. But I think if you can get all those three things you're an editor at Women's Health Magazine, you know, you've been such a huge part of the cultural conversation while wellness has exploded as an industry. I mean, you must have spoken to everybody within the industry, seen every trend come and go. How's that kind of impacted your take on what the industry is today? I think when you are editing a magazine, you are, like you said, you're looking at trends, you're looking at the way the culture is moving. And so for a while, when I first started Women's

Health, wellness was all about the now and the new. And it was investigating sort of all these new trends, you know know wellness wasn't even really a thing then and I think it has changed hugely to where we are now I mean that's like 15 years ago at that time there wasn't sort of boutique fitness classes people were not having protein shakes every morning and wellness in the beginning and actually you know Ella I was a part of this the time and the culture has changed but at that time wellness was about looking good it was about feeling good for sure but let's be honest we did all of those you know drop a dress size you know shred fat fast and that's what in the

beginning I think people thought wellness was and it was about pushing yourself and striving and hit became a thing and god knows i you know i put my body through the ringer in what i thought was the pursuit of wellness but when i look back now and i was in my early 30s then when i look back now i think that was an approximation of what wellness is and actually i think where i don't think actually by the way i don't think it's a complete circle yet but i think wellness is in a way, I don't think it's a complete circle yet, but I think wellness is in a better place now. I think people understand a little bit more about it. I think people understand that wellness is not about looking like Gwyneth Paltrow. I think people

understand that there's a personal interpretation of what wellness means to you. But I also think we're way more knowledgeable and it's way more part of our life than it was sort of sort of 10-15 years ago so I'm proud that I was a part of it but did we get some of it wrong almost certainly that's what happens when you're a journalist and you are going into unknown territory you you make some mistakes along the way yeah I totally agree we met obviously quite quite early on into the world of Delicious Cielo and when, as you were saying, wellness was in its very nascent stages and it did feel so much then that it was so much about the external. And obviously I'd come at this from a very personal

journey of being very unwell and so from such a different perspective. And I remember finding that really jarring because it was continuously, what will you look like if you eat x or y and I think it is exciting as you said we haven't gone full circle but it is exciting that there's a deeper conversation around what do you want how do you see wellness what works in your body and before we get on to your piece of advice which I think linked to that personal journey so brilliantly what was the most shocking or crazy thing that you investigated during your time in the wellness world of journalism? Oh, God, we did all sorts. I mean, I mean, one of the craziest things was when I decided to get a six pack in, I think it was

like two months. How'd it go? Never got a six pack. But, you know, I looked amazing for about a week. And that was the reality, you know. We were selling this idea of transform your body. And look, the reality is I don't want to be too harsh because people do want to transform whether we like it or not. People do want to change their appearance. And so I sort of said to my team, I said, look,

you know, we're selling this idea of, you know, transform your body. I said, we should probably do it. And I did it. And the truth was, you look like that for about a week. It's not sustainable. But that was pretty extreme. We did all sorts of things. We did vitamin injections in the early, early days, but people who were getting addicted to them. I mean, there were what we were looking at and what I'm talking about now is all extremes. And I think part of being a journalist, I mean, you do have responsibility. And look, we did a lot of, you know, looking, investigating in the middle. But sometimes looking at the extremes of a culture and what's going on, A, whether it or not it's what gets people reading and then I think the job of the journalist is once you've got their attention is you then sort of using the evidence take them through the entire story from beginning to end so yeah we did a lot

of sort of crazy things and we put ourselves through a lot of crazy things I think one good thing about women's health although many good, but we didn't always say, certainly towards the end of my time there, that actually you should look like the person on the cover. And by the time I left, actually, we were starting to change what sort of bodies look like on the cover. I mean, actually, the woman that followed me, the editor that followed me, did a much better job. But I try not to be so hard on myself about what you sort of put out into the culture. But by the time I moved from women's health, I sort of decided to make a real change actually with the sort of people that I put on our covers and the way that we spoke about wellness. I think that's so interesting. And I think what you're saying there as well about trying new things and not being afraid of that leads so perfectly onto your first piece of advice

which I think is just it links very nicely actually to a lot of the conversations we've been having on the show recently about really understanding what you want in your life and going after that and the fact that that's not easy but I wondered if you could talk us through this idea that we need to live outside of our comfort zones. Why was that so important to you? Well, it was important because I'm naturally, I would say, high in neuroticism, naturally sort of quite an anxious person, high perfectionist. Me too. Okay, so you will understand. Still don't like walking into a room where I know no one,

hate going to parties, hate going to dinners. But I was sort of the third child of four kids. And because I sort of had this quite naturally fragile disposition, I spent a lot of my life coasting wouldn't be the word, but sort of coddling myself from the world. And actually, I thought that that idea of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I always thought that was incorrect. I actually thought what doesn't kill you makes you weaker. So I protected myself from a lot of difficult situations. And in saying that, would you mean you just wouldn't go to the dinner or you just wouldn't go to the party? That's exactly right.

Or I would go for five minutes. I'm scared, so I'm going to take a step back. That's it. So I don't want to be confronted with the fear. So actually what I'll do is I just won't approach it. Of course, not realizing that the fear never dissipates. But what you have to do is you have to become fearless. And life sort of continued that way until when I was maybe 32, 33. And I was suddenly, I was offered the job of women's health. A number of circumstances meant that I was offered this job.

And what I would say is, is that my desire to be an editor was greater than the fear I felt at doing it. And that was really important. So I said yes to the job. The job, however, was very, very difficult. And it came when they offered me the job because I was a bit of a nobody. I'd never been an editor. I wasn't particularly well known. Transpired another editor offered me the job because I was a bit of a nobody. I'd never been an editor. I wasn't particularly well known. Transpired, another editor had had the job

and actually she'd walked out saying, it's sort of, you know, it's not doable. So they needed somebody. So that's why I was drafted in the very last minute. And it came with like three major caveats. One was, you've got six weeks from beginning to end to get this magazine on newsstands. Second was, it was 2012. So it was,

it was like a cataclysmic time for magazines. They were all folding. Everybody said digital was the future. Nobody thought magazines would last. And therefore, why was this publishing company launching a magazine at this time? Because of that, they wanted to minimize risk and failure. So what they did was they said, look, you're going to have just two members of staff and the budget is going to be almost minuscule. And are you going to be okay with that? So I said, yes. Again, the desire to be an editor was greater than the fear. And then finally, they said, you have to sell 100,000 copies from the very first issue. And 100,000 copies, in a world of digital, it doesn't seem like a lot. But actually,

then it was a huge amount. And we had no marketing budget, nobody had really heard of this brand. So I had those three caveats. And they were like, do you want to take the job? And I was like, this is what I've always wanted to do. So yes. But the truth is, when I took the job, it was absolutely overwhelming. It was very, very difficult. Nobody would be on the cover. Nobody would be interviewed. We had no money to get any writers on board. So I wrote most of it. But something really interesting started to happen as a consequence of this sort of extreme moment of discomfort that we were put under, which was I started to behave very differently. So I started to use my gut instinct far more. I started to take bigger risks. I started to be

more creative. You know, I think when you're backed into a corner, that's when you start to come up with brilliant ideas. And so Women's Health was really supposed to be quite a straight-laced wellness magazine. But because of all these constraints that we were faced with, we actually ended up creating a magazine which was quite irreverent, it was quite naughty. It was actually, even though it's called Women's Health, it ended up being sort of a unisex magazine. And it became a big success. but I think to this day there's absolutely no way it would have been a success if we hadn't have been forced into real discomfort and sort of had to find a way out and as a consequence of that the culture at that time was very much leaning towards

a culture of safetyism where you know on campuses you were seeing safe spaces and there was the beginning in the elite universities in america of de-platforming individuals that people felt their views were slightly challenging and i worried about that because i was like well actually the culture is is basically telling young people what you're most afraid of you should back away from and my experience had been the very opposite which was human beings are incredibly well built to deal with battle and discomfort but wasn't the narrative at the time and I don't think it's the narrative now and I want to pick up on that in a second because I think that's a bigger conversation but I'm curious on a personal level

a how have you found that developing throughout your career have you found that the more you're able to push yourself into that sense of discomfort the easier it's become and the more opportunities you feel able to take on but then be on a again on a very personal level how did you deal with those feelings because I can only imagine as someone that relates very much to your self-description of being a bit anxious and neurotic. I'm exactly the same. And I definitely have to have a lot of conversations with myself of, yes, you can do this.

You know, don't let the fear stop you from living any kind of life. Because otherwise I could probably just sit in a dark room forever if we're going to call a spade a spade. And I'm just very curious what that experience was like for you at that point and then how that's developed throughout your career. So the way that I got through it is, and this is what I realised looking back on that period, was that it was a fallacy, this idea that things were uncomfortable from beginning to end. If you looked at a situation like, say, going to a party, the narrative I used to tell myself, so all the self-talk was, it's going to

be hideous. Nobody's going to talk to you. It's just going to be awful. So you may as well not go. But then when I actually looked at the situation and I broke it down, I actually realized that wasn't true at all. And it was the same with women's health. The whole experience of launching that magazine was not uncomfortable from beginning to end. It had moments, these very brief moments of discomfort, which were very uncomfortable, like phoning agents who would put the phone down on you. The moments in between those uncomfortable moments were actually very pleasurable. And so what I told myself was, if there's something that you're really scared of, what you need to do is break down what is it that you're actually scared of.

So with a party, for example, and remember, I had to do a lot of that in my job. That is part of the gig. And I didn't have the choice to go, you can't go to the party. I had to go to the party. But I would go, well, actually, if I break it down, what is it I'm actually afraid of? And usually it was like the moment when you come in and someone hands you a glass and you don't know anyone and you have to go up to somebody. And so I just came up with a strategy of how to deal with that. And somehow having a strategy of how to deal with those brief moments of discomfort, even if you don't lean on the strategy, which most of the time you don't, you just feel like you're in control. And I think that's the thing that helps me. You know, having the illusion of control is really important, particularly if you're going into an unknowable situation. So that's how I approach everything now. And in answer to your first question, yeah, it gets much easier. now spend my life willfully identifying what is slightly out of my reach and then forcing myself

into it knowing that actually that's probably going to get the best out of me you know I change jobs sort of every three or four years so every editorship I always left when it was at its best point and I always left when it was just shy of four years and for me at about the four-year point which is a bit like politics by about four years usually as an editor that's when you've sort of reached the top and I think I was always aiming for the top but of course when you get to the top you realize it's a bit like you know the Philip Larkin poem it's like success is a bit of a desolate attic you get there and actually it's not what you thought but actually the grind to getting there is the really enjoyable bit you look back and go I want

to do it all over again and someone said to me recently they said well how do you know when it's time to change direction and I think the best answer I could give is that you just wake up one day and you just don't feel things feel the same and you don't feel as excited anymore and everything is knowable and I think that's the point when I go I want to feel slightly destabilized again I want to be learning something new that's the minute go, it's time for a change. And it just so happens that it's between sort of three and every three and four years. It's incredibly brave though. And I think something that we're, we'll come on to in a minute, but as a culture, not brilliant at doing, but do you feel you're happier as a result of consistently making that decision to know what you want and push yourself to get

there? I think for my personality type, yes. I tend not to have regrets. I'm pretty good at always looking forward. And part of looking forward for me is having constant twists and turns. If everything was a plateau and everything was the same, I don't think it would be getting the most out of me. So I think it has served me well. I mean, some people might look at it and go, God, it looks exhausting, but it doesn't feel like that. Yeah, I think it has served me well, but I think you have to sort of know within yourself, I'm probably sort of a slightly type A personality. I need change. I can't stay the same. And actually also, I don't know if it's great for human beings to stay the same all the time. You change.

You're not the same person you were as a child as you are as a 44-year-old woman. So if you're not the same person, that means the environment or the job you're doing, it's not always going to be the same. It's not going to serve you as well. We've been talking about that again recently, about making sure you take the time on a semi-regular basis to make sure that your life is really aligning with your values and what you really want. And I think that's so important, as you said, like we evolve, we change. And I'm very curious about the embracing discomfort and getting outside of our comfort

zone. There's a lot of memes and things that go around the internet that show that sense of there's the kind of comfort zone where life is easy but I think it can often feel a bit flat a bit lacking in sparkle and magic and purpose and excitement and then you have that next step which is true growth where you're going into that area of discomfort and you're stepping outside the comfort zone. But how do you get that right balance between embracing challenge and pushing yourself, but equally not doing it just because other people expect you to do it or trying it and saying, you know what, actually, it just doesn't feel right for me, this direction. Because I think there's this interesting juxtaposition that we have in the world today of quite a lot of kind of making the world very safe and enabling people to kind of stay where they are and stick in those comfort zones,

coupled with this sense of have everything, be everything, be the next world leader, the world's your oyster. And it can be quite challenging to navigate. And I suppose, you know, the truth is it gets easier with age but I think the good thing about the culture now is people understand this sounds a terrible cliche but I think people and I think to your point you should be checking in every now and then about what is your purpose and when I say what is your purpose what I mean is what's the sort of burning light at the end of the road for the next five years not the next 20 years because that's too far ahead road for the next five years, not the next 20 years, because that's too far ahead. But for the next five years, what's the sort of beacon of light from the lighthouse,

whether it's being an editor or whether it's setting up, you know, your own wellness business, or I don't know whether it's graduating, figure out what that is. And, and by the way, these are quite small ambitions, you know, that's why I say figure out what it is sort of three years to five years down the road. And I think once you figure that out, you're not going to stay the same. You are going to have to keep moving forward. And the truth is, I feel this really strongly that actually human beings, they want progress. They want to feel like they're moving and developing. And I think the problem is now is that everybody thinks that they can, you know, they want to be the president or they want to, you know, they want to get to the very, very top. And I think getting to the top

shouldn't always be the goal, actually. It's understanding what is the purpose for you in the next few years. I think those people that sort of look for too bright, too ambitious a sort of target, that's when you can come a bit undone. And actually what happens, I think, with that is you don't go into a discomfort zone. What you get in pursuit of that very lofty ambition is you end up in a panic zone,

which is, you know, you're sort of slightly overreached. And I've never agreed actually with all those memes where it's like, you can be whatever you want to be. The reality is not everybody can be. So you've got to figure, that's why you do it in increments. You don't set this massive goal for yourself because what's going to happen if you don't reach it, that's where trouble lies. I don't think you should compare yourself to other people. Everybody's got their own arsenal and their own sets of value, strengths, weaknesses. I would say to everybody, please understand what your weaknesses are. It's really important because once you know what your weaknesses are and your strengths,

then you can get them together and sort of go, right, what is the right path that's going to serve me well with these? I think all this, what are your strengths? Be the best it's missing the other half of the argument which is a lot you know human beings have weaknesses and they have things they're not so good at you've got to really investigate those and then carve a path knowing all of that on exactly that but then looping into what you said earlier that we said we'd pick back up on do you feel like the culture that we

have today and I think it is quite common conversation in the kind of millennial world is whether or not we've created something where as you said there is this expectation everybody can be whatever they want to be you can always sit down close your eyes and hope that it's going to happen expect it's going to happen and then feel infinitely frustrated that we aren't where we want to be and potentially other people are and we're almost encouraged to take the easy route it's like you can get food delivered in three minutes without walking out your front door life's just become so simple in so many ways that it's almost quite difficult to push yourself and we as you said and then we have this narrative of you can be anything you can do anything it's almost like

you don't have to do the work to get to that point yes right I know so many people who um they've sort of stood still with their lives and they look at everybody else who's got to the place they wanted to get to and they go yeah the reason it happened for them is because they got lucky or they had rich parents or they were connected. But actually what they don't take into account is, is that actually probably what happened is that person went through the hard graph. They faced a load of obstacles. They went through them and probably you didn't. You probably tried to, that's why, again, I don't agree with this. Let's hack the system. You probably tried to hack the system. The problem is if you come up against something difficult in life, human beings don't like obstacles because suddenly it tells you that

you're not quite the person you thought you were. Suddenly you thought life was easy, but this roadblock is here. And so what some people do is they go, OK, I'm going to hack the system. I'm going to think of a different way so I don't have to deal with this. And what happens is they just change their direction of where they're going. And that obstacle will just keep appearing again and again. And so all that will happen is if you keep hacking the system, you'll start moving horizontally and everybody else that went through the obstacle is way ahead of you. And that is sort of where true misery lies because you're still stood on the starting line going, how come they got to that place and I didn't? And it's like, yeah, because they went into this period of discomfort and it wasn't nice, but actually look what they got. They

unlocked their potential by going through it and you didn't and we just don't talk about that what it really takes to be to get to the top the hard work the long hours the sacrifices and by the way if we were more open about that I don't think everybody would want success if they knew it came with all of that baggage I think a lot of people would go nah maybe not for me there There's so many things I want to say to that first of all I am obsessed with have always been obsessed with Steve Jobs's myth of the overnight success and the fact that it actually takes 20 years which I think is whether it's 20 years or not but this the symbolism of the fact that it takes so long we see other people and we think they've done it right and as you said what's gone into doing it takes so long. We see other people and we think they've done it. And as you said, what's gone into doing it is so enormous and so much behind the scenes work that we just aren't

very, very rarely are we privy to that, which I think is so important. I remember my husband, he's become convinced by this idea, which I totally agree with him on, is he always says, you know, the people with the best businesses aren't the people with the best ideas. And the people leading the big companies, they're not better than everybody else. They're the people who've picked themselves up the most number of times and they've found the solutions the most quickly. And I totally agree with that because I think you look at other people and you think, oh, it's because of X. Oh, it's because of Y. It's never because of X or Y. Or it may have played a small role.

But as you said the obstacles are key that is the other thing which is even if it was all these other variables you've only got yourself you can only control your own path in life so even if connections or wealth or whatever played a small role that's not an option for you so you've got to sort of look at what you've got what's in your arsenal and you've just got to keep moving forward and that's where the whole comparison thing I think is it can be really sort of noxious that sort of looking at what and we all do it I mean god I've had you know early in my career I used to call them my professional nemeses people who were always like a step ahead of you and after a while as you get older you just

realize you're playing different games with different values and and just stop the competing you're not the same it's interesting on the bit that you're saying about manifesting as well we were talking to a neuroscientist tara swart and she was saying is exactly this there's this myth now you sit down you close your eyes and you're like, I really want this. She's like, no, the brain's open to neuroplasticity. You know, you can change the way your brain thinks if you sit down and figure out what you want. And as you said, which I think is key, when you really think about what you want, taking ego out, fear out, it may not be the success because as you said, that comes with a whole lot of other challenges as a professional success. But then what you do is you set a goal that is plausible because every single day you then go

and get up and do the actions that take you to that place and your brain and the neuroscience of your brain can help you get there because you've set the goals the goals don't happen unless you keep getting up all day every day and doing it even when it's hard. And I think that's a key myth. But I think all of that moves us on so nicely to your second point, this idea, which I always think is so interesting. And I've had people say to me, because I sew with you on it, that it's very anti-feminist, etc. But that you cannot have it all. You make decisions in life and you've got to live by those decisions yeah so I came of age in the 80s but I was born in the late 70s so my formative years I was watching a mother who had a full-time job had four kids she was sort of the archetypal reader of Cosmo and Cosmo in the 60s

and 70s propagated this idea that you could have it all. And actually, that came from at the time, there was a very legendary editor, American editor of Cosmo called Helen Gurley Brown. She wrote a book and the book was called Having It All. It was a huge success. And this phrase, having it all, really caught a light in the culture. And then sort of Cosmo ran with it. And so by the time I ended up editing Cosmo, sort of changes were going on with my own life. And by the way, I'd always

thought exactly it was a sort of deeply feminist phrase, nothing should stop you. You sort of owe it to feminism to grab everything that you possibly can. If the options are there, you should go for it. But by the time I got to edit Cosmo, I wasn't sure actually it was that helpful a message to be sending to women. And actually, my life at the time informed that in a way, which was, I was 36, I think, when I was offered the job at Cosmo. And Cosmo had always been the magazine I wanted to edit. It was the biggest magazine. I'd always tried to get jobs on there. I'd never got in. They never let me in. And then the editorship came along and it was amazing. I was so excited. But it was at a time when I was presuming that I would have a family, I would start a family. And me and my husband at that point had been trying for a family for a couple of years. It just wasn't happening. And we then decided without much thought, actually, that we you know talking through what what IVF would mean and

actually I might not end up with a child at the end and there might be strains in the relationship and you know it was not a particularly pleasant experience and as she was talking it was sort of like I was in a dream and I just remember thinking this is not what I want and it's not what I think I can do and I went home I drove home and I walked into my husband's office and I just said, look, I don't think this is right for me. I don't think I want to be a mother. And fortunately, he sort of turned to me and went, I'm so glad you said that because I don't want to be a father. But I'd reached that conclusion in lots of different ways. I think I didn't have the ache that a lot of women have, this ovarian ache. And I think that does, by the way, make me very lucky. But it's something I thought I should do on the

path to having it all. I thought I should have a family. But then when I sort of had time to think about what a family would actually involve. So it goes back to when you look at what success means. When I look to what a family would involve for us, it would mean I was the main breadwinner at that time. So my husband was, his career was sort of just peaking, but he would have had to give up his career. The job was very, very difficult. And I am one of those people who, I'm not a naturally gifted journalist or editor. I just throw a lot of work at things. It's just been how I work. I work very, very hard. And I didn't think that I could be a mother to the extent I thought I needed to be and be the editor that I wanted to be. And so with all those variables at play, I made the best decision that I thought

was the right decision. And actually, I still think it's the right decision, which was I consciously sort of removed myself from the motherhood equation. I decided actually, this isn't for me. And actually, by sort of stepping away from not having it all, I suddenly felt very freed. It was very, very freeing. And as a consequence of that, actually, and still to this day, I have so many women who want to talk to me about the decision to not be a mother, but they all do say to me, they all say, do you think you made a mistake? And I always say, you have to give yourself an easier ride of it. Like you make the best decision that you possibly could at the time. And I made the best decision I could at the time. So I don't look back and go, do you know what? I should have been a mother. I don't. It was the best decision. I respect the

person I was at the time. And my life has just moved. You know, I sort of, I did a deviation and the gate closed on one thing, but lots of other things will have opened up for me. So yeah, I think women actually, if you want to have it all, go for it. But I think there is a, and I think it's quite a grown up thing to accept, which is life is full of choices. And, you know, I always used to say, it's like when you're a kid, you start making choices immediately, which is you can't go to ballet and go to the birthday party. You have to decide which one you want. And I think that's part of being a grown up.

You know, there are these are tough decisions to make and nobody likes likes doing it. But I think you have to respect, be very respectful of the decisions you make at the time. Yeah, well, no. And thank you for being vulnerable and sharing sharing that I'm sure that will have resonated with a huge number of people but I think one of the things I'm really curious about that as well and I know it's something that I've read more and more about recently there was a fantastic analogy on a piece in the times that actually really resonated with my husband interestingly about it was about an induction hob and about the fact that you can't have all five rings going at full blast at all times you know you can make a choice to put two on full blast and you

know four on a third of the way etc and I think it's so true you know you said you know if you want to have it all go for it but I'm curious your thoughts on that because I think certainly from what I've seen and what I've seen in my friends lives as well as like I don't think you can be all things to all people at all times and certainly not without burning yourself out to a kind of extraordinary degree and I also think there's another side to that which is why why would you want to be all things to to everyone I just you know I don't understand why people would want to be and to sort of, you know, we talked about wellness being about you. You're right. I mean, in trying to give yourself to everybody who ultimately suffers is you. And if you're suffering,

ultimately, you're not going to be able to give the best of yourself to everyone. I mean, you know, I looked when I was younger, when I used to look at my mum and on paper, she's, she sort of had it all, but you know, the only respite she got and she didn't even get any respite where she would have a bath and she would still leave the door open and we would all charge in. And, you know, it didn't look like such a great picture to me. looked like somebody she did an amazing job um but it looked like really really hard work and you know wellness and looking after yourself was not a major thing then um I don't think my mom had any time to herself I haven't really spoken to her about what her mental health was like um but I know the bath was like the only thing that she had

and she rarely got that so I think now with the greater awareness going full circle back to your original question about wellness, I think in making the choice about should you be all things to everyone, in terms of looking after your personal wellness, I think for a lot of people, not all, there are some people that can do it. And there are these super women, men out there. And by the way, I think men, it's a different, it's a completely different conversation. But people go, well, men have it all. But when I look at men who are at the top of the companies, they are working like 18 hours. They do not see their families. Like they are burning out. So I don't even think it's a gender thing. I think this idea goes back again, doesn't it? It's greedy. Having it all, being at the top, manifesting your way to the top. I think you've just got to be a bit more realistic about it all. And in being realistic, you suddenly can take a deep breath and life feels a little bit easier. I think it's been realistic, but I also think it's been quite brave because society wants certain things of us. And I think, you know, you've mentioned it a minute ago, but the comparison culture that's so easy with the world that we live in today, the online world around us, is, you know, I've certainly found this in my own life. You know, I realized

when the early stages of the company, but particularly having two toddlers was that, you know, there was no way that I could be who I wanted to be at work and also who I'd made the choice to be. You know, last year we bought out our shareholders, you know, we've got several million pounds of debt hanging over us. You know, it's not a choice whether I come to work or not like this needs to succeed yeah um you know and I'm very clear with myself on that we both are doesn't mean it's always easy but between that and wanting to be the parent that I would like to be and not always achieve but would like to try and be to my children there is no space for anything else you know if we go out for a date, it's at 7pm and we're home

at 8.15 and it's, you know, 100 yards away from the house. You know, we never go out. You know, we really don't go to parties. Our social group, we've probably got 10 friends between us. They mean the world to us. But people are like, it's wedding season. And I'm like, yeah, cool, I've got 10 friends. I'm not a part of wedding season and I just say that because I think these are such important conversations to your point earlier about just being a little bit more honest about what it takes to achieve certain things and do certain things and to your point like that wouldn't make a lot of people happy it makes me really really happy I'm a very introverted person having deep sense of mission and purpose,

which I get through my work. That makes me so happy. And, you know, I don't really like drinking. I don't really like parties. So it's not, I don't feel I'm missing it, but I certainly go on social media sometimes. And I see those choices. You know, I see that I could have chosen a different path and I would have been at that party or I would have been there and I've made a very conscious decision not to be there and I'm just very curious about that because I do think it takes confidence to say those are my choices and I'm going to live by them and sometimes I will feel that I could have chosen a different path but not to live in constant regret because I think that's where you end up being totally, totally miserable. Yeah, I think that that's absolutely right. And by the way, it was the same for me when I,

in pursuit of my big career, the friendship circle almost disappeared. I mean, you know, things have to give way. That's the way it is. I think sometimes this idea, and you're right, and you know, social media doesn't help with this, although I do think it's changing, you know, seeing everybody, what they're up to, what they're doing. It's a tiny microscopic picture of their entire life. But who would want to do everything? I mean, I just think it's exhausting. You know, that is the reality. And of course, those people that you see on Instagram who are going to the, you know, the fashion party, say, which used to be part of my life, it's now no longer part of my life. They have made decisions and you have made decisions. And I think people think once you make a decision, you close a door forever. And I think that's what's very hard for people to, you know, when you're young, you go, well, I could be this and I could be that and I could be that. And so what you are in danger of doing is keep like digging all these wells because you don't want to let any of them go. But actually what happens is, is in choosing a particular well that you're going to go after, temporarily all the other wells dry up and you have to leave them. But in choosing a path for yourself, you sort of get your head down and you become so good at it, whether in your case it's building a business or being a mother, in my case, whether it's being an editor, that the opportunities I want to be a writer as well and I want to do weirdly even though I'm an introvert I can public speak but

I was like so I want to do speaking and I want to write and I want to be an editor well you had to choose which it was but of course what happened is in choosing and becoming an expert and really invested in the choice you've made and sticking with it because that's the thing the temptation is to go maybe I made the wrong decision because look at that person on Instagram you know doing xyz if you stick with it all the other opportunities come back and at some point I imagine if indeed you want this Ella at some point you and your husband will be going to the parties or going for dinner and staying out longer than quarter past eight but it's going to come further down the line. And those people who are doing it now, something else will stop them from doing it. So I think you just have to look at all the pieces of the jigsaw and realise in making decisions,

you're not permanently closing the gate on things you perhaps would like to do. It goes back to that. I think it was Hillary Clinton. You can have it all, just not all at the same time. And I think that's probably more, I think that's more true. Exactly. I think if you look at anything in chapters, there's an ease, isn't it? As you said, nothing, almost nothing in life is definitive. That's right. And I think that's such an important point, but equally to take the pressure off yourself. And as you said, just open up these conversations to understand a little bit more about people's choices and what they mean. but I think it's interesting and you obviously were in part of that context with referencing your mum and this sense of making your choices and living

with them but within that this points to advice three needing to make a little bit of space for yourself and that we all need time to nourish ourselves, whatever that is, some semblance of creative outlet. Will you tell us a little bit more about that? 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 dot com. Yeah, I think for me, so here's an interesting thing. So when I was at Cosmo, I had a friend in the building who was retraining to be a life coach. And she knew that I was quite cynical about life coaches and therapy and it's just the way I've always been. I do think a therapist might have a field day with me. But she said, look, let me do a session on you. And I was like, oh, I really don't want to do this.

And she's like, please. Anyway, she did this life coaching session on me. And then a few hours later, she produced this sort of quite rudimentary pie chart of what my life looked like. And my life looked pretty bleak when you looked at the pie chart. It was like 80% work and 20% marriage. There weren't many friends on there, in fact, hardly any. And there was no outlet for me and she

said to me she said I know you're gonna hate this she said I just know you're gonna hate this she said but you need to find a hobby and I flinched as a hobby and because a hobby you know again it goes back to being this type of personality I was like like, a hobby, what's the point of a hobby? It's just enjoyment. And she's like, no, it's about looking after you. And so I said, look, okay, I will go and find a hobby. And we had moved house, we'd moved to the country and we had inherited this pretty big garden. And I remember looking out into the garden and I was like well maybe gardening might be something that I could do and basically I went out into the garden and I didn't come back for about 48 hours I dug everything up I kept finding these bulbs going look at the size of these weeds

and I destroyed the garden but actually the garden has become this sort of amazing outlet for me. It allows me to express myself. Everybody, I don't care what anybody says, everybody is looking for self-expression in their life. And some people do it through, you know, creating music. Some people do it through shopping. I have been there and done it through shopping, you know. But for me, there are two ways that I sort of nourish myself but also and I think in expressing

myself creatively is a way of nourishing myself I do it through gardening and I do it through writing and it goes back to what I was saying to you earlier about I chose to be an editor when you're an editor you can't you don't really have time to write your whole aim is to help other writers so I sort of sacrifice that I close the door on writing but now I write a newsletter I write it every Sunday it's very vulnerable and I think that's almost why I don't have therapy my writing has always been that is how I make sense of the world and I think it's how I make sense of myself is I write about my life. And between the two things, sort of having the garden is more sort of like a sort of philosophy for me. You know, the garden teaches me bleakest winter on earth and you'll still see a tiny fragile snowdrop raising its head. You know, there's something very life affirming about that.

The garden is full of predators, badgers, squirrels, fertilizers, and yet somehow it all rises. So I think I have sort of gardening is sort of my philosopher. And I think writing is what gives me spiritual nourishment and between those two things I think that's how I find true wellness actually. I love how symbolic the garden is it's really beautiful the way that you describe it and I'm really curious because I think and I've certainly seen this in my own life where you can have these periods of time where you sometimes feel like you're on a hamster wheel you know you kind of are woken up with an alarm and then you're rushing into a commute and then you've got a super super busy day and then you get home you feed yourself and

you do some more emails and you mindlessly watch some tv and you go to sleep and you sort of feel like you've you haven't had a second for you and for any semblance of not joy, but nourishment, as you said, of yourself and of your mind and your body. And these little things that really are just for you, they're not for any other purpose. But I think a lot of people would say they're in that sense of hamster wheel. They don't have time. My sense is you can always make time within reason um but i'm curious what what your take is on that i think you can make time but i think i think it's the way you frame it because when you say to people everybody can find time to

look after themselves or just relax and have a, you know, I'm being facetious here, but have a bath with lavender salts. When my friend said to me, you need to find something that's going to nourish your life, that's going to be a hobby. When you're saying that to somebody whose whole life has been about striving and moving forward. It's very difficult if you have that sort of type of personality to suddenly go, find some time to go and meditate. It's very difficult. So I think what you have to do is you have to find something which fits with the type of person you are. And that's why I think gardening works so well because you do get into a state of flow but it's still working towards something and so it fits sort of so completely that's why I can't do yoga because I don't feel there's an

end goal whereas with gardening of course there isn't ever an end goal with gardening that's the truth but my personality type needs to feel like I'm working towards something and of course and that's what makes me get up every, you know, I get up at like 5am and go into the garden. You're starting to see my obsessive personality type. But if that's what gets me there, when I'm in a state of flow, I'm actually not thinking about the success and what the garden is going to look like. I'm thinking about me and touching the earth. And that's where the nourishment comes in. So I think you're right. Everybody should try and make time. But some personality types feel very guilty about that.

And so you have to find the thing that's going to give you the nourishment. And however you have to reframe it for yourself, just do that. Do whatever it takes to get there. I love that. And I'm very different in lots of ways because what I crave is something that doesn't have a goal and that has just kind of inherent peace attached to it. But I found the same, like I've got to get up by 5.30 so that I get that hour, hour and a half before the day starts. And I do use it to do the opposite, to meditate and do yoga. And then in the the evening so much of it for me is instead of watching random bits of tv it's I love reading so it's finding a great book and then I read that

before I go to sleep so I feel like I really had that moment for myself and I love it and it feels so juicy for want of a better word and it's so interesting how different my mental health is when I do that versus when I live on autopilot and I'm just rushing from one thing to the next and it's like it's different we're obviously we're alike in some ways but different in other ways and that's why understanding yourself is so important isn't it because again with women's health it used to feel a little bit empty where we used to just say to people go and do yoga it's not going to be right for everybody I could never do yoga I could never do meditation but I would say gardening probably is um you know it is its own sort of meditation with a

trowel in your hand and do you feel having created that space for you has done what your friend thought it would created a bit more breath in your life a bit more breathing room yeah for sure um it's given depth to my life it's given richness to my life I'm just a slightly more interesting person I think you know when when you are so career focused and by the way that's part of the sacrifice sometimes you know it is perhaps what I needed to do that's the thing you know again if you were to ask me do you regret that you spent most of your 30s working? I'd probably say it was what was needed at the time. But yeah, I think having found something that fits my life,

like gardening, like writing. Yeah, I think I'm just more at peace with who I am as well. I'm much more relaxed about who I am what my values are my values are different to other people's and I'm just more at peace I think with sort of the direction I'm going in life so yeah you know what started as a hobby in inverted commas which sort of made me bristle actually those things without you realizing it they do impact your day-to-day life in a hugely positive way yeah no i totally agree it's amazing how it's the small things that can totally change your life well honestly farrah thank you so much this has been so powerful and i love the fact that ultimately my takeaway from everything you said is like you've got to figure

out your life your path and make it work for you and there's no right way or wrong way to do that there's just being clear on what it is for you that's right and understanding what it is for you can change from day to day from year to year and that's all right as well I have to say Farrah is someone I've looked up to for a long long time and I so enjoy talking with her I so appreciate her transparency her honesty and I think my biggest takeaway is the fact that all our lives are just so incredibly individual there's no right or wrong way to do anything but there is an importance in deciding what it is that we want, in really owning that narrative, in pushing ourselves and in not just following the herd, societal conventions and being really comfortable in those choices. So I hope you've taken as much from it as I certainly have.

And now we will move into fact or fad and as you know in this part of the show Dr Gemma Newman and I road test all sorts of different wellness trends to find out whether they do indeed have any basis in fact or are they just a passing fad and this week is a very popular one we are going to be looking at protein powder I think we all know the multitude of benefits and the absolute essential nature of protein in our food. It obviously helps build muscles, helps us feel fuller for longer, helps us recover after exercise. It's fundamentally the building block of our bodies. But what's the reason for protein powder? Can the powder have magical effects or perhaps not? So let's find out what Gemma thinks. Hi, Gemma, and welcome back to the show. I feel I say the same thing every time,

which is that I'm so excited about this topic. But we're delving into protein powder today. Yeah. And I do think, and we were just talking about it, protein is the most fascinating topic as a total. And as you were just saying, we could have spent hours talking about protein. But I would say as far as I can see it, I think protein feels like probably the biggest myth in the world of nutrition. Not that it's not important, but our fear around protein is quite out of hand, given our lacking of other nutrients. Yeah, I totally agree. Everybody worries about protein. And especially with plant-based diets, it's like the first question that comes to everyone's mind, where are you going to get

your protein from? And so you're right, I think there are many other nutrients that could be more key in terms of what we focus on. Not to say that protein isn't important, you know, these amino acids from protein are the building blocks for everything. So clearly protein is important, but not as important as people, I think, feel. And is it right in saying in the Western world, we don't really have protein deficiency, but fiber, for example, we're kind of barely eating 50% of what we need. That's very true. I think when you look at studies of people

who are eating all sorts of different diets, you'll find that on the whole, their protein consumption is absolutely more than they need, but their fiber consumption is far less than they need or is required. So the recommendations for fiber intake is about 30 grams a day, but we know that people get far less than that,

usually less than 15 grams a day. So yeah, they tend to get much less than that, usually less than 15 grams a day. So yeah, they tend to get much less fiber and much more protein than they require. And of course, protein isn't just inert, like your body will use it and eventually you will also potentially get increased fat stores, especially if you've got increased caloric intake with the protein. So it's not, it doesn't have nil consequence. I find it fascinating that people use protein if they want to lose weight, they use protein if they want to gain weight. And it's kind of like the panacea for all sorts of things, make sure you get your protein. And is it, as you said earlier, of course, proteins are absolutely essential, really important, as you said, building block

of our bodies, it's key. But do we need as much as we think that we need in this nervousness of not getting enough and therefore looking at things like protein powders that we'll talk about today I think protein powders could be useful for certain groups of people and it's really nuanced because it depends on someone's age someone's activity levels someone's appetite whether they want to build muscle specifically. So yeah, I think we don't need to worry about protein for the most part because most of us have more than enough. I think there are certain key populations that would perhaps benefit from thinking about protein. So if you are into weightlifting and you want to become somebody

with lots of muscles, then clearly thinking about your protein needs is more important. If you are over the age of 60 and you're not very active then i think thinking about protein is important because we will start to lose muscle mass around those years and that's going to be something that we need to think about especially if you have less of an appetite we're not going to be eating as much necessarily so there are certain groups of people that i think protein intake is important to consider but it's far more important to think about fibre for most of us, far more important to think about phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, than it is to think about protein. And what is your take on protein powder?

So I would say protein powder can have its uses. As I said, people who are athletes may find it useful, especially post-workout recovery, including a source of protein can help with fullness and satiety. And so if you're on a weight loss management program, for example, and you want to use protein powders as a part of that, it may help curb the appetite whilst also reducing the calories that you're taking in. It may be helpful for people, as I say, who are more frail, who have increased protein needs with lower appetite, for example. Some people find it quite easy and convenient to have a protein powder, but I think of it more as a way of supplementing a whole foods diet personally. And I think that people can sometimes use protein powders unnecessarily because they feel oh I must

get more protein when they don't actually necessarily need it and I presume as with all these things I know I certainly had a moment where I was very curious about protein powders of course because you see them everywhere and you have this nervousness of protein this is before I got into learning about nutrition but then you turn over a lot of packets and the ingredients in the protein powders aren't brilliant or they've got a lot of sweeteners in them for example to make them taste nice versus putting hemp seeds into a smoothie with peanut butter or putting a tin of chickpeas into your meal for example. Exactly it's so good to use whole food proteins because you've got, especially with plant proteins,

you've got that fibre package alongside it. And it's important to note here that when you're consuming proteins on the whole, looking at long-term health and longevity, choosing plant proteins over animal proteins in that context makes a lot of sense because there are studies to show that when you prioritize plant proteins over animal proteins you actually have less of a long-term risk of all-cause mortality for example so that's something to be aware of but yes when it comes to protein powders specifically you're right you can have artificial ingredients you can have artificial sweeteners the clean label project talked about their investigations that showed that some protein powders have additional

ingredients like lead or arsenic or mercury that being said i think their investigation techniques do seem to be quite opaque and so may not be that relevant if you have a company that makes protein powders which they third-party test so that's something that you can look for if you're really interested to have a protein powder. So what would your key takeaway on protein powders be? Yeah I think my key takeaway is that it can be healthy if you can find one that's got good quality third-party testing with minimal sugar and you know it's something that you particularly need for a specific reason. Otherwise, I would emphasize whole foods for your protein sources. And, you know, you can get plenty of protein from all sorts of foods, including nuts and seeds and lentils and chickpeas and tofu and tempeh and all sorts of things like that. So, yeah, that would be my takeaway.

Enjoy real foods where you can. Love that. So is it fact or a fad I'd say it's a fact for people who have specific health needs that mean that they need more protein like if you are elderly or building muscle but in terms of people's fear of not getting enough in that scenario then it's a fad so that's it for this week thank you so much as always for coming on this journey with me. I've really enjoyed over the last few weeks. I feel we've had this real sequential build up on understanding our minds and our lives and I hope you're feeling inspired by it. I'm genuinely

feeling a tangible impact in my own life after having the privilege of talking to all these amazing women. Next week we're going to be talking a little bit about the practical element of implementing these into our lives. How do we create the right foundations of health in lifestyle medicine to be able to do that? So we're going to be joined by the nutritionist Rohini Bajekal, who is absolutely fantastic. And if there is anything else that you want us to discuss or any trends that you want us to look at as always get in touch on social just at deliciouslyella and on email podcast at deliciouslyella.com for our fact or fad we're also going to be looking at cycle thinking the practice of changing your diet exercise and lifestyle habits to align with your menstrual cycle which is a very interesting

one so i will see you back here next week. Thank you for listening. Remember to share it with friends, rate it, review it if you've enjoyed it. And a big thank you as always to Curly Media who are our partners in producing this show. 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.