You know that mid-afternoon slump when the biscuits tin
suddenly becomes very persuasive.
Or those moments when you know what you should eat, but still
reach for the exact opposite.
In this episode of You Are Not a Frog, i'm joined by nutrition and
health coach Becky Balzano to ask a surprisingly powerful question.
Are you truly nourishing yourself or just getting by?
Now, you might be wondering why are we talking about food on a podcast
about thriving in healthcare?
Well, this is part of a special off-piste summer series where I'm exploring a few
wellbeing topics that don't always make it into conversations about leadership
and burnout, but are absolutely crucial if you wanna stay, well, work
sustainably and feel good doing it.
And here's the truth.
I've been there and it's still a real issue for me.
No matter how well intentioned I was at the start of the day when 3:00 PM
rolled around during afternoon surgery and there was a box of chocolates at
reception or a plate of cakes in the coffee room, I didn't stand a chance.
I'd tell myself, oh, just one won't hurt.
And suddenly half the box was gone.
It often wasn't about hunger, it was about energy, emotion, habit,
and not really knowing what I actually needed in the moment.
So in this episode, Becky and I explore how to decode your body's cravings
instead of being ruled by them.
We talk about why small food swaps can transform your mood and your
focus, and how eating in line with your values can feel less
like a chore and more like relief.
This isn't a guilt trip or another lecture about sugar.
It's an honest, practical conversation for people who wanna feel better,
think clearer, and work happier without overhauling their entire lives.
And you'll come away with practical tips to eat more intentionally,
feel more in control around food, and boost your energy, especially
during those really long demanding days on the front line at work.
So grab a cuppa or pop your walking shoes on and let's go.
If you're in a high stress, high stakes, still blank medicine, and you're feeling
stressed or overwhelmed, burning out or getting out are not your only options.
I'm Dr. Rachel Morris, and welcome to You Are Not a Frog.
I am Becky Balzano.
I'm an ICF accredited coach and working in, in the area of nutrition and health.
Um, I'm also one of the Shapes resilience coaches, and I have studied NLP as
well, so I bring that into the work that I do, one-to-one with clients or
working in organizations, particularly in the areas of helping people to
make changes, sustainable, simple changes in their eating in particular.
Just one element of our health.
We know that there's lots of elements, and we talk about this
on, on the Shapes program as well.
There's, you know, the emotional side and the boundaries and the
sleep all really, really important.
But my fascination is really with the food and how we nourish ourselves.
It's wonderful to have you on the podcast, Becky, because I, a lot of
our listeners really struggle with eating, I think, and it's, uh, not
necessarily knowing what they need to eat.
I mean, I know exactly what I need to eat and I do all these podcasts,
I tell you what I need to eat.
But you know, for me, you know, later in the day I find myself reaching
for that chocolate bar, really craving donuts, things like that.
And then I'll eat stuff.
And I think, why did I do that when at the week I'd set all these
expectations, I've even planned my menu.
But it seems the one thing that's really, really.
Difficult to crack.
I think for lots of people as well, they're working in very high
stress, very busy environments.
It's quite difficult to get access to the right stuff, I think this nutrition thing,
I think it's easy for us to go either way.
Either we can get totally obsessed with it, log everything, say that we are not
gonna eat gluten, dairy, this, that, and the other, and become a complete bore
and so your friends are like rolling your eyes whenever they're out with you.
'cause you're like, well, I'm not, I can't eat that.
I've got to go to a restaurant that's like this or whatever.
Or we're like, oh sod it, I just, you know, it's too, it's too much effort.
I know what I should eat, but you know, I'm really tired and I need
a bit of dopamine, so I'm just going to go for those Creme Eggs.
In that side note on Instagram the other day I saw an advert for
a just roll pastry around a Creme Egg that you put in an air fryer.
And I was like, oh my God, I think I would've died and gone to heaven.
So that, that, that's what you're working with with me.
And I think probably a lot of doctors, um, are like that as well.
I think under stress it's obviously a lot worse, isn't it?
Because we, we try and do those, uh, self-soothing, comforting behaviors,
which for some of us, some lucky people don't get hungry and crave
sweet stuff when they're stressed.
But unfortunately, other people like me, I really do.
But I know there are health implications and I know actually, even though
they're long-term health implications, that often doesn't motivate me.
But actually it's how I feel day to day.
And so what I'd love to talk about today is how we can change how we
feel and how we behave and how we perform and just our overall happiness
just by eating the right stuff.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And honestly, Rachel, you're, you are, you're completely not alone on this.
Lots of the people that I work with are, you know, absolutely, hugely capable.
They know what they should be eating, shouldn't be eating.
and they've got all good intentions, but you're, you are right.
It gets to that sort of afternoon and you, you might reach for the biscuits.
But there's lots of things that we can do to sort of think about
How we can make changes in that.
And it doesn't have to be this sort of all or nothing,.
You know, I'm very much a proponent of this 80%.
In fact, you know, I will, I will confess.
Uh, the other day recently I was getting a train into the city and, uh, I was,
you know, I'd had quite a busy day.
It was a Saturday.
I'd been sort of working all day.
I was going out to meet some friends and I hadn't sort of had time to get lunch.
And I bought some pork pies and a beer from the M&S and I sent
my friend a picture and just this quote going, that's right.
Yeah.
Health coach.
Yep.
Becky, I love the fact I'm picturing you on the, with your pork pies and your beer.
Yeah.
And, you know, and so, and so, this is, this is it, right?
It's, it's that we are probably not going to eat a hundred percent of
the time in the ways that we want to, and maybe we don't want to.
But I think for me, it's certainly become much more intentional.
And I feel that I've got that control back.
You know, I made that intentional choice to choose those things.
And I equally have the same sort of power and intention over not eating those things
as well, because I know, like you said, on a day-to-day basis exactly how I feel.
And so, you know, again, the people that I work with, they'll say, oh,
I'm not, I'm no longer needing that afternoon nap, or I'm going to the toilet
regularly, which is really helpful.
Or actually, my migraines have stopped, my anxiety is down.
You know, um, my focus is, is much, much better.
Um, and so there, there's a huge, there's a huge amount that we
can do in terms of what we're eating and what we're not eating.
So there's, there's always these sort of two camps.
There's, okay, here's some things to go and do and here's some things to reduce.
But it's certainly not about a sort of bikini body for
summer or anything like that.
And it's not about being totally virtuous a hundred percent of the time.
It's, you know, what does food really mean to you?
And you look at people's environment, their values, their identity,
even, um, you know, I can hear from what you are saying, Rachel,
it's sort of, well, all or nothing.
And so, you know, it, it, that's perhaps a little flag to your personality.
And other people will say to me things like, yeah, but you know, it's really
boring, isn't it, to eat like that?
And I'm such a spontaneous person.
And so you can instantly hear then, in people's language,
that sort of clash of values.
And that's where we would start to unpack.
We would start to sort of dig in, um, to the detail and help people to sort of
reframe some of their beliefs around food.
I think that all or nothing one is definitely there because I do
have some really good willpower.
I, I really do.
So if I put my mind to something, I can do it for a short amount of time.
I think that that's like most people, isn't it?
And so I started off Lent going, right?
I'm stopping sugar and I, I manage to stop sugar for like three days.
Yeah, great.
But then the minute it's like, oh so this is all or nothing.
And once it's gone, it's like, well, I'm doing it now.
So I might, I might as well.
There's also the, I think it's just at the end of the day, I think
there's that reward belief as well.
So there's that, you know, I've been working really hard.
I've still got a couple of hours of work to go, I just need that little treat or
that little, I guess it's an energy boost.
But for some reason I never think, oh, I'd love that energy
boost by having a nice apple.
Um, it's, I need that energy boost by having some chocolate or, you know, I
try to eat like a lump of cheese and some nuts and an apple, you know, but
it's sort of like I'm, I'm hunting round, I'm literally hunting round to
see where have I got something, something sweet that's going to make me feel good.
So I think there's that, there's a lot of the dopamine reward
system going on for me there.
And people, listeners know I have, I have a A DH ADHD as you know, Becky.
And so I think that's probably exacerbated not an, I always say it's not an excuse.
It is probably a reason.
But when we're all depleted, when we're depleted, we just do that, don't we?
That's why we have biscuits.
Um, sweet.
I don't, biscuits not my thing, but sweets and chocolate, OMG, you know,
you put a bag of Colin the Caterpillars in front of me, it will be gone.
That's another, possibly another belief I have that I find it
very difficult to limit it.
I have friends that could have one Colin the Caterpillar, and that's fine.
I literally can't, can't stop it.
Don't, I don't feel hungry.
And I know a lot of that is genetic as well.
So I think there's something about not beating ourselves up, that we
have a different genetic makeup from my other half, you know, put
chocolate brownie in front of him.
He could take it or leave it unless he's really hungry.
But for me, even if I'm really full, I'll be eating that brownie.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
There's, there's other things at play here, you know, with the,
with the dopamine hit, um, with the insulin spikes and crashes and
you, we hit sort of hearing about that all the time now, don't we?
Um, and your body sort of signaling, um, oh my goodness, there's no food,
you know, 'cause I've had an insulin crash, so release some cortisol,
get, you know, kick me into action.
Um, and yeah, and definitely that treat, you know, we were given
that as children, weren't we?
It was sort of, if we fell over and grazed our knee, you know, our mom may
have said to us, oh, you know, have a, a chocolate biscuit or a piece of chocolate,
or, you know, something like that.
Um, and we, you know, certainly deserve something, don't we?
We've worked really, really hard.
Of course, we deserve something.
So there's, there's lots of things at play.
And if we sort of look at that in terms of, the different levels,
you know, I, I use my NLP here and, and I sort of refer to a really
helpful model, neurological levels.
And we can look at, you know, kind of where this problem sort
of manifests, where it exists and then we can kind of tackle it.
So in, in the, at the very base of that, you've got your environment.
And so if you've got that packet of Colin Caterpillars in the house,
that's already something that's gonna impact, you know, if it's not there,
if it's out of sight, out of mind.
you know, so, we might be perhaps in an office and there's lots of people
who love bringing in cakes and biscuits and it's somebody's birthday and that
sort of a tradition in the office.
Um, it's the people around us do they sort of eat and drink those sorts of foods?
So, yeah, there's, there's the, the area of environment and then
there's our skills and our knowledge.
You know, do we have that skill set to cook?
Uh, and, and some people, you know, don't.
Do we have the knowledge about what we should eat, what we should not eat?
But then it does shift into the beliefs, doesn't it?
Um, and I know we talk about that in, in Shapes, in, in terms of, you know, what do
we believe is happening in this situation?
What is our belief about, um, you know, what we deserve?
What connections have we made in our mind about food?
You know, for some people it, it means literally means success.
You know, I have, I have that abundance now that I can have all of this food
around me because I'm successful or, you know, it's giving me all this choice, or
why, why shouldn't I, I can, you know, it's no longer something that my parent
maybe controls, you know, in the sense of we'd say, oh, can I have a such and such?
No, you can't.
You know?
Um, and then we become adults and it's like, right, well
I can have that thing now.
And I'm working with another, uh, a man at the moment, and he's sort of, he allows
himself that because it's the one area in his life that he's not successful in.
So it's almost as if he's sort of saying, well, it's okay for me to mess up in this
area, so I will let myself do that to quite sort of drastic consequences really.
Yeah, so we can really start to look at sort of people's beliefs around it.
And then we can actually reframe.
You know, I used to have lots of the same ideas.
It was kind of, well, I deserve a treat.
Um, for, for lots of people it's a bonding experience because
it's really wrapped up, isn't it?
In, in spending time with people.
So other people will say, well, you know, we sit down together and
we have a bottle of wine and some chocolates, and that's what we do,
so that's very ingrained as well.
But that's not to say that we can't change, you know, we can, um,
absolutely sort of create new ways of thinking, new neural pathways.
Um, and we, we know this, don't we, from the work that we do with people.
Um, how can I reframe the situation?
How can I take a step back?
What else might be going on?
You know, what else might be true?
I can say, well, I can also give myself a treat by having, you know, a massage.
Maybe not even not gonna do that every day, but, um, going for a nice walk
or having a really delicious kind of, um, fruit salad or, you know, whatever
it is that you really like, that you think, oh, I wouldn't normally buy
that fruit, or I wouldn't normally, but spend that money on that sort of food.
and still having those things sometimes.
How do we break those connections?
So you've talked a bit about replacing the treat.
So if you're thinking, well, I need a treat.
You're then replacing a treat with something else.
What about these other, these other beliefs?
So the first one is definitely awareness.
So be becoming aware of the significance you place on food.
So that kind of, I deserve something.
Um, you, you've, you've quite rightly pointed out, you are aware of it now and
it's like, right, I deserve that thing.
You know, why shouldn't I have it?
Some, some of it will be your gut bio shouting at you.
Feed me more of that sugar because that's what I want to eat.
And we know there's that brain, um, gut connection.
§ But we can, with some of the NLP techniques, we can kind of
remap those neural pathways.
Um, we can replace that sort of thinking pattern with a different thinking pattern.
And, you know, not to go too much into it, but we use things like
our representational systems.
Um, we get really clear on, on the strategy that people use.
So I might say to people teach me how you do that, you know, how you
end up having a biscuit or a, you know, a bag of Colin Caterpillars.
and We sort of break it down step by step and we almost interrupt that habit.
So it's, it's that habit loop.
You know, lots of people have, have talked extensively about this.
You know, James Clear, and we, um, in his book Atomic Habits, he, he
looks at this as well, it's, it's interrupting the reward system.
And we need to try on these new beliefs, don't we?
We need to start thinking slightly differently and practice that.
And every time we practice that new belief and there is a different reward,
so we feel really good about ourselves that we haven't eaten that thing, or,
you know, we feel very virtuous or we physically feel better that day, um, we,
we are gonna get that instant feedback.
And so.
It does take a little bit of time.
Of course, a new, a new habit, a new neural pathway takes time
to sort of bed in and to become the, the default way of thinking.
Um, but absolutely we can do it in the same way as you probably got
into a car when you were learning to drive and you thought, oh goodness,
I'm never gonna be able to do this.
And you go through that pattern, don't you, of becoming, you know, consciously
competent and then unconsciously competent and you don't even think about.
So right now, I don't really even think about, you know,
I used to drive to Cornwell.
Oh, I still do drive to Cornwell very frequently.
And then every time I went to the petrol station to fill up,
automatically would just pick up a couple of bags of scampy fries.
That was the thing.
Maybe three bags of scampy fries.
I love learning about your eating habits here.
We've got pork pies and fries.
So far, Becky.
I know.
And, um, as you know, I'm, you know, I'm a real sort of advocate of, um,
thinking about food in terms of food sustainability as well in the environment.
So there, there're things actually that I've.
Really wanted to.
So again, our intrinsic motivation, um, you're talking about our beliefs, if we
go sort of higher up those neurological levels, we get to things like our values.
Um, now one of my values is environment.
So if I'm buying things that I know are damaging to the environment, that's gonna
be, uh, real odds with, what I really want for myself with, with my veins, and
I'm gonna feel uncomfortable, icky, sort of, you know, the term is incongruent.
Um, and we know when we feel like this, don't we, we might start feeling
like, oh, this just doesn't sit right with me when I really think about it.
And further up that scale, it's our identity.
So if I said to you, you know, I am a smoker, you know, my behavior
is gonna follow along, my beliefs and values and things are gonna
follow along with that identity.
But if I remove that as an identity and I might say I smoke, it
then becomes, it drops down to a behavior and it's easier to change.
So we work on a different level on this, on this sort of mod
model of neurological levels.
And once if we change that, then the other things often will fall
into place and then we practice.
So we create a habit.
We start with something that is so ridiculously easy that
we don't get that negative.
You know, so giving up sugar for lent, uh, you know, depending on your sort
of appetite for sugar and you know how much sugar you eat, it could be.
Easy, difficult, you know, I've also given up sugar for Lent.
Um, so is my partner.
He messaged me yesterday and said, I'm desperate for a biscuit with my tea.
Today, i've had a third meeting where somebody's brought sweets in, you
know, and I sort of joked sort of.
So stay strong, stay strong, darling.
Um, I'm not really bothered by it.
It's not really impacting me.
Now, that wouldn't have been the case a few years ago.
I would've been pacing around, seeking out.
Yeah, so, so it is, it's, it can be different for different people.
So you start with something that's really easy.
So giving it up for 40 days, if you are having sugar every day,
it's gonna be really difficult.
So we might start with looking at, okay, so where does, where
does sugar show up in your diet?
Do you have sugar?
in Your tea, do you have the biscuit in the afternoon?
Do you have a sugary breakfast?
Do you always want a dessert after a meal?
And we would just pick one, you know, one of those things.
And it might be, okay, my sugar in my tea is gonna go from two teaspoons to one
teaspoon, or, you know, it is gonna go from, so it is gonna be ridiculously easy.
So we, so we are kind of approaching the issue on all of the levels.
So right from identity to values to beliefs to behaviors, to environment.
And so in that way we, we are gonna help to change not only
the belief, but the behaviors and the identity that go alongside.
that and then, and then we practice and we sort of embed that new habit.
And it becomes then almost unconscious.
You know, I remember giving up sugar in my tea thinking I'm never gonna
do this, is I'm never gonna happen.
And now, I mean, if I pick up the wrong tea or coffee now and it's got sugar,
I'm kind of like, oh, oh, it's awful.
So, and similarly with desserts, and I've sort of, you know, picked away at
these things, one thing at a time, I think that's often a mistake that people
make, is they say, right, that's it.
January the first, you know, whole new diet, whole new exercise.
And it's, it, that's just not gonna work.
We know it doesn't work, don't we?
We have, so probably, um, you know, people have apps on their phone with a
whole new fitness program on their, you know, different apps on e eating apps.
And so we know that it's not, that, it's not the information, it's
not the fear of the information.
Otherwise, there'd be lots of people who'd.
Don't smoke, you know, we don't smoke.
Um, because it's not that we don't know about it.
Um, and again, going back to this sort of the reasons we do it, it's often, um.
Referring to NLP.
'Cause I find NLP actually, along with sort of coaching strategies, um, the NLP
techniques can be really, really useful.
Um, and that's the, the neurolinguistic programming, sort of
the internal dialogue that we have.
Um, and with food especially, or things like smoking or behaviors that we,
we think, I don't want that behavior, you know, I know it's bad for me.
Why am I doing it?
It's often the secondary gain.
So we talk about this secondary gain.
Um, so smoking is a classic one.
Um, we don't really get a gain, do we, from the taste of
cigarettes or the feeling, maybe the feeling that it gives us.
What we get, we get a break from our working day, we get a moment
to pause and focus on a new task.
We get a social connection.
So we might go, it's that person that you go out, you know, remember when
we, we didn't smoke at work, but we might have gone to the smoking room.
I remember I used to work for, um, Cambridge University exam syndicate
years ago, and they had a smoking room, you know, so you'd go to
the room full of, full of smoke.
I mean, ridiculous to think about it now, but there would be people
in the room that you'd see.
So it was that sort of, that secondary gain.
And so when we are thinking about food, we want to maintain the secondary gain.
So do you still get the connection with the partner?
Do you still get the treat?
Do you still get the reward?
Do you still get the f the feeling of abundance or, you know, if
people come round for dinner, we pr want to give them, don't we?
Lots of lovely food.
We want to, to show them that we love them, so we're going to give
them more things and feed them.
Um, and we are gonna accept that gift of love that's coming in the way of food.
So how can we maintain that?
Of course, we want to maintain, um, the gain that we get from those
things, but just in a different way.
You know, I can equally, and I, again, I used to say to people, oh,
you wanna go for a coffee and a cake?
You know, it's great.
Now I say, and I think I've said to you recently, Rachel, let's go for a walk.
So we can still have the catch up.
And it's really nice.
The weather's gorgeous at the moment, and, you know, maybe we'll take a, a,
you know, mug of coffee with us, but we won't be passing a sort of cafe or
having a sticky cake and we'll feel good.
So we still sort of doing the same sorts of things, still bonding
with people, still having a treat.
That secondary gain is, is something really interesting.
'cause like you said, we all know with cigarettes, like the nicotine,
you can get over the nicotine addiction pretty quickly, like
only in a few days, and you can use nicotine patches to, to wean you off.
So the physical craving goes, it's a psychological thing, isn't it?
Totally the, the psychological craving.
I guess with food it's a little bit different though, isn't it?
Because, you know, nicotine, we can live very well our lives without nicotine.
Like nobody needs nicotine to survive as a human being.
But we need, we need food.
We have to, we have to eat to survive.
And it's part of every single culture, isn't it?
And we all use it as a treat.
We all have special occasions where we eat particular types of food.
So telling yourself, well, it's food isn't a treat, or
whatever that, that's not true.
Um, and also there are, our brains are hardwired to, to crave
sugar, I guess, aren't they?
Because it's a survival thing and it's like, oh gosh, my blood sugar's low.
What can I get that's going to give me the biggest boost?
Even though we know now, then there's lots of researchers in it that these
high sugar peaks are really, really bad for us in, in terms of inflammation
and, diabetes and, and, and all of that.
So we know that.
But not only have we got the cultural thing, we've also got the thing we
have to, we have to eat to live.
We've then got the, our bodies saying, oh, I really need this microbiome.
Doesn't, doesn't help but maybe talk about that later.
Um, so there is a lot of secondary gain, but the part of the
secondary gain is staying alive.
Which, Which, is, is important obviously.
Um,
True.
It's true.
I would just, I mean, I would just unpack that a little bit and,
and you know, people will say to that, well, I can't stop eating.
I can't stop just eating.
And I say, well, absolutely not, but how many different foods do you know of?
You know, and I'm, and I'm suggesting maybe, or I'm inviting
you, maybe to cut out one item.
So you could stop having sugar.
You would definitely not die.
Um, it is
I might though.
I might.
And well, I mean, we do know it, it is highly addictive sugar.
It's in so many things.
Um, but yeah, so I, I think, you know, there's, there's a bit of learning here in
terms of, or being a bit more intentional.
So looking at the ingredients of things, um, and saying, okay, I could actually,
I could actually cut that one item out.
So even if it was just one item, so it was sugar, which is probably the
one that is, would make the most difference, I think, to most people.
Um, it's in so many things, you know, baked beans.
I think I picked up a kind of, um, tinned mackerel the other
day with, uh, it did have tomato sauce, but there was sugar in it.
And you just think, well, that's just ridiculous.
You know, it's tinned macker.
And so yeah, we, we can, we can cut out one, one food group, or not
group, sorry, one food item, sugar.
Um, or if there's foods that are causing, you know, causing us
problems in terms of intolerances, again, that might be one thing, you
know, sesame seeds, for example.
And we are up against, aren't we?
Were up against the marketing of all of these products.
We are up against, you know, the cultural piece, which you've talked about.
And we're up against our brain, you know, saying Go and get, we
need some energy, go and get some.
Um, but our brain is, is fantastic, and our system is fantastic.
It can make a lot of the things that we need.
There's some things, you know, we know about some essential, um,
macro and micronutrients that, that we do need to get from our food.
But sugar is not one of them, um, in, in, you know, table sugar.
So we could cut that out.
I mean there, there, there's, there's two issues I think we've got, I
mean, one of them is cravings.
Like when we get those cravings, it's, it's for sugar, it can
be, you know, hunting around the house trying to find a thing.
You know, the other day I found a, having an entire packet of cranberries just
because I'm like, I need some sugar.
Um, the other thing is a lot of us don't have much time.
Now I obviously, we talk about the fact you make time for what's important,
and that's really good in principles.
So like in the ideal world, we're preparing salads before we go to work.
We're taking them with us.
We've got nice healthy nuts in our bag that we can snack on, whatever, but
sometimes you just haven't got them and you're, you're on call or you're
at that petrol station going somewhere, or you're at the train station.
You've got M&S and all the pork pies and all that sort of stuff.
So I think the time factor is huge and add in cravings and not having time
and that's, that's the perfect storm.
Now, I guess there's something about well change the environment, change
that, and change the business and stuff.
And that's the, i that's the ideal.
But what do you do when you are in those situations?
Great question.
Um, I, and the Shapes Toolkit comes back to me in, in here.
You know, that's sort of treating the symptom.
We wanna work before that, so we want to, to not be in that
stressed, rushed position.
So it is sort of working on that, how, how can I make sure that I don't get
myself into that position where I'm really stressed and rushed, um, where I do have
the boundaries and the ability to say no?
Um, but sometimes, yeah, you will have that thing.
But I think if you say, well, that's gonna be sort of 10%, 20% of the time,
um, and there are also, you know, choices that we can make even within that, um,
and help it not to then snowball into, oh, well I've had, you know, a CRO on for
breakfast now that's the whole day out.
Um, I can restart at lunchtime.
I can restart right in this moment, you know, any second of the day.
Um, so I think if you hold that as a belief as well, some people will strongly
believe, okay, well once I've had one thing that's the whole day ruined, We
can, we can shift our thinking on that.
But yeah, it's absolutely like we do in, in, in Shapes is before that
happens, let's think about boundaries, let's think about situations, let's
think about, um, and actually Rachel, you know, if we didn't have anything,
that wouldn't be a bad thing.
So, you know, there's research now about neurogenesis and um, fasting so sometimes
when I'm in that situation, I'm kind of thinking to myself, well actually I
just won't have anything if I don't have anything for a few hours, no problem.
Don't eat well.
I mean, there is something, there is something about that I think,
particularly when it comes to cravings and, um, I probably will do a podcast on
this, and I know you've done something similar, Becky, but I did this alcohol
experiment in January where I just wanted to, you know, see what life was
like, not having, you know, alcohol, weekends, if that helped me feel
better, and it, it really, really did.
And so I've, you know, drastically reduced my drinking just have
like one or maximum two drinks now and it feels so much better.
But they talked about cravings that people get for alcohol,
particularly when you are out.
And so, and there's a lot of it around and stuff.
But they do talk about the fact that cravings, they're like waves,
they, they don't just like build up and up and up and up and up.
They actually come and then they go.
So you think it's just gonna get a lot worse.
So sometimes just, just hanging on in there and thinking, well, in half an hour
if I'm still hungry, I'll, I'll do that.
I'll have some sugar or in half an hour, if I still want
a drink, then, then I will.
But often you're thinking actually it's not quite so strong though,
that's that's totally fine.
So do you, is that sort of thing you advise?
It's like, I identify those cravings and maybe ride it out.
Ride out the wave?
Certainly, yeah.
So, um, I, I, I've, um, done that same alcohol experiment and they,
and they do, they do talk about that and also they go into the beliefs.
It's fantastic, you know, real kind of, um, yeah, love the work.
Um, Annie Grace's work and um, it's the same with food.
So, you know, when I've done sort of, uh, different lengths of time of fasting, so
sort of that's right from sort of 12 hours to a three day water fast, um, recently.
You will get hunger pangs, you will get cravings, but you're absolutely right,
they last a really short amount of time.
You know, there there'll be times where I think, oh, I'm sort of feeling peckish,
or I'm feeling hungry, or I'm feeling, you know, I would really like whatever.
And you just take a few deep breaths and you acknowledge it and say,
yeah, I am feeling hungry and that's okay, and I can move past that.
I, I'm, I'm, I will be absolutely fine if I don't have that biscuit.
Um, and I, you know, I've experienced it even in the morning.
I try not to have anything before eight, 8:00 AM obviously if I'm exercising
slightly different, there's a whole routine for that, but it'll be, you know,
seven 30, like, oh, I'd really, want that sort of creamy coffee, have a, you know,
oat milk in it and some MCT oil, and I think, no, I'm just gonna wait till late.
I'm just gonna go and do something else.
Um, and that really does pass quite quickly.
And again, the more you practice that, the more that just becomes part of you,
just part of who you are, you know?
So I will say now, I, I'm a person.
I don't have a dessert after a meal.
I just don't have one.
It doesn't occur to me.
I don't, I don't miss it.
I don't think about it.
So the craving is that sort of real, can be real sort of
visceral response, can't it?
And physical.
But there's some strength in that as well, sort of feeling into that
and going, I'm doing this, you know, I'm feeling it, I'm experiencing it.
I'm, I'm overcoming that slight discomfort, um, that craving.
Um, yeah.
And I've, you know, I've, done some courses on, on addiction recovery, so I,
you know, have experience in sort of, um, alcohol and drug addictions and things
and, and similarly, it's sort of one day can really work one day at a time.
And there's, you know, we can look at food addiction and they, they've
adopted the 12 step program as well.
And it is the same sorts of ideas and theories of, yeah, feel, you will
feel the desire, the craving, um, especially with things like sugar.
But you can take a few deep breaths.
You can acknowledge it, you can, you know, distract yourself.
You can say, okay, I'm really rewiring my brain in this moment.
To think differently about how I approach, um, what I'm eating.
So I, I mean, travel is, uh, is a really tricky one.
People will say, when I travel, you know, all it all goes out the window.
I can't find the food.
You know, we know about food deserts now, don't we?
In, if you go past any service station or even a lot of the supermarkets, it it's
aisle upon aisle of stuff that really you could, you're not really gonna want
to eat, it's not gonna nourish you.
And so I often now say to myself, okay, I'm traveling.
Um, and I'll eat when I get there, you know, and so that'll be six hours.
I'll take a bottle of water, you know, I might take an apple or some nuts.
and I'll, and I'll see through, but the cravings will be dramatically
reduced if you are not having those sorts of foods in the first place.
Um, so it'll be harder to, for example, go into a fast if you've
been eating donuts and bottles of wine and pork pies beforehand.
yes, they do, they do say that once you've sort of stopped eating
sugar for a while, you, you do stop the, you do stop the craving.
And I know people talk about the dopamine fast and they're this fast
and they're that fast and there's different legs are fasts you can do,
not sure what the evidence is about this, about which fast does what, but
I know there is a lot of really good evidence for, for fasting actually.
I find it easier just not to have breakfast and not to eat,
not to eat till lunchtime.
So that's good for me.
But then I find later in the afternoon, like, like I said,
hunting around for the sugar.
I'll just go to the internal motivation here because I think what
possibly a lot of us haven't put together is the effect of what we're
eating on our, on our health, and particularly our, our mental health.
So we all know in the long term, if you're scoffing donuts all the time, you, you
might be much more prone to diabetes, heart disease, all that sort of thing.
But we haven't really, and I didn't until very recently, associate
having a big piece of cake with how I then felt in two hours time.
And I'm starting to feel like, I feel really awful.
I feel really, really tired.
Was it because I had that really sugary, massive two pieces of cake two
hours ago and I'm just experiencing this massive blood sugar drop.
So when we're eating badly, when we're putting crap in our bodies, it's just
putting our blood sugar up and not actually nourishing us, what sort of
symptoms and feelings have you found that clients you've worked with are having?
With the, with the people that I work with, it'll be things like brain fog.
So we know there's lots of links with foods like wheat in particular that
will cause that inflammation help will, will make you feel irritable.
You know, there's lots of links now with, yeah, wheat, sugar,
alcohol on our cognitive ability, on our, particularly on our mood.
So, um.
Patrick Holford actually in his latest book, cites several studies, and this
blew my mind, um, linking a country's suicide murder and depression rates
with the amounts of seafood they eat.
And of course this is all to do with the Omega-3 and the seafood.
Just checking.
The higher the fish, the lower the suicide and murder.
Right?
Like fish doesn't cause us to kill each other.
no.
just just checking that I got the right way round.
Okay.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So the more seafood a country eats, the lower the murder,
suicide and depression rates.
Um, and there's lots of links with, all sorts of other co cognitive, conditions
like a DHD, um, in terms of food.
Um, but, you know, on a, on a kind of day-to-day basis, I know that I
don't think very clearly if I've had, you know, a sandwich and some cake.
I just don't.
So the gut biome plays into this as well.
So there's lots of research that shows us now that actually the food
we eat is is literally the building blocks of our neurotransmitters.
And I know we sort of cover this, don't we, in Shapes and we look at, those
really important neurotransmitters like serotonin, like dopamine, um,
but also, um, the effect that insulin, insulin has on things like cortisol.
So it will give us, uh, more cortisol as well.
We know what happens when we have that high circulating cortisol.
So actually eating in that way can actually make us feel stressed.
You know, it can make us feel foggy, stressed, irritable.
Um, I, I certainly know that it impacts my mood.
Um, things like wheat.
So then it is a bit of a catch 22, isn't it?
Because then when we are feeling stressed and irritable and grumpy and moody and
lacking in energy, what do we want?
We want to go and eat those sorts of cakes and biscuits.
and foods like that.
but if we are feeding our brain and our gut biome in the right way,
um, then the, the opposite happens.
Um, so we, we can sort of increase our clarity and our focus, um, and our mood.
We're gonna be feeling better when we are having, those sorts
of foods with phytonutrients.
I think that's really important, this vicious cycle that you talk about.
You're eating stuff that's probably gonna make you feel stressed, but
in order to feel less stressed, when I'm stressed, I don't go, oh,
I could really fancier falafel.
It's like, yeah, where we're stressed, we then hunt for those sorts of
foods that are gonna make us stress.
You've got this, this dreadful sort of cycle that just ends in,
I don't know, drowning in a pile of donuts or something like that.
Yeah.
I think it, it is very much, it is very much sort of cyclical, isn't it?
It's, we make ourselves want what we need by, you know, feeding our gut biome.
That's gonna give us that messaging.
You know, we, when we eat things like donuts and burgers and chips and things
like that, I don't know about you, Rachel, but do you feel sort of satisfied
really when you kind of eat those things?
Or do you sort of feel like, actually now I just want more of those things?
So for me, I sort of will eat them and then I instantly want more.
I won't have one piece of toast and say, oh, that's delicious.
I'm really satisfied.
Um, I think you talked about the Colin the cCterpillars, that
you will just eat another one.
It doesn't give you that satisfaction, does it?
So the way that we help ourselves to want what we need is to sort of rewire
our brains in terms of the, the neural pathways of the beliefs and things.
Um, but also to feed our gut biome, which is the thing that is
giving us a lot of the messaging, um, about what we want to eat.
So if, if there is, you know, huge amount of bacteria that feeds on sugar,
they will be shouting the loudest.
And so sometimes it's not really us choosing, it's them choosing.
Um, so we can capitalize on things like this by feeding our gut biome so
that we are feeding the right ones.
And also if you think about, putting things into your system,
that don't fuel you, you kind of.
Create this cycle of wanting more of it.
Again, I suppose it's that sort of addictive cycling.
How do you feed your gut biome?
What are your quick and easy ways to do that?
One super quick way is the fermented foods.
We hear a lot about these now, don't we?
But actually they're really, really easy to get in.
So if you are already having sort of Greek yogurt for breakfast, just
buy the one with the kefir in it.
You know, fizzy drinks, buy the, um, fizzy water kefir or the kombucha.
Include the fermented food, so the sauerkraut, the kimchi, our gut bio
love, all of that sort of stuff.
Um, they also love fiber, so this is another really sort of
underestimated, uh, quick win.
I think.
Um, we are hearing so much now, aren't we?
About protein.
It's all about the protein.
Get more protein.
Um, actually our gut biome is, is really responsible for the way
that we think and feel and operate.
And it doesn't necessarily eat protein, it eats fiber.
And so adding more fiber into our diet is gonna make a huge difference.
And of course, that's gonna regulate blood sugar and things like that as
well as net and reduce inflammation.
It's gonna help us to feel fuller for longer, so we're probably
not going to want to eat.
Also, if we're having fiber rich foods and we're having to chew our food.
Um, so again, lots of these ultra processed foods are
very easy to eat, aren't they?
They're soft, palatable, we can chuck them down, swallow them down,
we don't have to sort of chew.
So that sort of chewing not only it gives us that fiber, but it's also
that cephalic phase of digestion.
So it's really helping our brain and our gut to sort of think about oh those food
coming in, the, all the signaling that goes on then around that to help us to
feel sort of satisfied and nourished.
So, um, adding is like simply adding vegetables to your plate.
So, can I get, and again, going back to making it very easy.
So not saying change the whole plate now, you know, but can you add one
more thing, one more piece of veg?
You know, can you switch to whole meal bread?
I mean, I would like you to not eat bread at all, but can
you switch to a whole meal?
If you think about, you know, porridge for example, somebody will say, oh,
you know, porridge is really great.
So I have one of those sort of instant oats with syrup and,
and you're thinking.
Okay, so porridge is just not one item anymore, is it?
Uh, you know, when I have porridge, I'm having overnight oat grs that
have been soaked with flax seeds.
Um, and I'll add some kefir and some berries with them, and I
would've made that the night before.
So it's really quick.
I might have made three jars, pop them in the fridge.
Um, I'm not having instant oats.
So all of these foods really have a scale, and it's about just saying
to yourself, okay, how can I go up that scale a little bit more?
How can I rebalance my omega-3, my omega six?
How can I add?
So another really, really simple, one tablespoon of ground flax seeds.
Now that's gonna kind of tick, you know, three boxes.
Um, you are getting the fiber, you are getting the omega 3s, um, you are
also getting, um, the, uh, nutrients, um, from the, from the flax seeded.
So those things are really simple.
Have it in your fridge, chuck it onto a salad or a smoothie or a
porridge, and you are gonna start to then re kind of rebalance your
gut system, which is often the, the system that is giving the message.
You know, we know about all of the neurons now in our gut, don't we, that
are signaling to our brain through the vagus nerve, um, and how that works.
So, also if you are switching, switching things in and out.
So if you are maybe having fish instead of having maybe, um, red meat,
that's kind of lowering the red meat that you have, which can be linked to
inflammation and increasing the omega-3.
Combine carbohydrates with good, good, healthy fats, um, and proteins.
So that will balance that, um, spike.
Um, so that insulin in spike can also kind of wake us up in the nighttime.
So if we are having, lots of people will have sort of carbie things or
sugary meals, sugary things before bed, you know, it's sitting down having a,
some chocolate before they go after bed, um, or a sort of sugary drink.
And so then in the night you might get that crash, then you've got that release
of cortisol, then that wakes you up.
And so you are then a bit more tired in the morning.
And we all know what we do when we are tired, we then start the cycle
again the next day, reaching for the coffee, reaching for the sugary things,
and we're on that rollercoaster.
Now we can choose to get off of that or we can choose for the rollercoaster to be
a bit more of a gentle ride, um, for us.
So adding sort of beans and pulses.
I added much to, well, actually I say much to their disgust.
My teams did notice that I had put beans into the cottage pie,
meat mixture the other day.
So I, you know, I will add some more fiber in.
Because if they say, oh, I don't want the vegetables.
So I put these white beans into the sort of the bolognese bit, the meat bit.
And they're like, Hmm, yeah, not really sure about the beans, mom.
I mean, you know, you could have left those out.
I said, well, did you, do you like the mash about the mashed potato on top?
Yeah, yeah, the mash is really good.
Well, I hadn't told them I'd added half tin of beans to the mash as well, so,
Stealth beanage
yeah, so I'm not, I'm not suggesting that you lie to your children.
But again, it is sort of easy ways to help your biome and to rewire
your brain and then your, your palate changes too, doesn't it?
So when you are eating, you know, in a slightly different way and you're
reducing things like sugar and then you have something that's got a lot
of sugar, you don't really like it.
And, and similarly, I sort of noticed this, and maybe you did too
with the alcohol, and Annie Grace does a great job, doesn't she?
Of saying, does it really taste good?
Did you not have to work quite hard to get used to the taste of, alcohol?
And now I find that things are actually too sweet for me.
You know, I would, I would say again to, I'd do it to my kids.
There was always a mummy tax on, uh, to these type puddings in restaurants.
Right, mummy tax, I just want one teaspoon, you know?
I just want that little bit of a taste.
And I've had it, I'm full, had a good meal.
So all of these, it's, it's all of these little things, Rachel, that
build up over time that then become so automatic, um, that you don't
really think about them anymore.
I don't really think about not having a dessert, don't feel that I'm missing out.
I don't think about, some days I'm not drinking, I don't, I go
out and don't drink with people.
It doesn't sort of bother me and as much anymore.
So I've rewired my brain and essentially sort of reset my gut
biome so that it's working for me and I'm not bling against it.
But yeah, it's gradual and picking something, picking off these little
things very slowly, making changes, um, getting somebody to be accountable
to, you know, we talk, don't we, about who's in your tribe, who's in
your community, who's around you?
And that comes, falls into that sort of environment box.
You know, who, who's gonna be there being your cheerleader, um, that
you're gonna be accountable to as well, and getting other people on side,
Becky, that, that's so, that's so helpful.
I think the thing, for me, the standout thing is doing it so
you're not battling against it.
Because the minute we start to feel deprived, the minute we start
to feel like, oh gosh, this is a lifelong deprivation, no sugar's
gonna be a lifelong deprivation, or this health eating's, a lifelong de
deprivation of me, that's when our brains just go, oh, come on, it's
really not, it's really not worth it.
But like you said, if you do it a little by little, so you're not wanting
it anymore, then you're not gonna even, you're not gonna even notice.
But small things do, make a big, do, make a big difference.
I do think when I'm thinking about actually what, what stops us?
I think that using the zone of power is quite useful.
The zone of power for people that listening is simply a circle on a
sheet of papers, like what's in our control and what's not in our control.
And one of the things people I'm sure say to you all the time, and
I've already mentioned it, is I don't have time, I just don't have time
to make that homemade bolognese to take my snacks to work or whatever.
What, uh, is generally in people's zone of power?
I know planning in advance is, and actually it wouldn't
take that long to plan.
Thinking actually, what could I bring with me as opposed
to, just having to buy stuff.
What have you found actually works for people in terms of
when people don't have time?
We talk about it, don't we?
Don't bring it into the house that is in your zone of power.
Don't stop at the petrol station.
You know, put in your mind I'm, I'm going in to get petrol.
That's what I'm getting petrol.
But yeah.
So somebody's at work.
They haven't maybe had breakfast, they've rushed out in the morning.
Um, you know, they've had a really busy sort of load of patients that morning,
um, and there's a box of biscuits in the, you know, in the staff room.
Of course, that's gonna be, that's gonna be difficult.
It's around our boundaries, isn't it?
It's around honoring ourselves and saying no.
Um, we don't wanna upset people.
We don't want to, you know, I think that somebody said to me recently as
well, well, I didn't wanna upset so and so because they'd, they'd baked a
cake, you know, and I, and I thought I was gonna really a offend them.
It's absolutely in our zone of power to say, you know, I'm
just not eating that today.
Or have it, have the thing, enjoy that piece of home baked cake.
You know, be much more intentional and discerning about what you're eating.
If somebody has bought in a home baked cake, I would absolutely say thank
you very much, that is delicious.
I'm gonna have that.
I'm not gonna have the sort of, then I'm gonna say later, I'm not gonna
have the sort of crappy, you know, full of additives, rubbishy sort of food.
I kind of deserve better, you know, I have that sort of respect now for my
body that, you know, I'm, I eat really good food and, and really nice things.
So if, if you're gonna have it, have it, and don't let it sort of,
don't beat yourself up about it.
And you know it, we talk about that second arrow, don't we?
That sort of Buddhist idea of, of, okay, I've had the thing and now
I'm gonna beat myself up about it for hours later, So it is, it is
allowing yourself the flexibility.
Probably.
We, we don't want to change everything about the way we eat for
the rest of our lives, um, we do want to be able to have treats, as
it were, and have certain foods.
They're really tied in culturally, aren't they?
And into, our kind of whole sort of interactions with
people and relationships.
Um, but so yeah, so have the thing, if you want the thing.
You don't need to write off the rest of the day.
You can have half of the thing, you can have a teaspoon of the thing, you
know, like I would say to somebody, I don't need a huge slab of cake.
I would just like a little taste of that and, you know, and I'll enjoy that and
I've, you know, not offended that person.
So we can, we can think about portion control, so not, it's another thing.
Um, so we can say no, think about portion control.
We can have it, but then not let it, um, dismantle the rest of the day.
We can notice, well, what led to that?
You know, what was I feeling?
Um, and so again, I will ask people what they're eating.
I'll say that, here's a food diary.
I'd be really interested to see what you're eating.
Now, I'll often get, oh, I don't have time for a food diary.
And I say, well, okay, so every time you eat something just take a quick photo
on your phone and WhatsApp it to me.
So I have a couple of clients doing that currently.
And, you know, it's archived so it's not just interrupting me.
Um, but I said, I want you to put one word next to that photo to
describe how you were feeling.
And actually, that builds up a really, really quick picture.
So it is tired, rushed, you know, stressed, um, et cetera, et cetera.
And so going back again to, okay, so what, what's causing you to be tired
and what's causing you to be rushed?
And, and, and this is the same with with stress, isn't it?
And resilience.
We talk about this in, in Shapes.
How can we prevent that happening in the first place?
So good.
'cause I think this all or nothing thing it, it's so important.
And we are just about to finish.
But yesterday I was with a, uh, GP practice doing an away day with
them around conflict and how we can like disagree more but better.
And because I didn't want to have really low blood sugar, I don't
normally eat breakfast, but the hotel I was staying, they just
provided pastries in the morning.
So I had a pastry and they were really nice.
I had another one as well.
So I'd had two pastries in the morning, don't normally have it.
I then got to the, the venue.
We had really great training.
It was such a, a wonderful practice.
Um, but then there was another pastry at coffee time because I
thought, well, I've had to already, I might as well have another one.
And then there was cake and so that's, it was just like a complete, but it
was that mindset of I've already had it, therefore it's already written.
If I'd just been like, actually, okay, well that was breakfast.
It doesn't mean that now for lunch and dinner, I have to, I have to lose it.
So I think that's really helpful, just remembering that it's, it's, it's never
too late to just like reset for the day.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
You can say, okay, I've had that and I'm gonna choose differently.
Or you can say, today I'm gonna eat whatever I want to eat.
So be intentional about that.
You set the boundaries around it and the parameters around what that means.
And, you know, it's, it's choice, isn't it?
It's, it is how much longer do we want to continue feeling sluggish,
you know, kind of foggy, um, you know, not going to the toilet regularly,
um, uncomfortable sort of all of those other symptoms that we, that we all get.
You know, I know that I want to be feeling productive and
focused and clear and energetic.
I, I don't, you know, I don't wanna have that afternoon dip.
I've got loads to do and lots I want to do.
At the end of the day, it's about self-care, isn't it?
It's about the fact that you know your body, I read this
recently, your body's your office.
I mean, it's literally, it's where you live, Whereas I value going to the
gym much more highly than literally walking around the corner and buying
some vegetables for lunch and a, a, you know, to make a decent salad.
So I'll, I'll put a lot of time to one area but not the other.
And so maybe it is time that we do go actually out now, now is the time
to put some, some time and thinking into, into what we're eating.
So it's gonna make us function better and feel better.
We're all wanting to feel better, and often we are going off in these
different directions and spending a lot of money on wanting to feel better.
We're actually eating well, compared to, you know, having a
massage a week, which is what, a hundred quid a week or whatever.
You know, you could spend that money eating really, really
well and just see how you feel.
So really helpful.
Becky, if people wanna get hold of you, how can they find you?
people can look at website, um, LinkedIn, and I can put those, those
links into the, into the notes and some videos on Instagram and things.
Um, there's always the option to have a chat.
I love, you know, Rachel, I love chatting to people.
Uh, I love to sort of find out what, what people's challenges are so people
can just simply book a free chat with me or a coffee, you know, I'd love to go
for a walk with somebody or, you know, a metaphorical or a sort of online walk.
Great.
So book a chat with Becky and if you wanna get some coaching
with her around this 'cause and there's no shame in that as well.
I think it's really, really important If, if there's anything to get coaching
on, it's actually how we're eating and how we're looking after our, our bodies.
Um, I know you've got some free resources as well, Becky, so
we'll put those in the chat too.
So thank you so much for joining us and hopefully we'll
have you back at some point.
And if anyone's got any questions for Becky.
write in.
Yeah.
Send them my way.
Thank you so much, Rachel.
It's been such a pleasure chatting to you, but I could talk all day about this.
Thanks for listening.
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