The Wellness Scoop - New Years Resolutions, The Myth of Calorie Counting, and Phone Addiction

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

New year, new wellness goals! We’re diving into resolutions, the viral “Morning Shed” trend, and tackling phone addiction’s impact on mental health. Plus, expert Giles Yeo on calorie counting, and headlines you need: vegans’ gut health wins and loneliness as a rising health risk. Fresh tips, real talk, and inspiration to kickstart your healthiest year yet—don’t miss it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Welcome to The Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. We are your hosts, Ella Mills. And I'm Rhiannon Lambert and after a decade in this wellness industry we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can

be. So that is why we created this podcast to cut through that noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal. And I guess fun and personal are the two of the really big words that we want to focus on here and before we get into today's episode, we wanted to tell you a little bit about why we wanted to create the show, where it's come from. Both of us have had podcasts for a few years, have worked in this industry for over a decade and have enjoyed so much of that. But it felt as though the podcast space was so saturated with similar conversations. And there are some unbelievable shows out there. And when we looked at it, we felt there's no need for any more of that. But what there's not in the world, which feels so overwhelming to so many of us right now with what's happening in climate change, with what's happening in the economy and politics.

It feels a very charged and difficult environment is actually more fun, light, personal, conversational take on health and wellness. We just know how busy your lives are, how much you're probably juggling. We both feel that too, both with two young kids with a really busy job. And actually, we want to create a space each week where you can tune in and you leave and you feel really empowered and inspired. And essentially, it's a group chat for everything that we're reading, seeing, consuming, what are people talking about in health and wellness? And let's talk about it here. Let's give you little nuggets of advice that you can take into your life really seamlessly. But without feeling like you've got to spend an hour, two hours, three hours learning about a topic. This

is all how do you have a healthier week? What habits make a difference and what don't? Absolutely, Ella. It's an awful time in a way way but that's why we want this to be a space where you can come and we're going to give you those weekly must-haves you know things that ella and i are exploring enjoying laughing about i think is one of the things as well but equally breaking down those health headlines because we have been in this industry a decade or more now and we see the same things circulate every January and the same kind of stories come and go what's trending and wellness but what's kind of really exciting is that we're not trying to replicate those long-form podcasts but we will be able to bring you at the end of every episode a 20-minute kind of sample like a TED talk you described it ella exactly with our expert guests so we will be giving you some real take-home tips but we've kind of

deciphered it and compacted it down into a really bite-sized bit of information rather than something you have to listen to forever we're busy mums we get it we get it we absolutely do it's funny i called really this was in October now. Was it October? Yeah, it was October half term. And I told myself I was going to take a little bit of time to reflect on work and just things had been so busy and I wasn't going to start any new projects, but I had been itching to do something in this space. It felt there was a space for something really conversational and lighthearted and fun,

but still educational within the health and wellness podcast space and I missed our podcast and that direct communication so much but I also missed how much I learned from doing it and so I was craving it and I texted you and I said I've just got this idea will you just talk to me for a moment call me now you're at the airport weren't you yeah I can't fly without talking to you about this I just want to have a weekly conversation with someone to digest and dissect everything that's going on. And hopefully, you know, you guys can add to the conversation. Tell us what you're seeing. What are you reading?

What are you hearing? What are you curious about? What's on your TikTok? What's on your Instagram? What's on your Netflix homepage? Let's take those topics and let's have a group conversation on how we feel about them. Yeah, absolutely. So I think we're going to start this week with obviously discussing the fact it's New Year, the wellness trends, the headlines at the moment and the guests we've got at the end

discussing calories. It's really spot on. We're going to really go in there. So let's go Ella. Let's start with our recommendations. So I don't know if it's really a sort of recommendation or not but if anyone hasn't seen wicked the movie on a light note i really think they should because it's really uplifting and i have to say it gave me a new sense of hope because if you look at the underlying themes of that it is all about looking after the planet people that are different you know female empowerment which i think was a really big message that came across. But I just feel like my Christmas and New Year, Ella, have just been full of cot to bed transitions for my kids, cooking a lot, schools were off. And really,

I guess my personal recommendation would be try and focus on something that's tangible. Like my long term health goal this year was to get strong and I can now do the monkey bars at the gym. And I don't consider myself a strong person, but for me, being able to go across those bars, because I couldn't do that last year. You know, you look at those bars in the playground with the kids and you're like, absolutely not.

And they just fly through. My recommendation would be to try and give yourself the opportunity to do something new mine was to challenge myself to feel a bit strong I love that it was all right and I think on that as you're saying with those like cot to bed transitions I think just to jump in on that as well I think in terms of setting this up for anyone listening that's also what we want to bring to this because I think so much of health and wellness plays out on social media and it's a really reductive conversation that's just showing very small snapshots it's a real highlights reel as we all know on social media but I think it's always important to remind us

of that and I think we so often miss the reality and it's funny when we were just testing our levels on our mics before we started recording you know the kind of classic question people was normally like tell me what you had for breakfast yeah and we were saying like breakfast is so often the kids crust they cut off their toast dipped into a peanut butter jar or you know when we were recording some of our guests before Christmas ahead of this you know remember we log on and I'd say well Skye's got tonsillitis, May has a vomiting bug you know haven't slept in two days and you had similar things and I think we're very keen as well to bring that human side of post-clot tonsillitis, May has a vomiting bug, you know, haven't slept in two days. And you had similar things. And I think we're very keen as well to bring that human side of

wellness and that we're all trying to do our best and that it does matter what our habits are, but life, try and bring more real life to this podcast, which I think is so difficult to get across on social media because it does feel like quite a charged space. It's like I saw somebody say on a podcast, oh, I do a walk every morning for an hour before it's even gone seven o'clock. But if you've got a family or a certain job or a commute, that sort of advice is just so unhelpful for people. And it made me feel a bit like, oh, well, you know, I can't just leave the house when I want to go for an hour long walk anymore. So yeah, Ella and I have, things have changed, I think massively. And I know Ella can go into this more, but you had a lot to say on social media because you had a good break.

I feel like you actually genuinely achieved something that most of us can't. I know I can't. And that is disconnection from your phone. It became really clear to me that I had quite an unhealthy phone habit, as I think loads of us do, where whenever I felt stressed, and I did feel stressed for a lot of last year, I would end up just opening up my phone and doom scrolling for hours and hours and hours. And you sort of think, where did the time go? How is it now midnight? I'm going to be so tired tomorrow. My mental health is so badly affected by this. What am I doing with my life? And so when I was off over Christmas Christmas I made an early

new year's resolution and I know we talked about resolutions earlier and they fail almost all of the time just don't do it just don't do it but I'm gonna try with this one yeah which is to really readdress my relationship with my phone and with my screen because it is quite scary and I think in realizing how bad my relationship was with it is taking me into a bit of a deep dive with reading as much as I can to understand why am I so addicted to it why is doom scrolling so bad for us and that dopamine cycle yeah which I think is quite frightening and I read this piece in the Guardian and it was basically I think the title was I got lost in a cesspit of social media and Jane Austen saved me.

And it prompted my thinking. And over the holidays, I swapped just doom scrolling for reading a book. And I realized how much happier I was for it. I know. And you were also talking about this phrase. How did you coin it? Was it brain rot? Well, it's not me that coined it.

Brain rot. It turns out I don't think I'm the only person suffering from this because brain rot was in fact... Was it in the dictionary or something? Yeah, it's Oxford Dictionary's word of the year for 2024. And it's this idea. And I think what's so interesting and more I read about it was the idea that basically our brain gets trapped in this cycle where it craves more and more dopamine. That hit that you get from these very short videos and so you crave more and more and more of it but it's deeply unsatisfactory they're so short though

these videos are literally 20 seconds long does anyone even have time to look at anything that's longer than 20 seconds and is that what it was saying about the dopamine exactly and it basically as a result of watching these such short segments again and again and again, it really affects your cognitive function. And so it's actually proven to be very bad for our mental well-being. So I tried really hard to swap it. But then having done that, I then, because when I get interested in something, I get obsessed with it, have started reading Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, I think is how you pronounce his surname. I listened to a lot of podcasts with him and gone onto this dive to try and understand a bit about our brain's effect on social media

and what's going on there. And he talks a lot about this essentially rewiring. And he's looking at it from much more from a childhood perspective and this rewiring of childhood and replacing play essentially with screen time and content and the incredibly detrimental impact that that's had on children's mental health but everything he was saying about children I found was so relevant to adults too where I think we are replacing hobbies and when

he says play for children I think he means climbing trees but with adults it's socializing it's hobbies it's getting outside and we are replacing it with our devices and it feels so incredibly detrimental and it's a really great book it's quite a dense book but there are a lot he does a lot of great podcasts as well he's because I'm gonna have to listen to a few of those yeah I feel like our generation I think we're millennials I don't you know you look at all the different generations but we're the last to not have phones growing up. You know, like in youth. Because that's a huge, that's a discussion we can get onto later anyway, phones.

But talking of anxiety, I wonder if it's because so much of our work is dependent also on being connected online. And COVID, COVID surely had a huge impact on how much we suddenly all started to use our phones. Because I know I didn't use my phone as much as I did before COVID and then I got really comfortable with doing everything remotely at home like I felt anxious to obviously leave and it took me took me a good year and a half post COVID to feel comfortable again but it's interesting what he says because we've got a feedback loop in our brain and if we're constantly getting those dopamine hits, every time we look at something, imagine what children get for a like on like a TikTok dance or, you know. That's it. Will you give the listeners a kind of a bit of an overview on that

dopamine link? Because I think it is really, once you start on picking that and you realise what's going on, you realise actually that this is not healthy. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's more of like a reward center in your brain that gets hit every time and it reinforces behavior habits. So every time you get a hit, you think, oh, I'm going to do that task again because that gave me what I wanted. But before you know it, you almost become very reliant and very trapped on that same feedback loop that you've created. Because in our brain, the neurology of it is that we're constantly creating new links and synapses and chemical pathways. And every time we look at something, we store that in our memory, be it most likely short term memory, but that means it's always there. We just want more of it

all the time, which is why it's so hard to put your phone down. And then because the content is so short, as a result, you're craving it so regularly and so quickly and so often and that becomes so incredible but our attention spans my um best friend tanya she sent me this um interesting because she's like you she loves reading all of these things and digesting it all and she said i read that our attention spans have gone down to about 15 20 seconds which is so detrimental for education and schools and for children because to sit through a classroom or to sit watching something, even a film, they now struggle because they feel they need to get a device out at the same time as absorbing the film.

So our concentration is never 100% on you or I. We're always thinking of the other device in the room. I should have put my phones on the floor because my phones are with me on the table. And sure enough, when we were recording earlier, I saw something pop up on my phone I couldn't help but I'm glad I did look at it but I couldn't help but look at it I couldn't ignore it and once it's there in your peripheral vision you can't ignore it but anyway there was another one Maya our researcher she said we should all watch that Netflix documentary didn't she she said don't die the man that wants to live forever and I need to watch it because I reckon he would tell us to disconnect.

That's the top of my list because he, I'm sure lots of our listeners have inadvertently read about him, but he's this 47 year old Silicon Valley multimillionaire, he's called Brian Johnson, and he famously spends about $2 million a year on, me it's like a benjamin button you know he's trying to reverse engineer it's in the name of longevity but he he's injected his son's blood plasma into himself yeah no he spends yeah two million dollars like stem cell research yeah biohacking to the most extreme degree and he's there's been a lot of publicity over the last year or so about him and interestingly it's funny when Maya popped this in the whatsapp group because when I was reading about him this was maybe six months ago yeah they'd done a big interview I think it was in the times talking

about all of the things that he does to try and essentially reverse engineer his aging process and spending two million dollars a year I think you take something like 200 supplements a day. Are you joking? It's extraordinary. But that's not good. That should shorten your lifespan. But to me, it was also what it did is it prompted this thinking, which prompted this podcast and a lot of other things

that I'm curious to explore of how far we're taking wellness. And I think... $2 million a year, are there? That's how far we're taking wellness. $2 million a year. But also the extreme of it where that's becoming the headlines about health and wellness and I think what's so interesting for me was it's this when we both started at a similar time you know kind of mid 2015 or so

health and wellness did genuinely feel like almond butter was a novelty it was you know real smoothie bowls, novelty. Putting granola on a smoothie bowl that had banana, frozen mango, almond butter and chia seeds was a genuine kind of invention, essentially. It was, it was. And likewise, putting a sweet potato in a brownie or a courgette. Beans, yeah, all of it. Exactly, all of it.

I mean, yeah, beans, the least cool ingredient ever. I know. Currently kind of chef's number one. Exactly. And so it felt like what got cut through. Quinoa. Do you remember when quinoa came out? Oh, my gosh.

Everyone was like, wow, there's quinoa in the Holland and Barrett. It was huge. The Barrett and Quinoa. Spiralizers. Yes. You know, spiralizers. I had one. I had one.

I mean, my first cookbook, I'm there holding a fork full of spiralized conchetti. Oh, yes. It was huge. But what do I mean? And look, you know, there holding a fork full of spiralized courgettes yes it was huge but what do I mean and look you know there's nuance in all of this but inherently like that's all kind of quite simple things and and it was genuinely you know trying to get more diversity in your diet trying to eat more plants and it's like wow this is a cool new way to eat courgettes and this isn't you know you put almond butter instead of peanut butter and it was this let's call it a revolution

but it felt quite simple um and actually all of then, you know, do you remember the hashtag fitstagram? Oh, gosh. Was it fitstagram? Everyone used to make those like protes. Exactly, protein oats. And people would take a picture of them in the gym. We actually had the like fitstagram and it was the birth of Kayla Itziness and the 28-minute workouts. And that was the first time I had seen a kind of real focus on women in the gym

and HIIT training for women and things like that. And so I think it's just interesting. This works for Phil's full circles. His interviews got me thinking about the premise of this show and lots of others. They said projects I'm curious about because it was the reflection on the fact that when we started, it feels like what was novel in wellness and what got headlines was courgette, was almond butter, was quinoa.

And now to get cut through and to have headlines, what wellness is about is the extremes of biohacking. It's extremes. And what he's doing, obviously spending $2 million a year, but it's not even just the money. That's his entire life. Every day his focus is just how he day his focus young that's so toxic though exactly how detrimental to your mental health to think i'm going to be young every day so we'll watch here we'll come back next week okay thoughts on it but it's oh no that means i actually have to sit down and watch this guy one of us is gonna have you matt if you're listening

we're watching it tonight but it's a very interesting reflection on where the industry is and i think yes that as this show goes on and as what we're doing with the wellness group goes on I hope what it can do as well is just remind people that wellness is genuinely swapping your phone for a book for an hour that is proven to be so good for your mental well-being it is going to see a movie like wicked it is phoning a friend it is using social interaction is all these simple things it doesn't need to be the extremes and what we want to pick up on is reminding you of that essentially each week but on that recommendation i would 100 if you have any sort of niggling feeling that perhaps you're getting home from work and you're stressed and you're spending

an hour or two log on tiktok or Instagram or you can't concentrate and you find yourself picking up your phone all day every day definitely look at this anxious generation because it is a really interesting reflection on just the damage that phones have done to us can you get it on audiobook you can get it on audio that's what I'll do because I the only time I get it is when the kids are asleep. Exactly. And I'll fall asleep if I read one page of the book. But he's also done some great podcasts. There's one with Intelligence Squared that's really good.

So just an hour-long interview. And it gives you the top line, essentially. Can I just say that the podcast Ella's just recommended to me is brilliant. But the one that you did recommend to me before Christmas was the total opposite. And I, what was it called again? Shameless. Shameless. And it's totally opposite to giving, you know, health and wellness advice. But podcasts should also be fun to listen to, right? So do listen and get some anxiety info. But

remember what we're saying by you actually need to laugh more. Oh, yeah. Shameless is a pop culture podcast from Australia with two great female journalists. And it's, I mean, I'm not really even interested in celebrity culture, but I know journalists and it's I mean I'm not really even interested in celebrity culture but I know everything because it's just very great. But that helped you switch off right? Oh my gosh when I go home when I'm on the tube on the way home it's what I listen to and instead of scrolling essentially. I like a bit of Katherine Ryan as well I think she's really funny. Right headlines Ella, news headlines this week. We want to go through these health headlines.

It's January. It's New Year. And I think everyone's bombarded because we've been sending all the headlines, haven't we? Exactly. That have been coming out to each other and looking through them and just thinking, this is insane. Because only one in six Brits keep their resolutions anyway. I know, which is extraordinary. But yet every year, and we've been in this industry a long time, Ella. You sent one on coffee and I was like oh the amount of articles I've commented on as a nutritionist with the good and bad for coffee every year but somehow you see it and you still think yeah if

you're a coffee junkie you're like this is great I can have my coffee and then if it's a bad thing you feel bad again and you just wonder the health headlines should we read them should we not read them well we'll read them for you that's our job this is our section of the podcast and we'll tell you what matters because again I think it can feel a bit overwhelming you open something and it's a very click-baity headlines and you think exactly should I never drink coffee again or should I be drinking five cups a day honestly but there's a for and against for everything in nutrition in the world of nutrition anywhere where I work.

But I know that for health headlines in general, you will always find someone that disagrees. Exactly. So we'll give you the overview on it. I found one on the fact a study did come out this week. It was very, very interesting. And it was based on 21,000 people. It was from the Zoe cohort, actually led by Tim Spector. But I think it's a really important one to reference because it's January when we're recording this.

I mean, you've been there, Ella, every January with probably media outlets contacting you about Veganuary or something like that. But this is quite groundbreaking. And they found that red meat eaters had the worst gut health when they investigated all sorts of different types of eating patterns and behaviors. And that the bacteria that resides within red meat eaters guts was associated with more inflammation and poor cardiometabolic health. So I think there's definitely a place for this type of research, which is kind of what we've been saying all along, which is you don't have to give anything up, but just try and get more plants in. And it's such a basic message, but for it to come out over Veganuary, I can see this headline going two ways.

You know when people are doing interviews or you and I were to stand up there and say, look, I mean, this is a huge study, Ella, 21,000 people. It's a huge database and it's good. And to say that vegans have the healthiest guts, which was the headline that was put in the Stylist magazine, you know, it's gone all over the press. It's such a drastic statement. I don't want everyone to think they suddenly have to go vegan.

But equally, they do need to be aware of what they're eating because it does impact their gut health. It was just a no brainer. And to actually see that in mainstream news this week, I found that really interesting because it's such a drastic thing to say. But we do need a wake up call. And for people, again again who've read that seen that headline for example yeah vegans have the healthiest guts as you said i think it's a really important take-home message that doesn't mean you have to be 100 vegan but to be aware of what the benefit that people are getting from the extra plants when they're then talking about the

bacteria associated with inflammation and poor cardiometabolic health will you just also give people understanding what does that actually mean? It actually means, yeah, people are going to say, what do you mean cardiometabolic health? Can't they just say link to your heart health? You know, why does it always have to be so complicated for people? I mean, I think most people know if you eat a lot of red and processed meat, it's not great for your overall health. And I'd like to think that's a public health message that's got across.

But the way they write things, you know, in the press, it can make people feel really terrified with what they're eating. That's just not OK. But a good take home is definitely just get more plants and fibre in. And I'm actually celebrating that because what a relief to see mainstream media taking it seriously, because there's always a lobby board. There's always a political agenda. But this study, it's in Nature for anyone that wants to go and look, which is the journal that it was published in this week. But it's great when you look at cardiovascular disease, heart disease, blood pressure, all the different markers to inflammation, just get more veg and fruit.

It's the same message that we've been talking about for years. I know, it really is. And it comes up. But as you said, I think to have such a huge cohort of people to look at with it is really interesting. And as you said, it's really exciting. You can't deny data that's done in that way on 21,000 people. And there's always going to be, you know, certain things you can pull and say, oh, well, you know, it's observational data, or this was food journaling or diary. But when it's that volume of people, and there is an indication that gut health perhaps is better, then that's something positive and that should be explored further. Definitely. You had a really good one,

which emphasizes the fact we should be more social. Yeah, I was really struck by the new piece of research that had come out, I took from the Times, but that loneliness was linked to heart disease, stroke and infections. And I think it is interesting, there was a big Harvard study a couple of decades ago now, but it looked at it was the longest study that they've ever done on people to understand the kind of main predictor to health. And it was time spent with other people, it was connectivity. And we see it time and time again. So in a way, this is nothing new, this was looking at blood proteins, but it's a similar conversation. I mean, they've looked at like loneliness being the equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

I mean, so there's been lots of iterations of the same conversation. But again, I just think in January it feels, and the reason that I wanted to pick it up is it just feels like this timely reminder, not to be like overly kind of generic or reductive, but wellness is a 360 pursuit. And I think, and again, not to keep coming back to it, oh, why, why are we making this show but just to reinforce on episode one it's like we know you're busy you're probably listening

to this in the car and we're not from work or no gosh we're not perfect but you've got a lot going on and the idea of cooking a fresh meal three times a day exercising for an hour a day getting eight hours of sleep meditating every day like when you put it all together and you're juggling these other responsibilities, it feels so overwhelming. And I think as well, and to come back to that reference to the $2 million a year and kind of the extraordinary list of things that it entails, it's so easy to look at wellness and think that it's ice baths and how you look because that references aging, whereas actually what you're talking about is overall health and how you live a quality life as you age totally and it's just removing it from being these like either extremes or very time consuming or very expensive activities

or things that just feel really overwhelming when you have a very very busy week and actually you're at your desk for 10 hours and the only option is pret or starbucks down the road exactly and like there's a lot that feels out of your hands but this is more in your hands which is actually connecting with other people is almost the most important thing that you can do with your health and again it's so easy to overlook these small things and i think as i said when we look at the news and when we look at the way that people talk about health and wellness, what gets cut through now are the extremes. And it's not, please go for a 10 minute walk on your lunch break. Please spend 15 minutes of your day having a conversation with somebody else at some point. Please just add a sprinkling of seeds to your meal.

It's these very simple things that are actually so accessible for so many of us but it's so easy to forget them because the press just look at diet and exercise yeah and life is so busy and so easy to kind of lose sight of it all so i think for me it was this just reminder you know that the world health organization has described social isolation and loneliness as a global public health concern and so loneliness and feeling disconnected with people you know it does it really really matters but I feel lonely and I'm a busy isn't it amazing how I think we all do because of technology because so much of our work now if you work on social media or you have content you're in an office working with a computer that just automatically reduces how much you speak to a human well if we

go back to the anxious generation recommendation there's a lot of conversation around that where people say oh we're more connected than ever because i can i can text anybody in the next one second and talk to them but i'm not really talking to them and i'm not really having that meaningful interaction with somebody which is why i was so excited that we could actually record together because it's actually really good and it's so interesting I wanted in 2025 like I don't make resolutions as you know but I wanted to just be happier and I think happiness is such a nice goal like what can you do to make you laugh it's just such a lovely thing so I just want to be happier and I was reading a study that said if you just smile and I don't know if it's the ex-performer background I've got but you can almost enforce the natural

biological response to smiling naturally when you pretend to smile so you can get that similar feeling of happiness and it's almost really beneficial for you to try and manifest to be happy every day and kind of you've got to try and pluck something out like oh the sun's popped out in the sky yes I'm so happy I love that but there is isn't there there's a lot of research behind gratitude exactly and being incredibly positive for your well-being I'm not talking about being OTT by the way because a lot of people listening might be like oh my gosh what is she on but no but it's so easy to look at the situation so I'm overwhelmed I'm stressed and it's also you can sit there and pick out the good bits. And as I said, there's a lot of research behind that, isn't there? That

actually finding those moments of gratitude is your body does really respond to it, your nervous system really responds to it. Which is why if we go on to our trending in wellness section, I think that leads really nicely. Because I know Ella, you were talking about algorithms, but I wonder how happy these people are online that are actually doing these trends in the first place. Like they're on their own filming content that looks like it's taken two days to film to make one 20 second reel. And you've got some trends to start with that I cannot wait to actually hear what you've got.

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Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements 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. I don't think when we set out to make the show that the idea was that we would have like a singular theme for each episode. But I think when this episode sort of ended up having one, which is quite a lot about our life online. And obviously we have both lived a lot of our life online over the last decade or so from that infancy of social media to where it is today and I think as I've just sort of been reassessing my own life both

personally professionally I'm so conscious of of the online world today and what it looks like and as I said my let's say obsession in terms of my career at the moment is how do we create this what feels like so much more of a middle ground but still get cut through because in a world of extremes that feels really difficult and when I look at the trends online I notice it so much it's you know the way the algorithm works now for something to for anyone to see it you need to have loads and loads of comments and you need to have loads and loads of shares and to get that you've got to be vaguely controversial as I said nothing that's what we said or wear nothing yes I do remember when I I'm like very new

I don't really use TikTok I'm a bit old but someone in the office created it for us and I was going through it and they were showing me people and I was like does everyone cook in a bra

in TikTok I know but this is what when they open the fridge door that's what I observe there's always an opening of the fridge door so you get a bum shot

and then so like an old lady but I was like where are their clothes but everyone wakes up in a matching leisure wear don't you know they wake up so you get a bum shot and then so like an old lady but I was like where are their clothes but everyone wakes up in a matching leisure wear

don't you know they wake up as close to brown leggings so this is now how they wake up let's talk about this because

now that I've gone back online after Christmas this is what I have seen the whole time and it's called the morning shed

the morning shed the morning shed shed shed like a garden shed so I said to Rhi like an hour ago do you want me to show you this now or should we wait wait so we waited so let me turn my phone off I

don't know what I'm gonna see I'm actually quite anxious about it okay they're like 21 year olds doing it because obviously when we got online there was no we didn't know Instagram was gonna be big but people today they do it with purpose oh no they do it with purpose. Oh, no, they do it with purpose. They do it with purpose to get views. This is it. So the morning shed, essentially, what it is, is that you apply extreme multiple layers of skincare, but skincare is kind of a light way of explaining it before you go to bed. So you've got sheet masks, mouth tape, heatless curlers, sticky tape on your foreheads.

Apparently, that's the new Botox. Jawline straps. What the hell is a jawline strap? I'll show show you you go to bed as ugly as you can to wake up as beautiful as you can with like instant glowing skin bouncing girls in their 20s anyway yes but okay so let me show you one because this has had 10 million views or so okay everyone i everyone, I'm about to see this on the phone. Really popular. Okay. Oh, my gosh.

What is that on her face? Is that the... Oh, my gosh. So we're just unraveling the jaw strap, the sheet mask, the mouth tape so you only nose breathe, heatless curlers. Oh, my God, what's she peeling off her face?

I think that's a face mask she slept in all night i can't figure out how anyone sleeps that's not meant to be good i know that you're not meant to keep a mask on that long not one like that so there and now we've got the heatless curlers and so basically i do like a heatless curl you wake up and you're perfect and this is all i'm seeing my algorithm at the moment let me, let me see, let me see the perfect end. I need to see the end shot. Oh, look, the shake of the hair. Oh, oh, wow. Got a bit of a headbang to get the curls out.

OK, so she looks absolutely gorgeous. But that must have cost her just to do that one evening, like £50. Yeah, and look, she looks gorgeous. And if that makes her really happy, that's amazing. But I think, as I said,

I wasn't trying to kind of create a singular theme, but I think probably because it's top of mind at the happy, that's amazing. But I think, as I said, I wasn't trying to kind of create a singular theme, but I think probably because it's top of mind at the moment, it's my first opportunity to publicly have such a big conversation about it. It's come back to the same thing. And there was an interesting, when I was researching it, actually there was a piece in Vogue talking about it where... What the morning shared.

Yeah, where they're right on the surface, it looks pretty harmless, right? It's just a personal preference. But when you get underneath it, it is potentially, again, in this whole kind of extreme world that we're living in quite detrimental because it's this idea of perfection and it goes back to the same thing where we feel like to do our best we have to go to the extremes and I feel nervous about the fact that health and wellness has become associated with taping up your mouth to go to sleep. I bought us some. Have you?

Yeah. Mouth tape arrived this morning. I thought it was a face mask when you bought it earlier. I was like, yay, this looks great. No, it's called sleep seal. It sounds like we're going to die. Dream deeply, snore softly, thrive daily. And I can't do this. this as like a singer in my past life this to me is wrong so we're going to tape our mouth shut to go to sleep okay um let me have a look at the bag on the um pretense so you buy them in the packet and i'm not criticizing any like personal individual thing like don't get me wrong i love a face mask i love a face massage

all the rest of it but it's just this question and i think when i was thinking about trends this week there's loads of specific trends we can look at be that fasting be that like cycle syncing the castor oil packs there's so many different things that people are talking about a lot online the carnivore trend adaptogens have you read the caution on the back of this pack yes that you may die literally literally just so you know so this this trend has had 75 million posts in total and i bet a lot of them are teenagers as well and it says please use this product responsibly it's not suitable for children under 16 and then it says individuals with

pre-existing breathing or heart conditions nasal congestion or other nasal issues that are prone to vomiting or under the influence of alcohol or sedatives refrain from use if you have chapped lips or open sores around the mouth. Prior to use, consult with a medical professional. Because you sealed your mouth shut. It says prior to use, I'm not making this up,

consult with a medical professional. So anyone can buy this, but they have to consult with a medical professional. Yeah, it's six pounds on Amazon. That's mad. That is mad. Yeah, it's a kind of starting point on trends.

It's just this starting point exactly of like how far have we taken wellness and how do we bring it back to people where it feels like it fits more into their normal day-to-day life is that wellness is it this morning shred shed sorry I can't call it a shred I'd say it's an existential question but it's probably an existential question for people that work in the but i think that's the question is like what is wellness now because i think it's so now it's so much less about carrots and lentils and walking and happiness you know all of the things that happen in blue zones where people live the longest in the world where they have community where they have friends where they eat home cooked meals love beans. It's a very kind of local,

simple, healthy life. It's deeply wholesome. And actually now it's... Trendy. It's deeply trendy, exceptionally expensive, pretty complicated. And I think one of the things that I found really interesting over my career, and again, it's kind of informed a lot of this thinking, is I feel like I've lived this double life where half of me has spent most of the last decade in our office where we are now working like a very normal desk job where I'm here from nine till six. But no, but as in I spend my day in the meeting rooms talking about operational and, you know, normal office things essentially and then there's this other kind of actually what is like now a slither of my life which is in the kind of more traditional wellness influencer type world where the sort of cookbook life etc that I have has lived where and I think what's interesting is I see so much information comes from people who don't have a desk job and it feels when I

look at the two and I'm here all day that's why and I don't go outside between nine and six and I forget to eat lunch and eat snacks and spoons of peanut butter yeah I look at it and I just think so much the advice I'm being given it's just impossible for my life it just feels so deeply disconnected and I think that when you're saying what is wellness I think that's what I'd like us to be talking about here in a way. And being able to bring to people is like, can we collectively redefine it and leave you feeling each week that what you do really matters. Like as we've seen, like your gut health is really affected by what you eat and your gut health is so important. Your heart health is affected by your social interactions. You know, when you put it all together, like how you live your life you move your body what you eat how you sleep etc it does all really matter and there's no

shying away from the fact that it has an extraordinary impact on your likeliness of disease on your mental well-being it's all there these videos but the advice we're being given just doesn't really feel very relatable very realistic or particularly associated to some extent with like what you need to do which is but you can't do it this is what you can't do that morning shed most people can't and then the what i eat in a day videos haven't gone anywhere most people would think ella right just saying if they didn't know you obviously i know you for years but people would think she cooks three times a day in a perfect kitchen set up like the What I Eat In A Day videos and has these three gourmet type healthy meals every

single day. But we know that What I Eat In A Day cannot possibly, this is why I'd never do it, cannot possibly be real because they are staged and they are filmed and they are prepped for engagement. I mean, you are deliciously Ella and you don't have time every day because you're working your office job. Oh, 100%. And like, maybe I should do a real one. Yeah, but I don't think it would get any views because you'd just be here in the office in your cardi.

No, exactly. Like, oh, I really like the avocado. Ruby Stanley, she does have, everyone, she's got a Stanley cup in front of me and teal. I have in like D green. I have got a Stanley cup. A hundred percent. My worst habit is not drinking any water. And I would say, actually, do you know what? It's 20 to one. I haven't had a glass of water. Do you know what? I haven't, but I've had a lot of herbal teas and we did have a stereotypical green juice. I know I didn't have it. I had a coffee and one matcha. But so yeah,

20 to one, i haven't had water yet so this is this is what i mean right so wellness trends if i as a nutritionist and you as ella mills cannot cook these three perfect meals a day you're all being lied to because it's not real it's just not real yeah and we're not doing it in our sport i bet if you got up on a sports bra and your page it's already huge but would just blow through the roof because that's what the algorithm wants right it's what the algorithm wants and i think that's that's the i know you're so keen to talk about what in a day and i so agree with you on it because i think it's so interesting there's obviously there's such great inspiration to take from people's ideas and what they cook

and i love that but this idea of emulating someone so perfectly or that what you're seeing online is real. Fully made up with perfect hair. Yeah, it's just take everything with a pinch of salt, to say the least. And I think that, to me, I totally agree. I think it's a really difficult trend, and exactly on this kind of algorithm thing where you have to be extreme to get interactions now to some extent. You need a body next to the food. So it used to be,

do you remember how Instagram started? Because we were obviously there at the very beginning before it was a monetization platform. It was just something like I was working in a cafe posting the recipes I was making for this gym called Transition Zone. And I was their nutritionist and you were blogging and sharing your experiences. So we both had no idea. Spiralized courgette. Spiralized courgette. And I was making energy balls. Me too. Yep. Kale spirulina porridge pots I made for the clients at that cafe. Because spirulina was the thing. But isn't that so funny that we didn't need a body in it. You could just like take a picture of your meal and it didn't have to look perfect down with your toes in it yes yes that was the theme right you held the bowl until they ended up on wiki feet and then you had to take them off

but now you have to have a silhouette a body a made-up face a bit of flesh or you have to be smiling trigger happy eating a recipe for it to even gain traction unless it's a viral trend which seems to be a weird thing now I made a cottage cheese loaf and it got yeah 11 million views and then I can make something that's actually helpful and useful or give like an informative nutrition video about why ketogenic diets are bad for you and you just need to get more fiber and it'll bomb and I'm like why am I bothering yeah well because it matters because it really matters and that's that's why you're bothering and I think it's but it is it's fascinating and it's not I don't mean any of it as a criticism it's anyone on a personal level but I think the question is much more

exactly like that redefining of wellness and trying to reignite a conversation where is this day to day inspiration to just do what you can do. You know, do your best and your best is often like, you know, to get that 30 different plants a week, which sounds overwhelming. But like, why don't you sprinkle some seeds on your dinner? Cook with a spice, like get paprika or organo in your food. If you're making pesto, and I do this all the time with my kids, especially my little one's obsessed with pesto. She'd eat it every single day if she can. So to kind of spice it up, I just two minutes boil some peas and edamame and add some spinach on top and blend that.

Do you get that? Because you can buy frozen edamame. It doesn't have to be costly. I use frozen peas, edamame and spinach. And I literally just boil them for about two minutes. And then blitz. And then you blitz it with the pesto. And it's so simple.

Like it's such an easy win. It's saying like I'll do the pesto made with half pine nuts but half cashews, for example, as a way of getting that in. And she's not doing that three times a day because she's in the office. Oh, well, no, I make a big batch. In the evening, I make a big batch. But it's those like really, really simple things that I think that's wellness that's wellness and that's where you to put your time this week or you know every week I'll make a really big batch of sky my oldest daughter calls it bolognese for anyone italian listening at this point it's not bolognese it's far removed but it's some kind of veggie stew and you just use

whatever's left over but it could be this week I use leeks celery shiitake mushrooms romano pepper things that like my kids do not like leeks but you know it's chopped up and it's it's right at the base of the dish they don't know with black beans and coconut milk no they can't see it and that's diversity and that's my point that's diversity and so it's so I don't mean like as a criticism of anyone with what I eat in a day, but what I'm just so keen is like what most people eat in a day is maybe not as perfect as that. But it also doesn't match up with the calories. And I think that's something obviously people need to first of all message us in and let us know what trends they see, because I feel like people are going to see way more than maybe we do every day. So message us, let us know what you want us to cover for trends. Positive and negative. And same with books, articles, anything you're seeing,

we want to talk about what you're seeing and give people ideas and inspiration on the back of that. Yeah. And I think it is really, really important. And I guess to close on the what I eat in a day trends, you know, it doesn't add up. If you look at the calories under some of this and the energy intake, things just don't match. And we know that people are aware of calories, though. And that's why we wanted to kind of get our expert that we've got this week, because an article from 2020 said the average person is going to try 126 fad diets in a lifetime. And I'm sure that's going to go up, Ella, because look at the trends we've just dissected now. But is it helpful or harmful? And calorie counting is often one of those big diet trends that people try. That people think is healthy. Ultimately, calories are not an

accurate measure of health. And in the clinic, we see it all too often. I think it actually stemmed from when that app, I almost don't want to name it because it had this calorie count of 1,200 calories a day to lose weight and everyone saw it as gospel. And then you had the rise of the Fitspo and the PTs online giving out nutrition advice based on number counting. And it just blew up. And it's obviously been a message calorie counting for years, but it doesn't dictate the quality of the diet and it definitely hasn't worked because if you think about it if calorie counting had worked we wouldn't have the obesity epidemic that we currently do have as well and no one chooses to be obese it's not a lifestyle choice that is a positive one for people and we genuinely want to

help and I don't think calories is the answer Ella no but it feels like we can't escape it um people think it's health I remember so clearly when I changed my diet this is all the way back in 2012 now and starting cooking with my mum and she was so supportive but I remember putting an avocado on her plate oh yeah I can't remember what else was on it but it stayed with me for so long. And she went, a whole avocado, that's so many calories. And my mum had never been someone with a complicated relationship with food. She'd actually never been on a diet as such. She'd set a really great example, but she felt like that was like just so many calories. And it to me really showed this kind of generational focus and how subliminal the focus on calories

have been as opposed to the health benefits of certain foods and how brilliant they are it's really fascinated me and i think that even though the science has moved on so much particularly over the last decade on calories and them actually being largely arbitrary to some extent. Well, we know it's not accurate. Ella, you own a food business. It's not accurate on packets. For so many different reasons that we'll go into. But also, it's not a measure of health. It's never worked in the clinic with clients ever. It's only when clients actually need to gain weight in our eating disorder unit that you have to be remotely aware but the client won't know the clinician will know and i think when we think about trying to move the wellness conversation on to thinking about things that are positive and empowering and about these

little things we can do every day to make ourselves feel gray moving away from looking at calories and moving into looking at like the number of colors on your plate and the diversity of it how can we eat the same number every day impossible different but We're all different, but we're meant to do different things. But that's why we've got the best person. Exactly. So to just shine a light on this topic, to really clarify, and I hope inspire you guys to move past calories, to stop looking at those numbers, if that's something that still exists with you. We've got Professor Giles Yeo here. Giles, I mean, we couldn't think of anyone better. I know you've written about this in your books. You do multiple talks on this every year. But are there any real benefits to calorie counting, Giles? And is it outdated now? Look, I think it's always an

interesting question when I talk about calories. People think I'm anti-physics. I'm not anti-physics. I do understand. I do understand that 200 calories of chips is twice the portion of 100 calories of chips. Okay, I do understand that. But so is 200 grams of chips twice the portion

of 100 grams of chips. And no one is trying to compare 200 grams of chips to 200 grams of carrots. I think ultimately that is the point, right? Where the calories provide one piece of information and only one piece of information, the amount of food. ultimately that is the point, right? Where the calories provide one piece of

information and only one piece of information, the amount of food. And that is an important piece of information sometimes, but nothing else. So I think within the context of trying to think about your health or your weight, I do think we need to be slightly more sophisticated than using just, in effect, weight of food? That is such a phenomenal answer. And I think really gives such a great perspective to the culture that we have around food and particularly that kind of very pervasive diet culture, whereas you're saying, Giles, it's not that a calorie is entirely redundant because a thousand grams is still a thousand grams. And you said it's infinitely more than a hundred grams, but equally it's only telling us one thing about the food that we're eating and so I think that's

the myth that we felt was quite important to break down is whether a calorie is just a calorie so how does the calorie count of a ultra processed meal compare for example to the equivalent but it would be all made from scratch, for example, or ground almonds versus whole almonds. That big question of can you compare the calories in a Mars bar to that of an avocado? Because I think when we think about traditional ways of thinking of food, which now feels, I think, quite outdated to us, people would often say, oh, I can't eat an avocado because it's too many calories, because they're thinking of it as the same as eating a Mars bar, essentially. I mean, I think you have to remember how old calorie counting actually is. I mean,

this is always the interesting thing. People think it's some new thing. You know, it isn't. So the whole concept of the calorie as food was from this chap named Atwater, Wilbur Olin Atwater. And with a name like that, he could only be American, right? And he was. He was a professor of chemistry in Connecticut. But between the years of 1880 and 1900. And he was the one that almost, he came up with the numbers that we all work with today, right? So four calories for a gram of protein, four calories for a gram of carb, and nine calories for a gram of fat. And he came up with those numbers. We still use them 120 years on. But even he wasn't the one who was actually responsible for calorie

counting because it was actually someone, and I don't think she did this maliciously in any way, shape, or form, but there was a female medic in the very, very early 1900s, so this is quite unusual, called Lulu Hunt Peters. I think she wrote a book called Diets and Health. And she was the first calorie counter. She was a larger lady, as far as I can understand. And so she had read Atwater's work about these calories. And she decided, she was trying to lose weight. She was a medic. And she says, ooh, well, I think the way to do that is rather than think. And she had a really lovely piece she wrote in her book saying, I want you ladies, because they were all ladies. And I put it, I don't know what her accent was, but I imagine she had this accent. I want you ladies to not think of how much power. I want you ladies, because they were all ladies, and I put it, I don't know what her accent was, but I imagine she had this accent. I want you ladies to not think of how much pa. I want you

to think about how many calories of pa. And literally, that probably wasn't what she sounded like, but she took all the foods that people were eating in the early 1900s and converted them into 100 calorie chunks. And so she would say, this is 100 calories of bacon and 100 calories of celery or something or what have you. And this was her way. She weaponized the calorie to try and get people to understand more about their food. Now, I don't think she was doing this because she was using the latest tech at the time and the latest biology, which was calories. But she was the first calorie counter. In fact, I would say she was probably the time and the latest biology, which was calories. But she was the first calorie counter. In fact, I would say she was probably the mother of the diet industry because she wrote

this book, which was a New York Times bestseller for four years. For four years in 19, it was just after World War I. Most of her, the people who bought the books were middle-aged American women who were getting a little bit larger. And so she was the first calorie counter. So she obviously created this concept. I love that history, by the way. I think it's fascinating how diet culture evolved. And when we first started to notice that people could gain weight because obviously the access to food we had changed in America.

I'm not going to attempt to do the accent, but that was perhaps, you know, nice to have the history. So could you explain to our listeners the difference of the food matrix that people discuss? You know, how you simply cannot numerically put a number on the benefits you get from eating a food. Like Ella said, let's stick to the avocado Mars bar food matrix equation. People don't need to worry, do they, so much about the numbers when they consume an avocado, but they do when they consume a Mars bar. Why is that? Look, as we said, the amount of food does matter to a degree. But crucially, and where we are in trouble at the moment as society is the quality of our food. Okay, the quality of the diets that we're actually eating at the moment. Not us, not the three of us eating. I think we probably have very good quality diets, whatever it is we're eating.

But actually, if you look at society, the lowest, the bottom quintile of society in terms of socioeconomically, I mean, the cheap foods are not the healthiest foods. And so ultimately, the calories don't actually reflect it. And the reason behind this is something called caloric availability. I mean, ultimately, that's the thing. So what is caloric availability, the availability of calories? It is the total amount of calories that are stuck in a food compared to the calories you actually get out. So the example I always use is, well, let's take the most calorically available food, which is sugar, because pretty much

100 calories of sugar, you get close to 100 calories out because sucrose is glucose and fructose, one cut, we absorb it. Okay. So that is whatever, because it's not actually, it's just an element of food rather than food in and of itself. Okay. Now, if you didn't take something like sweet corn, corn on the cob, and you know, okay, that when you eat 100 calories of sweet corn, and then you cob, and you know, okay, that when you eat 100 calories

of sweet corn, and then you look in the loo the next day, you clearly haven't absorbed anywhere close to 100 calories of sweet corn, okay? Whereas if you take sweet corn, you desiccate it, you make a cornmeal, you make a masa out of it, then you make a corn tortilla, you make a cornbread, whatever it is you're making from it, because of the processing that you have actually put the corn through, you suddenly get a lot more calories out of exactly the same food. So this processing of food influences the calorie availability of the food, which means that it might say 100 calories of sweet corn or 100 calories of corn tortilla, but you're going to get far more calories out of the corn tortilla than you are out of the sweet corn. And this is just comparing exactly the same food, just worked differently. Now, if you start to say that, well, let's think of an avocado

and compare it to a Mars bar. And then the comparison in terms of the calories that make absolutely, absolutely no sense. And the two elements of food, and I want to argue in shorthand, give us the quality of the food, the two components are going to be the amount of fiber that is in the food, depending if we're talking about plants, obviously, and the amount of protein that's in the food because this influences by far the calorie availability of the food so fiber we can't digest this is the sweet corn phenomenon okay it comes out the other side but it adds to the calorie count but we can't absorb it and protein compared to the other macronutrients so carbs and fat it's more complex to break down it takes a lot more energy to metabolize to digest and so you use a lot more energy to metabolize, to digest.

And so you use a lot more energy to deal with protein. And so foods that are higher in fiber and or protein, depending on what we're talking about, have a lower caloric availability, which means that if it's 400 calories of something that you're eating, of an avocado, for example, or a steak or tofu or beans, compared to 400 calories of Mars bar, a meal that's been ultra processed, whatever you want to call it, suddenly, even it says 400 calories, you're going to get far fewer calories beyond even the benefits of having fiber and protein. You're going to get far fewer calories just eating a whole food compared to eating a food that's been really heavily processed. It's such an important message. And I'll never forget when I was reading your book, actually, Giles, and you were talking about the, it was an

ultra processed sandwich. I think it was a ham and cheese sandwich versus the homemade equivalent and how different that was. I wondered if you could use that example as well for our listeners, because I think it was incredibly powerful because it feels so tangible in terms of someone's lunch today. So I think what happens here is that if you actually take bread, for example, that's been either been worked a bit more or there's a higher flour content or there's a higher fiber content, crucially, there's a higher fiber content, then the food that you're eating that bread is your body's going to work harder to extract the calories from it. The same is true with cheese. Now, if you actually had a piece of cheddar, like a regular normal piece of cheddar, which you cut versus the ones that are

wrapped in plastic, and I don't know what the hell they're made of. Okay. Or ham. What is ham? Ham is actually a slice of pig leg. I mean, broadly speaking. Okay. If you slice it up, well, that is just a piece of meat. Whereas some of the ham, I don't know what the provenance of some of this very, very uniform-shaped ham is. And so I think the problem is when you're eating exactly the same ham and cheese sandwich and you're eating it,

you're not eating exactly the same food. I'm not demonizing one versus the other, but we shouldn't pretend that they are necessarily the same thing because you're going to get more nutrients out of one versus the other, or at least one is going to be less calorically available than the other. And this is where the conversation around, obviously, with calories, it makes perfect sense. You get more of the calories from the ultra processed cheese than you do from the cheese that's slightly less processed or the bread, you know, making things from scratch. But where it just doesn't seem fair, because people aren't told this. So, you know, they'll go out on the go, they'll buy a sandwich they think is relatively good for them. And they look at the back of the packet. So let's say I'm Anne and I'm on my way to the shops and I'm going

to buy my sandwich and I want a meal that's under 500 calories because that's what I've been told I should have for lunch. How accurate, Giles, is that number though on the back of the packet? So Atwater did a sterling job. So just briefly, how Atwater, who obviously worked out these numbers, did the calorie thing was that he did something called bomb calorimetry, which means that you desiccate a food and burn it and measure the amount of heat that comes off. So using that, he could calculate the total number of calories in food. He then, between 1880 and 1900, he then fed the food to people. So he now knows what went in. He then burned what came out the other side. And so this is what he actually absorbed. And that's fine. So he worked in the sweet corn phenomenon element of it.

What he didn't work out, and this is the crucial thing, and he couldn't, not with the technology at the time, was the cost of doing business, metabolism. So digestion is one element of eating where the food gets to the gut wall and moves to the bloodstream. That's digestion. But that's not where we get our energy from. Our energy is then taken from the sugars, the fats, and the amino acids, and then metabolized. Now, it takes, just as an example, for every 100 protein calories you eat, at-water protein

calories, we are only ever able to access 70 calories, 7-0. Because when we're dealing with protein, 30% of the protein calories is given off as heat because it's complex to deal with protein. There's nitrogen in protein. You need to do this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Whereas if you look at more fat and carbs, they are more available. So fat is nearly 100% available. It's very dense, okay? But it's nearly 100% available. Carbs, depending on whether or not we're dealing with fiber-based carbs whole meal versus refined there's probably about a five ten percent difference okay within there so broadly speaking calorie counts at the back of the pack took into account at water's burning the poop scenario i'm for people listening, but it never took into account

the metabolism element of it. So calorie counts are probably just on the surface, already 5 to 10% wrong, everywhere, everywhere, all right? Now it is more wrong the higher the food is with protein and fiber

and far less wrong when you're actually dealing with a food that is higher in fat and carbs. I'm not being anti-fat or anti-carbs. I'm trying to explain. Like a biscuit. So if you look at a pack of biscuits, it's more likely to be an accurate calculation,

roughly, or estimate. And if you're looking at a can of mixed beans. Beans. Now, if you actually amend a can of mixed beans or anything like that, because of the high protein, high fiber, super low fat, you're going to get, if you look at the beans, they're probably 30% out just in terms of the amount of calories that at least your body can actually use.

So I think that, look, the calorie count, as I said, amount of food, I think the traffic light system and what it lights up at the moment, which is what we deal with, because what we have at the moment is not a lack of information. When you look at the back of a pack of the food, it lists everything, the ingredients, everything. It's not a lack of information. It's just that when I walk into a

supermarket and I'm trying to buy food, I'm moving. This is not an outing for me. I need to, I want to get in and I want to get the hell out? And this is going to be true if you're a mother, if you're this, if you're that. So what you need is the right information highlighted to you so that you make the best decision for your family, ultimately, or yourself. And I think we shouldn't highlight calories. I really don't think we should. I think the numbers we need to highlight, but in a traffic light form, because that is easier, is probably the amount of protein, definitely the amount of fiber, the amount of free sugars. I think we could probably go with that and probably the amount of saturated fat. So if you told me three or four, then those are the four that I would highlight

versus what is being highlighted now. Then you might think, well, how about salt? You know, how about this? Look, I think there are things to highlight. If you put too much information, I think what ends up happening highlight. If you put too much information, I think what ends up happening is they may as well not have any information at all. I think the crucial pieces of information on the side of a pack should be protein, should be fiber, free sugars, priority.

Then maybe saturated fats if you want a four color sort of traffic light. That is how I think we should be labeling our food. Which would be quite a huge shift. And Giles, if we were going to kind of really briefly wrap this up, essentially what we're saying and what you're saying here is that it's not that calories have absolutely no place whatsoever, but it's a slightly reductive piece of storytelling that's not wholly accurate and just tells you one piece of a very complex puzzle. And instead, there's lots of other

things to think about. And what would you have as a sort of closing message to someone who's grown up, as I said, in this diet culture where calorie counting was so rife? And I think there are a lot of people who have a bit of a longstanding fear, essentially, of calories. What would you say to them in terms of trying to shift their mindset on i would say worry about the quality of your diet rather than the quantity of your diet and i think there's some very easy rules to to do and this will be suitable for whatever dietary approach you happen to take and i think variety variety variety variety and eat as much whole foods as possible if you can i mean i think those are pretty much the easy rules to follow. Now, if you don't have that choice because you're

lower down socioeconomically, well, then that's slightly complex, but don't turn your nose up at tinned food. Tinned beans are just as good as dried beans. So I think there are ways of doing high protein and high fiber fancy like us, okay, or actually not so fancy. And so I think we need to tackle it in terms of food banks. I think we need to do it at all stages and at all levels socioeconomically within society. Amazing. Honestly, Giles, thank you so, so much. It just goes to show how much work we actually need to do in this country with nutritional education going all the way down to the early years up. A lot of the fights I know that you and I have behind the scenes. And I know Ella, you work obviously in the food industry and

you must see it day in, day out as well. And it's a battle I know that all of us are trying to do something for. So Giles was the perfect guest to start with and I hope that has given you all a lot of inspiration in terms of thinking or rethinking the way that we generally think about food in our society but that is all we have got time for today and thank you guys so much for tuning in. I would say, if I'm being honest, it's slightly really exciting, but also quite terrifying, this show, because it is so much more

about our personal opinions and in a way putting ourselves out there. And I'm sure some people will like it and other people really won't and won't shy away from that either. But we would really love to hear from you. And just I really want to leave you with the idea that this is your space for health, wellness, headlines, everything in between. And

we want it to feel positive and inspiring, but also help us all let go of that noise that we don't need to distract us. That's not necessarily what health is about. You don't need to spend $2 million a year. You don't need to morning shed no this is just it um for me as well this is an opinion podcast which is also scary for me because i'm my whole life has been spent being the on the fence giving a for and against on both sides and a balanced view of things which i like and i am proud of the way that my career has grown in that way but it's lovely to be able to actually have a laugh and have fun and and also give tangible advice so we're definitely going to see you next Monday please please subscribe and tune in and let us know if you like it and until then I guess just take care of

yourself life is a bit tough right now and just remember small little things is a much better thing to do than a big leap of change I think little wins try and do one thing a day go to bed half an hour earlier. Add one different plant to your day this week. That's mine tonight, bed. I really struggle with that for some reason. There you go. See, we're going off onto the next episode.

Ella, we'll see everyone next week. We'll see you next week. 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.

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