The Wellness Scoop - Self-Obsessed or Happy? Plus Chocolate & Heart Health

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

This week, we’re asking if all this self-monitoring, self-optimising and endless tracking is actually helping us — or just making us more stressed and less happy. With over half of UK adults now owning some kind of wearable, we dig into whether chasing perfect sleep scores and stress metrics is doing more harm than good. Because decades of research still shows that happiness often comes when we look outward — being kind, connected and empathetic — not by obsessing over every tiny detail of ourselves. We also break down some of the biggest health stories right now. We look at new research on magic mushrooms being used to treat depression, why the results are genuinely promising, and why it’s still not a miracle fix. Then we tackle the confusion around butter, steak, cheese and heart health. Is saturated fat really as bad as we’ve been told, or are the headlines just muddying the waters? We unpack what actually matters — from fat swaps to overall diet patterns. Then we take on the language of “guilt-free pleasures.” Whether it’s dark chocolate, low-alcohol wine or high-fibre cereals, do we really need guilt in the food conversation at all? We think it’s time to change how we talk about food. We also touch on the new nursery nutrition guidelines rolling out this September to help kids build better habits early on. Recommendations: Baked strawberries! Coat in either honey, maple syrup and sugar, pop in the oven for 15-20 mins at 180 and enjoy how much flavour you get Walking! Quick and easy way to feel great and bust stress Leaving your phone downstairs at night and feel better for not having the temptation to do late-night doom scrolling Please vote for us to win the Listener's Choice award at the British Podcast Awards: ⁠https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we are your hosts, I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rhiannon Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be. So that's why we created this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal. And we're back together recording this morning, so it feels like a great day. The sun is shining. The sun is definitely shining.

And I feel like we have been overwhelmed again to reach number two in the charts at this podcast. What is happening? You guys are just the best of the best of the best. This is a highlight of my week every single week. I know. And you all just make it. And I really so appreciate your support. There was actually something I was thinking about on my way in this morning that I would also love your feedback on

guys. How long episodes are? Please let us know, like do you prefer over an hour so we're talking about more? Do you prefer kind of 40 minutes probably a bit more akin to a dog walk or a commute? It would be really really helpful because we can flex up or down and it was something I was thinking about this morning so if you have any strong feelings thoughts opinions please send us a message on Instagram pop it in the reviews comment section let us know because we do just want these to be the best they can be for you. Yeah because I've definitely seen on the Spotify comments a few people saying I wish it was longer and then you had one that said oh it's the perfect time.

So we need to get a general consensus, everyone. So thank you so much. Ella, what is coming up in our show today? OK, so in today's show, we are talking about, are we too obsessed with ourselves to be happy? I'm so excited to dive into this one. Magic mushrooms or depression, promising or overhyped? Butter, cheese, and heart health, what's the real story?

Saturated versus unsaturated fat, we've got the 101 there guys. The sweetest stories in decades, plus some recipe tips from me. Should we drop the guilt from chocolate, wine, sweets? Let's talk about food guilt. New nursery nutrition rules and what they mean for kids and some personal wrecks from both of us.

Ella, you've had a crazy week. Tell us all, how's it all going? Well, we are imminently moving house. By the time this comes out, I will have the keys to my new house or our new house as a family. And it's so surreal, I cannot believe it. So yeah, that's kind of taking over everything. The girls finished their schools this week.

We have nursery graduation tonight, which Mae keeps calling her coronation. I really appreciate it. I love that. I know, me too. So yeah, it's huge. And then I'm taking the kids down to Cornwall for the weekend to stay with my mom

and my brother and their cousins. So that would be absolutely lovely. But yeah, house move. That is the big thing. I can't can't believe it's such an end of an era. We're leaving London. I think we'll all need to know next week when we touch base, you know, what are your packing tips and then also I need tips on how do you drive down to Cornwall with two kids because we've is it the train? Is this a long drive? I was like, I'm taking the kids to Devon in the summer and I'm a bit nervous.

Yeah, we're taking the train. Matt's working so I'm taking them by myself. That's better, it's faster right? Yeah it's so much easier so yeah we're jumping on the train, eight o'clock on Friday morning, first summer holiday. It feels very nostalgic going down there, I can't wait, the girls basically just want to eat ice cream and it will be brilliant. And how about you? I'm just trying to think what happened. I mean this week has again been so busy because the book was literally number 11 in the charts this week again.

I just cannot get over it. For me it's just huge and I think it's because ultra processed foods is so topical right now as well, Ella, with the change in the government and the lots of things that we're going to be discussing in our briefs. But my big thing is I did my first ever aqua aerobics class. I saw that in the show notes. And I had this image of you. I think of it as more of an older person activity, if no one mind me saying that. So I was the youngest in the class. My friend Tessa and I, they all had gray hair, but they were lovely.

And I mean, half of me was thinking, so I did my first night away in a year with a friend this weekend. A year, it felt. Was it just bliss? Do you know, it was, but I had to really psych myself up to doing it for some reason. And we were just sat there by the side of the pool thinking, oh, we'll go for a swim once the class finishes and the instructor comes over.

And you know when you just feel really awkward, he's like, oh, you should join in, you should join in. And we both kind of looked at each other and was like, yeah, okay. So we're like, okay. And we just got in looked at each other, I was like, yeah, okay. You know, we just did, so we're like, okay. And we just got in the back of the pool with everyone. Was it fun? It was great. I have to say, keeps you very fit.

I think I'd be so into that. I remember doing a Zumba class once and I'm literally up there with the least coordinated people that have ever lived on this planet. So dancing, you can imagine, it's not like my forte, but goodness me, it was so fun. You would love it in the water. So perhaps when you move some aqua aerobics.

I do have a big update for everyone. Now we are asked so often in the Apple reviews and the Spotify DMs, what is going on with food in this country when it comes to earlier settings? And I've also been having these talks with my nursery because I wasn't happy with the food changes in my son's nursery.

And I was lucky enough to get to speak to the head of food in the country. This particular nursery owns 300 nurseries in the UK. And there's some new guidance, Ella, that's coming in in September. And it's called the Early Years Foundation Stage. So it's the nutrition guidance. And there's some really key points here. And it means literally, nurseries are expected to follow this. And when I spoke to the head of food, he said, yeah, we're no longer going to be able to serve things like Rice Krispies because they're low in fiber. We're going to be actually ensuring

that children are having balanced meals. Hallelujah. I mean, that's extraordinary. Why is it taking this long? So this is for under fives coming in in September, break down this nutrition guidance for us because I think it's segregated, isn't it? Babies, so sub 12 months and then children. What does it mean?

Well, finally, and I don't know why it's taken this long for babies to have this guidance, but obviously no added sugar, salt, honey, juice, or nuts and things in nurseries. The fact that some of that wasn't even in place baffles me completely. And the baby guidance is pretty standard, you know, with how to safely prepare formula or weaning, that sort of thing. But it really gets interesting when you hit the ages of one to five. So they want you to follow the four food groups, which makes perfect sense. But there's a real focus here on plant based proteins as well for those that can't have meat, and then dairy alternatives, which hasn't been in place before, Ella, in the same way. So now they're looking at those. And I think the biggest thing as well was also fibre.

So the fibre content has to be hit because every nursery pretty much was scoring low on fibre. There wasn't a differentiation on let's try and get a whole grain bread. They would obviously just go for the bread that's more affordable and the bread that most kids will eat. So now the nursery setting is going to become a place where they offer free meals and two to three healthy snacks and they're only allowed milk or water to drink. And then you have to limit ultra processed foods, so fried foods, to once a week and that includes a juice.

That would be your one a week item or your sugary treat would be your one a week item. And it's about not forcing children to eat. It's basically to summarize it all, change that we've needed for so long but the difference comes in when their nurseries that don't cater so for parents that have to prepare packed lunch boxes nurseries are going to have to communicate and help support which does put a lot of pressure on the nursery as well, I think. It does, but it's really exciting.

Really exciting. So everyone that was saying, how do I contact mine? What do I do? There is framework coming and you can just reference the early years framework for food in this country from September and tell your nursery provider and ask them about it. Say are you making these changes for September? Because I'm not going to be happy if my nursery don't put it in. It is brilliant though isn't it? I love a bit of good news. Me too, such good news to start with. So Ella let's move on to our

recommendations now do you have anything for us this week? Okay I have to tell you I have been obsessed with my step count and we're going to talk about is all our self monitoring making us paranoid and miserable later on Which was an article I read in the New York Times and it got me thinking massively So I hear my irony in then saying I've been obsessed with my step count But lots of things going on lots of big personal changes obviously moving out of London Moving schools all the rest of it felt a bit overwhelmed as humans We don't love uncertainty, do we?

And I definitely am not brilliant in it. And I kind of, yeah, cling to the known. I've been really trying to focus on those, like, just simple day-to-day habits that keep me feeling balanced and kind of mentally my best and walking. It's one of them. So I actually said, OK, well, let me, I love a goal. Let me try and do my 10,000 steps.

And I've done it every day for the last 10 days. And I have to say, as much as, and we'll talk about this later, being obsessed with numbers and all the rest of it can become a very slippery slope and all the rest of it. I have to say walking that little bit more and making effort, like this morning, and instead of getting on the bus, I walked that bit more.

And I do think it's making a massive difference to my mood. My step count is double on average what it's been the last few months. And it's just that like stopping yourself from being lazy. Yeah, do you know, I was thinking when I walked up the escalator today, sometimes I would just stand on the side of the escalator, you know, when I got into London to come here to the studio.

And I thought, no, I'm going to walk up the steps because I can, and it does hurt. You do feel your muscles, you do feel your glutes, like yes, bit of multiple lunges going on. But actually, we should try and make ourselves do that more. But I'm a culprit of not looking, I'm really the opposite. So you know what I'm like, I don't look at the numbers for this show.

I don't look at my step count, and I'm like the total opposite. But when I do tell myself to make a change, I do always feel a difference. So that's a really good one. Yeah, it's really good. And the other thing I have been doing is part of this like, yeah, keep yourself well when there's lots of different things going on. I have been really diligent at leaving my phone downstairs at night time

because otherwise I'm just scrolling goodness knows what. Mostly things that terrify me because that's what the algorithm serves me till midnight then you're tired you're kind of dopamine your brain is all over the shop and so I've been really strict to myself leave your phone downstairs again sleeping better going to bed earlier and just feel good for it thank you I needed that reminder I was being served at like 11 PM in bed the other night. Those beds in China that if there's an earthquake or something, it kind of splits and then you fall down underneath the bed into a little bunker with stocked with water and cans of food.

How weird is the internet? Like, I don't know. Sometimes I keep thinking to myself, like we live in this dystopian world. And I think when it's just like the idea that you could be lying in bed watching videos, it's just so random. It's terrifying because I was thinking, you know, the whole it's there's going to be a war here or something.

And I need to pack my and I'll sending my husband like these videos of we need to pack our bag. This is the bed we should buy for the children. And I'm like losing the plot. Then I wake up, I was like, that wasn't a good idea. Why did I do that? But on one note, I did find this week, you know, we were talking about those deodorants. Natural deodorants, yeah.

I'm seeing them everywhere now. Even my favorite, I've got this almond oil shower gel from Lockstown I love, little shout out to them. They now do deodorant like Fussy style. So I think we're going to see the rise of shells being filled with natural deodorants. Yeah, look, I don't want to sound like an overly capitalist person,

but I do think it's a great thing. Wild deodorant, which is one of the other, which I have to say I don't think is as good personally as Fussy, but they sold to Unilever earlier this year for 100 million, 100 million pounds that is. And I think it's one of those things, like it shows people that actually these more natural focus companies, it's worth putting big investment, big time, big money into developing them. And I know some people will listen thinking like, oh,

you know, the world doesn't need that. All the rest of it is overly capitalist. And I appreciate that stance, but equally that is the world that we live in. And so I think it's when you see companies like that do really, really well, get sold to one of the huge companies, all this investment going into a more natural approach, it does encourage more people to start companies in this space, to develop them, to list them on retail shelves, et cetera, which to me is really exciting because ultimately I think to make change, you often got to do it on a big scale. And I think the wild deodorant is a really great example of that. Oh, wonderful. I didn't realize there would be opposition for creating a natural deodorant.

Isn't that so interesting? I just wouldn't have known that. Yeah, this is good. There we go. So let's move on to the health headlines that matter. Okay, so guys, if you're new to the show, the health headlines that matter just every week Rhi and I scour the internet and scour the papers and what's going on to really bring to you the biggest stories that are making news in health and wellness. And Rhi, what have we got on the agenda this week? Well, Ella's put a really interesting pickup about bananas.

So I think you can lead on that one because you've got these fantastic stats. And then do you know what happens is I sometimes repeat your statistics and other interviews I'm like oh yeah I've learned that from Ella this week. Go on, I love a random stat and they seem to kind of percolate in my brain and I can't get rid of them so I've got to share them somewhere guys. But yeah do you remember a few weeks ago we were talking about bananas and the number of bananas now sold in the UK has jumped up by 70 million last year so that means that each adult now in the UK is buying an average of more than 80 bananas a year. They are the country's favorite fruit, but they're having a run for their money because

in our fruit fact section that apparently we're going to do, shoppers bought 2,400 packs of strawberries every minute over the last month. Strawberries have gone mad and there was lots of pieces in the papers over the last few weeks showing growers and scientists, so farmers and scientists, were talking about the fact that this year's strawberry crop is the sweetest in decades. Also guys, these are British berries. Can we celebrate the fact that, you know,

like what was my stat, things like 95% of berries in this country are British. That's amazing for the UK. Yeah, exactly. So British berries, we've had this kind of rare combination of cool spring nights and then record levels of sunshine. And it created optimal conditions for strawberries this year. I've still got strawberries. In the garden, I've still got them. I've never had such a good strawberry patch in my only four years of growing, but it's amazing. Raspberries and strawberries everywhere.

Yeah. So if you're not eating strawberries this year guys get on it but 2,400 packs a minute that is quite something isn't it? They are flying off the shelves and I have to give you a recipe recommendation for strawberries. Roast them. Roasted strawberries are one of the most delicious things in the world. It's so easy to Say you have like 500 grams or so of strawberries, chop them in half, take the tops off, then you want a squeeze of lemon or sort of half a lemon, about two tablespoons of maple syrup or honey or cane sugar, and then roast them at 180 degrees, kind of 15 to 20 minutes, the strawberries will soften, you'll have this like syrupy liquid around them, and you can pop them on yogurt granola

bowls, eat them just as they are, they're so delicious them and you can pop them on yogurt granola bowls, eat them just as they are, they're so delicious or you could put them like in a Victoria sponge cake or something but the roasting them draws out all those flavours, the sweetness and I swear to you roasted strawberries are one of the most delicious things in the world. I mean I just love any fruit roast, that's just delicious. Like you know like roasted nectarines and things but I've never thought to do it yes I'm gonna do it Ella. Controversial I don't love just like plain fruit I know it's off-brand. Is it because of texture so I would say I don't love a plain apple sometimes my kids are

obsessed I would prefer to roast an apple as well but I will eat plain berries. Yeah it's a texture thing I just much prefer the texture. The soft. The softness exactly. But also the sugar I mean that's so delicious when you roast anything. I know. Let's discuss we have to go there the M&S sandwich. I feel like M&S has had quite a lot of prime time on our podcast last two weeks.

You know what their marketing team is doing a 10 out of 10 job. They really are from punishment juices to strawberry sandwiches. Okay so if you haven't seen it yet, they've basically created this strawberries and cream sandwich. I think it is literally sweetened white bread and then cream and strawberries. They're selling apparently around 20,000 of this sandwich a day. It's only been in market a few weeks and then it's become so viral. You can see these people queuing up before the shops open to get the sandwich and like rushing in to get them. It's mind boggling.

I sent Ella this hilarious reel. There was this guy and he was doing some comedy sketch thing. Like, oh, I'm just walking in, there's this very droll voice walking into my local M&S. Oh, yep, there's the queue for the strawberry cream sandwich. Might as well give it a go. So I picked it up, gave it a bite, thought, mm, nah, tastes like cardboard, this. You know that comedy style reels and that monotone voice, and I was just cracking up. But he said it's more like a dessert than a sandwich. It's just, honestly, I don't think I'd like it.

I don't like whipped cream. That's controversial. I will eat clotted cream, not whipped cream. Ooh. I don't know why. Yeah, so they describe it as sweet and juicy British red diamond strawberries with a thick layer of whipped cream cheese on a sweetened bread. So guys, if you've tried it, let us know.

But it's again, to be honest, it's one of those things as well that I know strawberries are always popular and lots of fruits are more popular than beet trees, as we were talking about the other day, or like artichokes, which I'm currently obsessed with or fennel. Roast them. Roast it all. Roast it all. Roast it all, roast everything. Keep your oven on forever. No, but I do, I think anything like this that then puts a fruit, a veg, a plant that we

all, as we know, desperately need more of in the centre of the map, I am actually a mega fan of. Me too. And especially when they're British berries, because that means we're supporting this country and that's great. And also it's kind of the creativity around it as well, because I think part of the reason I certainly when the reasons that I didn't love fruit or veg growing up sorry to my mum, because I know you're amazing.

That's so interesting, but I wouldn't have had you down as a non-liker as a child. I just found it all really boring. Yeah. You know, I found fruit and veg, generally speaking, really, really dull, like steamed broccoli, just generally speaking for most of us, isn't that delicious? And that's why you're now, you created deliciously Ella, to make it delicious. To make it delicious, that's why it has its name. And exactly this. And so I think all

these kind of more interesting ways to present something, actually I'm a huge, huge fan of. I love that Ella. Thank you for sharing that. I think it makes everyone feel a bit more like, yeah, you know, we can introduce and try something new. And it leads me on to our first headline, Ella. Now, I am chocolate obsessed, you're chocolate obsessed. I am obsessed with chocolate. We both are. I need it every day.

And then I saw this article in The Guardian and it said, healthy chocolate, low hangover wine and nutritious breakfast cereal, 10 guilty pleasures without guilt. And I thought, oh gosh, that's one for the wellness scoop. It really, really is. And it's funny, I was reading this last night, I was a bit late to the party this week with Moving House and things like that on our scripts. And I cannot count the number of times in interviews I have been asked, I reckon it's like two thirds of interviews I've ever done,

what's your guilty pleasure? I'm now really, really upfront about it, I've always say like that is an oxymoron, like you've got to be able to hear that. If something makes you feel guilty, it's inherently speaking not a pleasure. There's nothing pleasurable about feeling guilty. And it's one of those amazing things as well, kind of why we created the show, isn't it? The like confusing nature of headlines versus reality. Because actually, when you read the article, I thought it was really helpful. And I added in quite a lot of questions to ask you about it today, because I think it is really helpful to look at these foods. You know, we don't all just want a plain apple all the time. We want sweeter, more indulgent,

more creamy, luscious, whatever it is, flavours and textures in our lives. And so we want sweeter, more indulgent, more creamy, luscious, whatever it is, flavors and textures in our lives. And so we do want, you know, lots of different foods and lots of different ways of eating them. But it's nice to know what's a healthier angle on it. But you put guilty and you majorly create this like really complicated moral complex that you always talk about that's so frustrating because actually the information is phenomenal but stop associating any food with guilt. It's so frustrating. It also drives us as consumers to then see these items as something morally bad therefore we can't help but want more of it or it becomes a real thing and if we put something on a pedestal like that like chocolate and

these items you are just creating binge eating tendencies that we cannot help it you know I discussed at the beginning of the podcast how I used to give clients chocolate for breakfast to break a mold or sometimes I'd say let's have it every day for a week let's see how you feel and then suddenly it doesn't become a thing anymore and you're like oh I'm a bit bored of that now you know it's not this when you know you can have something anytime you want, you lose that emphasis and that morality behind it and then you're not driven to behave disordered. You don't have disordered relationship with food because of it. So yeah, I wonder how many of our listeners have

tried as we know the average person in this country tries 126 fad diets in their lifetime, which is quite extraordinary. And I think I'd be so curious for people listening, like how many times have you said, okay, I'm going to stop eating X, Y or Z and then being quite fixated on it because you can't have it. And therefore you've created this like food noise around it because it's just going around your mind. But this is the messaging that's everywhere. And because we're obviously a very small chunk of the population, I mean, there's lots of you. We love our world escape crew, but you know,

we're a very small minority that are open to these conversations. This is not the type of nuanced conversation around food labeling that most places are having. I bet if you just walk to the end of your road, if there's a cafe, you'll see a moral label of food. It might be on the blackboard outside saying, come and have a guilt-free brownie or it's everywhere you go and it's almost unavoidable Ella, like we feel like we need permission to eat and it stems in

the house, it stems from parents, it stems from cafes, it stems from restaurants, newspapers and chocolate's good for you. Let's talk about the fact that we love good quality chocolate. Exactly. So let's delve into some of these things. But quickly before we do that, I've always loved this like simple way of thinking about it. That if you're going to kind of think about 70 or 80% of your diet grounded in nourishing whole food ingredients, lots of peas and quinoa and whatever it is that you eat, but healthy food essentially. And then the other 20, 30% of the time you just enjoy it, you're out for dinner, you grab a treat, that's brilliant. But if you're doing it and not enjoying it, it almost dissolves the point of it.

And I think it is really important to try and give yourself that freedom, that flexibility. If you're having a lovely slice of chocolate cake, enjoy all of the mouthfuls of chocolate cake. Don't inhale it and then think I shouldn't have eaten it. It's really difficult for people to do. I mean, this is something that we could spend years with clients working on breaking that initial food rule, breaking what they know and see the food world to be. It definitely is a huge psychological component to this conversation. What's your top tip before we go into this?

The first one is to identify that you have a disordered relationship with it. If you are feeling guilty every time you eat food or you feel like you need permission, there's a rule or there's a little voice in the back of your head, that niggly voice. That's something you can work on. I promise you it can get better. It comes with a lot of compassion. It comes with a lot of work on yourself and you can get there. So I think personally journaling these types of things can be really helpful for people just to

capture that inner voice because sometimes you can forget how cruel you can be to yourself and I don't want to step on the toes of my psychologists in the clinic but there's a lot of the work they do is often trying to identify how you speak to yourself about food as well. So if you can get that down on paper and actually look back and think, wow, I said that to myself, start the journey and then you might need support,

I think, with it. But most people can definitely do a stop pause, stop for a minute before you eat, set a timer, do deep breaths, think about why you're going to do it, are you doing this to enjoy the food item, are you doing it to numb another feeling? Like this comes from deep inner critic work, I'd say. It's amazing what inner critic we all have. Oh my goodness. Okay, so I picked out some of the sections on the article, Reed, because I think that

this idea, as I said, like we're not rabbits, we don't just want to eat, you know, lettuce and cruditites forever more. Definitely not. And, you know, there's so many lovely things, but actually it's nice to know what's the, like the healthier version of it. So one of the things in the article was crisps, which I thought was really interesting. So Federica Amati, who we've had on the Extra Scoop, who's absolutely brilliant, especially her love of fibre, a big fan of it. And she was pointing out this idea that we'll often think a chickpea crisp or a lentil crisp is better, but actually sometimes again, those can be so laden

with flavourings, emulsifiers, additives, they're not necessarily better. So let's talk about crisps first, if possible. Oh my goodness, a hundred percent. It's funny because when we do articles together, Freddie and I, I feel like we're saying the same thing a thousand times and crisps aren't just crisps. And I think Ella, you might actually be better at explaining the factory process. I know you've seen it happen, but you know,

you want a crisp that's a potato. And believe it or not, when you look at packets of crisps, sometimes they're not potato. They're potato flakes that have been mashed about and reformulated and stuck together. And what you really want is the ones with the nice quality oil if you can, roasted with olive oil or baked.

And actually, baked can be difficult. It could also be flakes. I think you have to get used to reading the ingredients on the back. But actually going for this like simpler ingredients list, like your kind of more standard, just classic crisps that are ready salted. And they will only have three or four ingredients on the back.

Exactly, potato, salt and oil basically, versus some of the others. I remember staying at my dad's once and he'd really sweetly bought these lentil crisps or something and I turned over the back of pack and there were literally like 35, crisps or something. And I turned over the back of pack and there were literally like 35, 40 ingredients or something in there.

And it was one of those really great things were on the front. It looked such a healthy alternative. High protein crisps. Exactly. And they were so compelling, but actually they were, if we were kind of talking about nutrition,

I mean, crisps are never going to be nutritious fundamentally, but actually your kind of classic version were much, much better. So I think it is that reading label element, isn't it? But it's not falling for, I don't mean that in a condescending way, but just like not being sucked in by a marketing claim on the front. Actually, sometimes your classic is just the best. It is, but we do fall for it. And also, there's a price difference in those crisps.

For some reason, those ones tend to be, I think, a bit more expensive than the more processed version. And then secondly, if we go back to chocolate for a second, something can say dark chocolate and not be dark chocolate. It could have 50-something percent of cocoa compared to one that's got 70 to 80. And the difference in nutrition is huge because the studies that show the beneficial antioxidants are in the higher percentage.

But the front of the pack, Bournville, I'm talking about you, dark chocolate, because that's my father-in-law's favorite chocolate. He's always got this dark chocolate bar in the fridge. And he's like, yeah, I love my dark chocolate. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, it's not really dark chocolate. It's in disguise. It's in disguise. Yeah, it's funny, once you start reading food ingredients, and not in like an obsessive compulsive way, but just in a kind of mindfulness of your kind of total diet, I do think it's really startling. actually lots of times they're like the simplest

is the best and I think food labels can be really overwhelming and really confusing. Can I tell you my big bugbear? Tell me. Something that I'm asked about in these articles, it's the new cereals that are cropping up and I've been approached by so many brands to do what they're calling high protein healthy cereals and for me that's just full of artificial sweeteners sweetness full of extra unnecessary ingredients they're pumping into a cereal to market it as healthy and actually you're just better off going for a normal one that contains nuts and seeds I can't bear it. The level of sweetness in some of them I

think we have the same one in our mind right now is absolutely mind-boggling and it's normally using erythrodol I can never say that word. Which contributes to upset tummies and in quite large quantities because these things are so sweet. And then they say it's sugar free and it really gets me. They do. So I always think with your labels, flip it over. And I think the easiest thing to ask yourself is like, could I make this at home? I know. Do I have all these ingredients at home? If the answer is yes, thumbs up. If it's no,

but one ingredient probably find and then once you've got more than one, probably not. And if you don't know what the name is, just I've got so many pages in the unprocessed plate of what all the ingredients are and you can learn and find out all about it. Okay, there were two more, particularly from the article that I wanted to ask you about. The first one was the kind of low sugar or healthier sweets because I'm a sucker for these. I'll hold my hands up for that. They are really popular. They're doing very well in market. You see them more and more across kind of all of the big retailers. They're

kind of yeah, new wave of sweets and candy sort of thing. Is it any better? Because some of them say like no nasties on them, really fascinates me because again when you flip over the packet you're like yeah I appreciate that maybe no one has many but I'm not sure anything in here is actually a real food I consume them. They wanted me to put no nasties page in the book but I couldn't because I can't get on board with that type of language. It's really really interesting so originally these sweets were created for diabetics which ones the low sugar ones? Low sugar ones because we take the sugar out and we put in artificial sweetness so they

could still enjoy things. And you used to just find at the very beginning of the development of these things, you used to find them in booths or in a pharmacy and they'd have a little section and that would be what it was for. You know, diabetic chocolate, it would be called diabetic sweets. And now obviously we're trying to reduce our sugar intakes. The companies are reformulating and thinking, how can I do that? And what they've done is just switch it over from sugar to artificial sweeteners.

But with that comes extra ingredients that need to be added to make that taste palette work, right? I mean, Ella, you'd understand that more than anyone. What has to go into an item to keep that taste preference. And actually a lot of the time it depends on who you are as a person. If you have a real you feel like you're addicted to food, you feel like you are consuming bags of the stuff, the sweeteners per se could help you lower your overall sugar intake. However, that hasn't worked with soft drinks.

Take the example on the World Health Organization that they say do not use these artificial sweetener options because they are not a good weight management tool. You will still crave them. They still leave you feeling like you want more. It doesn't negate what you've done with the sugar drinks before. So my view is that I would rather you have the full sugar version but less of it and enjoy it but I'm aware most people don't have that healthy relationship with food where they can do that. So they do have a place if you're looking at tooth decay for children, that is huge. We have never had higher rates of dental problems in this country.

Number one reason children have a general anaesthetic is tooth decay. It's just so sad. It really is so, so sad. But it's because they creep in to items that you think are healthy that contain a lot of sugar. It's not just because kids are eating loads of sweets. Okay. And then what about the more natural sweets? The ones that say sort of, yeah, no nasties, et cetera, as I said, those are the ones that I'm definitely a consumer of. I think those are really good options. I would much rather have a sweet where I conceal the ingredients listed that I actually know what they mean. I don't want gelatin in my sweets. I don't want to consume that personally.

I would rather have it made from vegetable extracts and get the colourings and the dyes from vegetables and fruit rather than from artificial flavourings and colourings. So there's a definite hierarchy of the quality of sweet, but those are much more expensive for people. So I personally would rather give my kids, and I do give them those sweets rather than... Like candy kitten type sweets. I would give candy kittens over Haribo every single day of the week. Yeah, no, me too. Me too. And I do really like them and the kids call them kitty sweets. But they're still sugar. I just have to carry it. Still sugar in them. Yeah, and that's why I guess the interesting thing is it's still, as you said too. Me too. And I do really like them and the kids call them kitty sweets. But they're still sugar. I just have to caveat. Still sugar in them. Yeah. And that's I guess the interesting thing is it's still, as you said, it's continuum.

And I always find the frustrating idea that you would swap a sweet for an apple because they're just two different occasions. But therefore, if you do want something sweet, again, like genuinely, it's not just marketing. It is actually better. Yeah, it is. I think it is better for your body, but it's still sugar. So I just have to have that out there. And guys, we may be into health and wellness, but we love sweets too. So you're not alone. We all do.

No, but I think it's really interesting. So what we're saying is like lentil crisps, for example, not always better than your regular crisps, because actually often a huge number of additives versus like a classic ready salted. But when we're talking about sweets, actually the kind of more natural ones, generally speaking, probably are a better swap. And a listener sent me a video.

She wanted us to put it on the podcast. We didn't have time for it in the brief on truffle oil and different ingredients they use in restaurants. You also have to check if it's actually truffle. And you've got to check what's going on in these crisps. A lot of the time, the flavors that they've added to them, guys, you know, like the meat flavors in bacon crisps or something or you know glutamate and different things people add. It's not what you think it is. And then what about chocolate?

Chocolate, oh my goodness. Top tips is you look if you're eating chocolate, just eat the one you really enjoy and be mindful of the portion is my ultimate message. But if you're eating chocolate for benefits, you have to go I'd say 75-80% plus. chocolate for benefits you have to go I'd say 75 80 percent plus that's the type of chocolate that I have every single day of the week like I had this morning after breakfast I just always do it I literally snack on dark chocolate like it's a normal I look at it like a health food because I buy 90 percent dark chocolate. You do 90? I do 90 and I have it like it's a I get those little batons and I put them in the kids lunch

boxes as well sometimes I'll give them like 90% dark chocolate. Oh wow, yeah I'm a 70. Yeah, yeah. I'm a 70 gal. 70 days better in the hot chocolate. Remember our little fact about it helps you with stem cells, interestingly. But I'm hardcore Ella. I'm like, remember when I was like, when you brought out your chocolate, I said, I have

to get more of this for the children because there's no artificial additives in this chocolate and I need it. I love that. Okay, so basically the darker the better. But it is true that actually then it is good you can have it every day. Yeah. Looking at really like this. She's like, can I? You want permission?

I love chocolate. Okay, that was really helpful. And I think it just shows there's no like black and white rule is it? Which is very, very interesting. Look, if you love a Cadbury's button or that's your thing, I'd rather you have that than binge on other things that you think are healthy for you. When you could have just had that one Cadbury's chocolate bar over like three bags of 90% buttons because they don't do the job. And I think that is such sage advice.

But just try, I know to your point is not simple, but try and enjoy it. Like have treats as treats because they're great and their life enhances and ditch the guilt like nobody is perfect. Nobody is a bunny, as we said. Like you cannot live off crudités and crudités. And those people that you see in Hollywood or the films or you think, oh, how did they do it? I promise you they're on restrictive eating plans to look a certain way or, you know, that there's no way.

And I think the sooner we normalise things, that's me going off on another tangent. Let's save it for another headline. Okay, right. This is going to be a brief one guys on the magic of mushrooms. We wanted to put this in a few weeks ago, but we ran out of time. And it's an absolutely fascinating one. So magic mushrooms are really seemingly to us entering the mainstream kind of health and wellness world as treatment for depression. And the Czech Republic is close to becoming the first European country to sanction the use of these psychedelics,

including psilocybin, which my understanding is the most prominent one, after trials found they could be effective in severe cases of depression. Again, this was picked up quite widely. The Times had a big piece about it about psilocybin and depression and it really there is some very interesting relatively early data to show that the compounds can actually genuinely help in very severe mental health issues. I mean it's not just the funny moment in the Bridget Jones film is it when she's coming out with sea-owned mushrooms like the hallucinogenic compounds they literally could be helpful. When I saw this, I thought, wow, I mean, it's promising, but is it a bit too good to be true, Ella?

So far, researchers have been testing it in clinical settings. I actually know someone who did it as part of a hospital trial here. And someone else in the US who's been using them. So I know it would say in both cases, highly effective. But some studies are showing that a single dose combined with therapy can lead to rapid and long lasting improvements in depression symptoms, even in people who haven't responded well to standard treatments. There was one big trial mentioned in this article in particular showed that 29% of participants entered remission from depression just three weeks after a single dose, which was 25 milligrams of the psilocybin. And that's compared to just 9% in the lower dose groups. It's huge. It's better than antidepressants, Ella. Well, it could be better than antidepressants. Yeah. And I think, as we know, we're struggling so much with our collective mental health.

And so I think all these different avenues are really, really interesting. And I think, for me, certainly the kind of whole premise here is absolutely fascinating. This idea is that, very colloquially speaking, resets brain activity and then gets you out of these essentially stuck thought patterns. So basically, brain scans show that after taking the psilocybin, the brain becomes more connected in different regions, so you've got more neural pathways open. And people with depression can often have quite rigid, repetitive brain activity and psilocybin is basically kind of disrupting that. And there was an analogy, I think, of kind of shaking

the brain around like a snow globe. It's like, it just sort of gets it out of it. I mean, surely there has to be side effects because hallucinations obviously, I don't think that's fun. Like that bit of it can be quite scary, right? Yeah, I mean, 100%. And it's obviously something that everyone's looking at very cautiously. Cautiously, that's definitely not work. We could make it today.

Interestingly, New Zealand's just approved psilocybin for use by psychiatrists in treatment-resistant cases. Australia already allows it. And places like Canada and the US are also running regulated clinical trials. So yeah, it's a lot. I think it will be an interesting one to just keep an eye on. Yeah, I think watch this space, more research, but that could be groundbreaking for people with mental health conditions. I did read an article, this was probably six months ago, and it was a personal essay written

by a journalist who had children and basically said she didn't have severe depression, but she was fundamentally unhappy, had kind of always been. And she went and did this retreat, this was in the Netherlands, I believe, And she did psychedelics and talked a lot about her experience and how it kind of opened her up. And what an amazing shift it had on her life. And I have to say, I was inspired to that. I was like, oh my gosh, I want to go and do this. Half of me thinks I need to check myself

into a clinic for a week in Switzerland and take mushrooms. I think we've got to go to the Netherlands. Maybe we'll do it. Yeah, go to the Netherlands. Let's see if anyone wants to take the wellness scoops in. I have to say I really want to try. I definitely have some kind of old trauma patterns that I am very interested to see. I've been working on releasing, but I am really curious. So this is stuff I'm really drawn to because I am fascinated the idea that you could kind of shake up some of these very well trodden neural pathways.

It's so amazing. The brain is just, oh my goodness, what a thing to discuss. So guys, we'll come back to this one. We will. But now for our next headline, we've got high fat foods that are good for your heart, including steak and cheese. And I saw this in the Teleggraph and just went, oh no. I could hear you going, oh, I was reading the brief last night. This idea is like another perfect example of how if you only basically see headlines, you will be so confused about what health and wellness actually is and how contradictory it feels. Because what it doesn't

say is obviously any of the nuance in the headline it's almost just kind of permission for things and I also saw you say the notes you scanned the article straightaway to see if it was related to a new book. I did. It was. I just thought this can't be a headline you know only the other week we're talking about you know limiting red meat and cheese and saturated fat. And then there's a headline saying, hey, have more steak and cheese. I thought this has to be someone promoting a book. There is no way that this just crops out of research somewhere.

And sure enough, yeah, someone's promoting their new book. And guys, just for everyone listening, we cannot ignore the fact that high saturated fat intake is linked to elevated bad cholesterol or LDL cholesterol, increases your risk of heart disease. I love cheese, we can limit these items to small amounts. Even the plant-based cheeses are high in fats. I think everything in moderation. What is small amounts? So let's talk about cheese. Because I think again, this sort of thing is really, really, really confusing because we're not here to set rules, but I think equally, probably most people haven't like sat and read the

most up to date public health guidelines, you know, it's quite dry reason when everyone's busy. So I think it is really interesting when you see things like this, the articles mentioning foods like olive oil, oily fish, nuts, seeds as beneficial, but also things like butter and red meat, which to your point, you've got to caveat that with different portion sizes in particular. I thought it was really helpful to kind of use the article as a springboard to talk about like actually what is the top line on different types of fat? How much fat should we be eating every day? Like what's the ratio of fat in our diets to carbs to protein? Give us a 101. You're so good at it. Such a good idea to use the article in that way.

So to reassure you at home, you can have these items, but I would definitely limit them. And I would maybe have them once a day, maybe twice at a push if you're talking about cheese, for instance, because so many of us would overdo the portion size. They used to say at uni, it's like a tiny little matchbox size of cheese,

but their matchbox sizes went up. And you know the old analogies just don't work anymore. So you know you're probably looking on average at 20 gram portion of cheese I'd say. I don't really want to be put away. What is that, maybe the size of a baby bell? That's a good one actually. So it's like 20 grams in one baby bell, about what three grams of saturated fat. It's quite high. So before you know it, you've had two baby bells, you're already at six grams of saturated fat

for your daily intake. And for children, of course, this is going to be lower than the 20 and 30 grams we recommend for adults. So just be really mindful. But I would suggest just really thinking about if I put butter on my toast in the morning, I then don't need to add butter to my dish

in the afternoon or at dinner. If I had cheese in the morning or at lunch, I then don't need to add that same portion at dinner. And maybe instead I should try going for the other fats to get my fat cravings at bay. So I'll go for avocado, olive oil, nuts and seeds and spreads or nut butters instead. Because otherwise you will overdo it and the good fats are the unsaturated ones. But nearly everyone in this country is going over their daily salt. They're going over their fat allowance. They're going over their fat allowance, they're going over their sugar allowance. And it's because ultra processed foods and packaged items

are like always contain a lot of saturated fat. And men of course can have more than women. They can have up to 30 grams a day and women up to 20 grams a day of fat. So. But what is 30 grams say for a man of saturated fat? What would that look like? So in a day that probably is your knife cutting of your block of butter spread on your toast once, then probably your small portion of cheddar cheese that afternoon, and then maybe a teeny tiny

teaspoon of it, like a coconut oil with a stir fry dinner. It's not much. No, that's tiny. Tiny. And then if you had a steak, that would be your full. Oh, you'd be well over. Yeah. OK. If you're adding the meats on top of the extras that most people cook with every day, that's why we're going over saturated fat anyway. And so women at 20 grams of fat a day, that's nothing.

No, it's nothing. If you love adding these spreads and things, that's where we all go wrong. If you do love your meat and you're having your steak that day, just be very conscious not to drench it in butter and not to have a lot of cheese. But most people have these things in conjunction, like a burger. Let's take the classic example. You've got your red meat patty, then they put melted cheese on top of it as well. And then you've probably got like a brioche bun or something that's cooked with a lot of saturated fat. And the reason it tastes so good to people is because that

is a full fat combo. And then maybe you're having cake and you don't realize that cake, of course, is made with butter and cream, and you're mixing things up and then you're getting more than you realize. I wouldn't say it's the fat's fault. It's the fact that cumulatively across the course of a day or a week, we just don't realize how much of it we get. And then what about with unsaturated? Fats so then we're talking about you said you're like olive oil nuts seeds avocado Is there a cap on that or can we eat this comes down to calories?

Which I don't like talking about I'd call it energy of food. Of course, there's a cap There's a cap on everything like there's probably a cap on how many oranges you want to be in a day before it starts hurting your stomach You know, there's a line on everything But I tend not to worry about portion guidance for fats in the same way. I would say follow the advice, have like a tablespoon of olive oil. A tablespoon of olive oil is about 120 calories. So it's energy dense, but they're the type of calories that don't impact your body in

the same way as 120 grams of butter. I mean, if you look at 120 calories of butter rather and 120 calories of olive oil They're very different because you want the fat and olive oil. It's unsaturated Unsaturated means yeah, you're not gonna clog my arteries in the same way as saturated Which is gonna saturate my body with clogging. Okay, very basic way of describing it No, it's a really helpful way of thinking about it. And then what about thinking about our ratio? I mean, as I said, not that people should be sitting down and weighing their food or like measuring it out perfectly, but just to have in your kind of back of your mind,

your ratio of fat focusing mostly on unsaturated fat, protein, carbs, what would a really balanced plate look like? So I would always have a portion of fats on the plate, but it would be unsaturated. And then a teeny tiny speck of saturates in your meal. That's how you always should look at it. So maybe do a ratio of one to three. So one saturates, three unsaturates on your plate of your nut or fat sources.

So if I were to make a dish and I'd cooked with butter, I mean, you shouldn't really be cooking with butter. This is what's so confusing. And then in the States, they're telling people to do it. L.O.I. just breaks my heart. But honestly, if you cooked a meal with butter, the rest of the day, don't have any more saturated fat. That is definitely your daily allowance of it gone.

And I would even try and have more fiber and plant-based options knowing that meat contains more. And then you're adding that on top, let alone a pork sausage or something, you know, before you know it, your whole day is going to be heavy. So ratio is about small, teeny tiny, one little speck of saturate in a day. The rest should come from unsaturated. But you want fats in every meal.

Yeah, we need fat. Fat keeps our skin healthy. Fat protects our organs. Fat helps build our hormones. Fat helps vitamins A, D, E, and K. They're fat soluble vitamins. We do need fat with our meal to help the absorption of nutrition. But that can come from your olive oil you cook with, to be honest. Okay, so don't be scared of fat, but focus on your unsaturated fats above and beyond.

100%. Thank you for asking me all those questions, Ella. It's always a test, it takes me back. Okay. Just here to quiz, though, guys. Okay, it's funny because we've been just talking about how like guys don't measure things, don't stress about things and I think it leads us on perfectly to I think what's quite a juicy topic and what's trending in wellness and the title of the article that prompted this discussion is, is all of this self monitoring making us paranoid. I would argue we could have done a whole episode solely on this. No, 100%. Ella found this in the New York Times.

And it's a piece that dives into how wearable health tech, you know, like we've discussed before the aura ring, for example, which promises to track everything from sleep quality, heart rate, stress, recovery. It can backfire because intense anxiety can develop, I think. So rather than easing it, you can become more obsessive over it. I think that's why I just don't track numbers sometimes, because I think I have that tendency.

And while these devices, you know, they're designed to help people build healthier habits, the article that Ella popped in here details how, for some, the constant flow of data just becomes that obsession. And it highlights the experience of a 22-year-old called Rachel Hills. And she received the ring for Christmas, and it highlights the experience of a 22 year old called Rachel Hills. She received the ring for Christmas and she loved the insights. But when her statistics started to wobble this year, she grew so worried that she, you know, she tried to see a doctor and when she couldn't get an appointment,

she and a friend drove to a pharmacy and they spent $50 at a on a blood pressure cuff and a monitor just to ease her mind. I mean, we are talking it was driving her up the wall. She just needed to see more data. Yeah, it was, I found it really fascinating. And just this interesting prompt of like, we obviously have talked about this a lot, but this weird world that we live in where we've got such fundamental challenges to our health. And we're going to dive into that a lot next

week with this big 10-year government plan, which is really interesting reading. And the government themselves saying, you know, the NHS is now all about sick care and just like, what a kind of strange world we're in when it comes to our health. But at the same time, we're then becoming so obsessed on the flip side that it's, it's not that healthy. I mean, over half of adults in the UK now have wearable tech for their health, which I was really staggered by. I think it's a huge number. And again, it shows this gulf between where we're spending money and time and

thought versus the reality of what our collective health is. You know, so we talked about this woman who became so fixated. It did talk about another woman who really noticed huge changes as a result of her wearables and it helped her get an early cancer diagnosis. So it wasn't... There's always positives, aren't there? Exactly. It wasn't just one-sided view, but I think it's this idea that it's so easy, so many of us have an ability, particularly women, to ruminate, to be worried, particularly in a world in which we're

already feeling anxious, we're feeling stressed and it's quite easy to fixate on things. And people can just start to kind of ruminate over dips in heart rate or slightly elevated stress scores and kind of consistently trying to fix themselves. And I'm just really nervous that we're becoming so obsessed with fixing ourselves that everything's becoming really internal. And I don just really nervous that we're becoming so obsessed with fixing ourselves, that everything's becoming really internal. And I don't know, I think it's part of my concern that we live in a dystopian world. I was walking down the street this morning. You're getting your 10,000 steps. Yeah, getting my 10,000 steps.

But I was watching these people like set up their phones and take pictures of them, like little videos, TikToks, I think of themselves and their outfits of their little videos, TikToks, I think, of themselves and their outfits and their fits. And you see all the work that goes into creating this perfect image. And I just worry we're so obsessed with this outward view of ourselves that we're kind of forgetting the inward view of ourselves.

But it's so normal to those younger generations. That's also what's true, because we've obviously witnessed a world without it, without health tech and without the media in the way it is now. But to people growing up in this world, to our kids, that is a normal world. And I do agree. I think self-validation from these things and our mental health, the impact, I'm not remotely surprised we've got a mental health crisis. I think it was just these wearables exactly in conjunction with all these other challenges

and as I said, social media and this outward view of ourselves and becoming sorry about how other people see us and we're having this like a lot of navel gazing to some extent and it's this whole like self-care self-care self-care and don't get me wrong like I love a bubble bath like a moment of self-care in that sense but I just worried that we're becoming so obsessed with taking care of ourselves that as I said, it's becoming this like quite, we all becoming just a little bit self-obsessed

and in trying to fix ourselves and optimize ourselves, we're actually forgetting some of the things that like true happiness, for example, often comes and there's a lot of research to show in being kind to other people and doing things for other people. I think everybody's trapped in a state of fear because health's declining so rapidly. That's why people are becoming self-obsessed. That's why these tech, you know, it's why

it's invented, right? They're trying to help solve a problem, but actually inadvertently, yeah, it's creating self-obsession. It is very black mirror. Yeah, the article said in the internal human quest to know themselves, it's tempting to seize on every bit of information we can glean. And I think it is that it's like just collectively it's this idea like we just creating this like never ending judgment cycle from our bodies through looking at this, but also through then social media and looking at everyone else, creating these spirals of worry. And I think I was then on the flip side doing some research in terms of like, actually, if we kind of put our mindsets on ourselves and more on other things

that can inadvertently actually bring more happiness as a result. There was this big review from the universities of Oxford and Bournemouth carried out, and they did the systematic review of different scientific literature analyzing over 400 published papers on the relationship between kindness and happiness. And they identified 21 studies that had explicitly put this claim that being kind makes you happy to the test, particularly being kind to other people. Does that make us happier?

And in this big meta-analysis, they did show there is a positive benefit of being kind on happiness and that people genuinely do derive huge amounts of satisfaction from helping others. And I don't know, I just was tussling with this in my mind last night. I'm not anti an aura ring, I'm not anti a whoop, I'm not anti, obviously I like my step count at the moment, I'm not anti anything in isolation, but I just worry that like we're becoming so obsessed with naming the type of diet we follow with showing our morning routine on Instagram with having a perfect score or closing

our rings on our Apple watch. And as a result, we're becoming so obsessed with ourselves and bettering ourselves. But you can never be good enough because perfection doesn't exist and life ebbs and flows as I always like to say, it really laughs. But like you just can't be perfect and we're trying to be too perfect and missing the point as a result and becoming as they said quite isolated. We know loneliness is on the rise. Now younger generations are the loneliest of all, lonelier than pensioners who live by themselves. I think we just need to be really aware of the word isolation. Isolation in every sense, isolating one food group, isolating one piece of tech, isolating yourself from human interaction. Yeah, one metric.

One metric for your whole life. You know, I'm just going to use the aura ring or I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to focus on this. And it is everything should be part of a bigger picture. I think you've hit the nail on the head that we're not designed as human beings to work and operate in this way. Yeah. that's what we're being forced into a corner to do. Yeah. So are we too self-obsessed to be happy? I think that was something I really think so. I think sometimes, even I find myself sometimes, like I really love trying to live in the moment and be present.

And I constantly every day, I think gratitude practice is so important. I think if all of us can, like there was a woman on the side of the road and we're walking here on the tube, and I will probably do it on the way back. I didn't have time, I was like, I'm just gonna go and buy something from Pratt like a sandwich and give it to her. And I'm gonna do it on the way back.

And I think it's these things that we see people and we just push it to the back of our mind, don't we? We're not kind, we don't, I'm not saying everybody has to do that, by the way, that's, you know. But I am saying that I think we've forgotten about human connection and the big picture of why we're here. Because if that stuck with me, this one woman I saw walking today and I don't do anything about it, what's the point in me feeling that way in the first place?

Exactly. I totally agree. Anyway, it's just a kind of closing thought for this episode, which is like exercise matters. We know it matters. We know we don't get enough of it, but closing your rings doesn't matter. And I think it is just this sense of, and yeah, I could never have a device like that

because I am an all or nothing person and I would just become fixated. And I could, sorry, the article spoke to me for sure. I would panic about my sleep because I know I don't get it. I just know I don't get decent sleep at the moment of this period of my life with the kids. And I would panic if I saw that written down. What can I do about it right now? Exactly. And I think it's just reminding yourself that these things do matter, your habits do matter, but we can't be perfect.

And I think just taking the pressure off and I think trying to put it more outwards as a generation, we probably do too much navel gazing. We do. We need to look outwards more. If you agree with us as always we do want to know because we are thinking of doing our extra scoop listener questions in September. So we're going to kickstart next year aren't we after the summer break. Yes so we were going to do it now but then we thought actually we're taking August as a summer break so we're going to bring it back in September all singing all So keep compiling your questions. I think I've already got about 400 of them. Yeah, we've got loads. But it's good because it gives us more to work on. It means over the summer we can really get some really good bits. And if we ever have, you know, something to put out there, we will.

But we'll keep our Mondays for you all. And if you do love it, please keep sharing it. And there's the podcast awards. We could be a listener choice. Yes, please vote for us guys. I would be very curious if you guys have a minute to, yeah, leave a message on this, on this like self-obsessed or happy. I am really interested in everyone else's take,

but I just worry that we're spending so much time on our phones, so much time looking at other people, but not connecting with them, trying to be perfect, but then binging on bags of sweets, because we can't be perfect and like, oh just... But then we can go the other way. I find myself feeling sorry for the ants in the garden. Like, you know, we literally, there's just,

and I think, why am I like this? So I do think we all need to try and find our happy medium of connection. Yeah, and maybe start Overthinkers Anonymous. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. We're on a scoop over Thinkers, that could be the next one. Just enjoy our time. Guys, thanks for listening. We will be back next week.

We're talking quite a lot about morning routines next week, which I am so excited about because this is a big thing for me.