Eat for energy not weight loss! Em the Nutritionist: food impacts mood

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that looks after both your body and your mind. Today, I'm chatting to Emily English, otherwise known as Em the Nutritionist. One thing that I really want to try and encourage this year is independence in our own thoughts about our own bodies. If anyone's going into the new year and they've struggled with gut issues, digestive issues, IBS, you know how debilitating it can be. There is nothing worse when you feel out of control with your gut health. And we know that fibre is key for the gut, but also things like managing your stress levels.

0:37how's your emotions that's really going to make a bigger impact and it's not just about the glass of wine or the sweets well hi and a very very happy new year to you it's only bloody january i think i'm quite excited about january this year i don't really know why um i love christmas i think by this point i am well and truly over it quite frankly i'm ready for a fresh start but in a positive way i don't want all this bloody pressure of having to set goals or to be you know doing things completely differently like I'm a brand new person I'm still me and I'm flawed and I've got things going on and sometimes my brain works in a weird way and I'm not going to expect anything other than that so I think I'm not having a new year's resolution of any sort but what I will do is make a promise to myself I'm going to be nice to myself because I think that is the one thing that I definitely can change I can be a bit nicer to myself a bit kinder to myself and these are the sort of themes that we really want to look at in today's podcast.

1:37I felt like it was really important for January to sort of go against the grain and not talk about having to overhaul everything in your life to be this new shiny person in January. Quite frankly, fuck that. So let's crack on with the guest. Emily is a nutritionist with a degree from King's College, London. She spent her childhood summers in her granny's restaurant kitchen and her school time in the chemistry lab. So she's always had a curiosity for what the food on our plates does inside our bodies. But it wasn't until her own relationship with food suffered after a period in the modelling industry that she decided to study nutrition at university.

2:15Oh God, we talk about so much in this. We do talk a lot about Christmas wrecking havoc with routine and your gut and all that jazz. I mean, it just does. And it doesn't have to be a problem. It doesn't have to be something that you feel wrapped with guilt about. You've enjoyed it. You've had a great time. But now what? How can we get that gut feeling good again after all the wine and the quality streets? We also talk about ditching crash dieting because it's a load of old shit. We also we do get onto serious stuff because obviously I've got history with food problems. So we talk about how debilitating it can be when you feel out of control with food and also how that impacts people around you.

2:54Like looking at parents, you know, I regret putting my mum through so much shit with that one. So we do get onto that subject too. So there's loads and loads in here, advice and hopefully a bit of guidance and just some lovely chat too.

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5:12Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

5:36Hello, Em. Hello. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's lovely to have you on Happy Place. This feels like the perfect time to have you on the podcast. It's January. I think potentially the most confusing time of year when it comes to food. It's a time where there's a lot of pressure and noise about having to literally rehaul your whole diet out of nowhere and deal with it. And we're not even sure why we're doing that anymore. Why do you think this is such a confusing time of year and how can we flip that on its head? I think that the health and wellness space is probably one of the most opinionated spaces where every single time you consume any information on any social platform news article magazine every single thing is conflicting so if you're someone who is thinking okay it's January I'm going to start my health journey you turn to these platforms and you're like oh my god where do I even stop and then you go down one route and you think okay well I've sussed it I know what to do and then suddenly something comes down it kind of like blows out the water so I think for me it's like all of those opinions and the level of intensity and commitment to those opinions that these people have like people will scream and shout and demonize and make everything feel really black and white whereas there's a lot of emotion behind food i know i can picture i've seen the videos on instagram where people are sort of saying you cannot eat this you should and you end up feeling scared like what am i meant to be eating what's toxic what you know it's just so bloody confusing and i think this is also the time where people go on a crash diet because and it's all about weight we're not looking at anything else in terms of the benefits of actually eating food so people end up doing a crazy diet that they'll probably sustain for two weeks and then they're like actually sod this this is miserable and then you end up going completely the other way it's so bizarre massively I think so much of that is fear-mongering and I feel it whenever I go into a room or I meet new people and I say hi I'm a nutritionist the automatic reaction is I'm judging them on their food choices and people get scared but to be fair I have met like really amazing people like the beauty industry and they're like oh what's your beauty routine and suddenly i choke yeah yeah yeah is this the right thing to say but i think my whole mission in my area and my field and my love of both health and food is to normalize nutrition like nutrition should feel just like an extra part of you and your day and your food identity that makes you feel good it's about nourishment it's not about deprivation it's not about fear mongering it's about making you feel guilty and I always say as well you are so unique we are all so unique we all love different things we all like to wear different things listen to different music we are all allowed to eat differently as well and I want people to have the permission to be able to explore their health and explore their nutrition in their own unique ways yeah let's look at that deficit because I think um because again this is the time of year where we're told you cannot eat this you cannot eat that and and this seems to be quite trend-led a lot of the time you know I was definitely of that era when I was younger where it's like you must not eat bread and bread became this evil thing I bloody love bread so much and having looked at your content you're eating bread you're eating pasta there doesn't seem to be food groups that you're steering away from but I'm wondering perhaps processed food sugar they're the two ones that we should avoid now I'm contradicting myself slightly but they're the ones that we know aren't gonna serve our bodies well 100 % and I think when we are talking about, okay, proper nitty gritty science and nutrition, of course, we know that there are things that aren't as good for us.

9:25And there are things that we probably need to moderate and limit. Ultra processed food consumption is definitely something that we need to be aware of. And I actually think the movement can be seen in a really positive light because it brings awareness, not necessarily, I don't want it to bring guilt. I just want it, people to think, oh, wow, God, in my breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'm probably consuming half of that as an ultra processed food so what can i do differently and it's about giving people that freedom and option and choice to be able to make better conscious decisions i don't want people to then get so wrapped up that they can't go into the new year and refuse to eat a chocolate bar for the rest of their life and they're suddenly saying i will never eat sugar again because let's be realistic when you when you set yourself these rules and regulations and these restrictions you actually set yourself up to failure you want it more you want it more and it becomes this like obsessive thought thing and as soon as you feel like you failed that's where people throw in the towel and if you're making new year's resolutions and you really want to improve your health this year do the things and make the changes that you know you can stick to for the rest of your life and that can sound pretty dramatic but if you know that you're not going to be able to cut out your chocolate bar for the rest of your life why not make that constant decision of being like okay I'm actually going to have maybe my chocolate bar every other day or I'm gonna like have a chocolate bar but maybe with an extra handful of like nuts and and fruits and bits on the side and make like a bit of like a yummy bowl in the evening to add more that's the kind of thing that you'd be able to stick to forever and then that's the kind of thing that's actually going to make a difference to your health yeah chocolate is a non-negotiable for me but I'm going super dark really good quality.

11:05I have a little bit every day. It makes me fucking happy. And coffee, I'm never, ever not going to drink coffee. I love it. I love every bit of making it. I love that first sip in the morning. I'm a happy human when I have coffee. And I think it's so important that we know that we can eat those things that we love and we can really, really enjoy them and not punish ourselves like I cannot eat this. I cannot eat that. The other thing about this time of year is people might enter January with some digestive things going on because over Christmas we probably do over indulge, we're eating things we might not normally, we've got bowls of sweets everywhere or there's a lot of booze because you're going to parties and you've got Christmas lunches etc.

11:48Digestion obviously can be kind of knocked in January because you've had that period of excess which again is fine, it's Christmas, you're allowed to indulge and have a great time but how might we look at rectifying that and getting a little bit of balance and equilibrium in the gut in January. Yeah. So Christmas wreaks havoc on your gut. Change of sleep routines. As you said, the booze, alcohol is not very good for your digestive system and your gut bacteria kind of composition, all the extra sugar, sweets and stuff. So if you're thinking about looking after your gut health, I always say start slow and build.

12:23And a lot of people will go into January and try and pick up every single piece of tip and advice and if you go into January and suddenly try and put 30 different plants and all these extra fibers and all these extra kind of like legumes and bits and bobs into your plates it's like going to the gym and trying to squat 100 kilograms you're going to hurt yourself your gut gradual allow your gut time to kind of train into the better health habits we know that diversity we know that fiber is is is key for the gut but also things like managing your stress levels how's your emotions my favorite connection as well is we know how much our mind is connected to our guts when whenever we're nervous or anxious we tend to go to the bathroom like we actually changes our bowel movements and if you're chronically doing that to your gut every single day that's really going to make a bigger impact and it's not just about the the kind of the glass of wine or the sweet so it's looking after your stress levels sleeping properly maximum diversity in color that you're building up in a stepwise manner and that's it.

13:23It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. No, it's all really simple and that feels doable rather than you've got to do the strict diet. This is this new insane workout routine. It's like gently and slowly and actually I think when you do it that way you see how all of those things are connected and helping each other because if you're eating well you're probably going to sleep better and if you're sleeping better you'll have more energy to move and everything just feels very interconnected but no pressure. It's all connected and I want people to look at their health and their nutrition not just from a plate of food.

13:53And something that you said earlier about when you have your coffee and it makes you feel a certain way. I always say we don't eat nutrients, we eat food. And food is so much more than just its scientific value. And so is nutrition. It's about joy. It's about moments. It's about space. It's about peace. It adds so much more to your life than just getting in your vitamin C or getting in your vitamin D. So always try and make sure that you're chasing the joy and what life really means to you through nutrition and foods. Yeah, I think it's that shift, isn't it? Because again, January is that time when weight loss is the thing and there's diet books and exercise videos and all of this stuff is just sort of shoved down our throats.

14:34But actually, if we can start shifting the focus away from what our bodies look like and weight and look at how we're feeling and also how it's impacting things like, especially at my age, hormones. Diet is impacting all of that and our mood. You know, we might wonder why we feel utterly drained or a bit bleak about everything. And it's bloody January. But actually, if we're feeding ourselves, that is going to impact those simple things, the baseline of our hormones and our mood and our levels of happiness. There is a huge impact. I think we sort of overlook quite a lot. Massively. And I think sometimes people can see nutrition as kind of still rooted in that very much like diet culture concept.

15:13It's all about, OK, I'm going to do this January diet to lose 20 pounds in 20 days kind of thing. Whereas nutrition to me is everything. It's something that makes you feel good, energized. It makes you happy. It's something to sit there and connect with people that you love over. And there's this amazing trial actually called the SMILES trial. And it took people who suffered from kind of anxiety and depression. it changed their diets into more of a Mediterranean diet pattern which we know is full of all the good stuff all of the the kind of dark green leafy vegetables whole grains legumes good proteins olive oil lots of olive oil all that good stuff and it showed that those dietary changes can actually directly positively impact people's depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms so if you are someone who's going into the year and and you know that you really want to make a kind of a bigger commitment to yourself focusing on nourishment rather than these kind of extreme diets can actually make a really massive difference to your life yeah hugely I think we just we're not focusing on that we're just focusing on what do I look like and and that becomes just so um you have the tunnel vision and that's where I think obsession comes into it and dysfunction comes into it but if we can look at things more broadly and holistically and look at how it can aid our lives that's such a better starting point 100 what what we say first of all i guess the the initial question is what's the difference between a prebiotic and a probiotic is my first question and then part two of that is should we bother yeah so a prebiotic is essentially the food that feeds the bacteria and we always think of prebiotics as fiber um they are some of the the kind of best prebiotics out there in our foods but it's also worth noting that the color and certain antioxidants in our food also acts as fuel for our gut bacteria and i love this fact and most of the antioxidants and something called polyphenols in our food we need our gut bacteria to digest before we're able to absorb them as humans so if you're getting in all of this lovely kind of antioxidant rich foods in your diet having a good diverse microbiome is really key then we have probiotics which are basically the types of bacteria that live inside your gut and there's loads of different strains there are loads of different strains that have kind of different roles they feed off different things they have different functions but as a rule of thumb the more diversity and the more types of strains that we have in our guts the the better gut health we have when we're thinking about probiotics as we ingest them the issue is that the supplement industry is very unregulated and i'm actually as a full disclosure i am a founder of a symbiotic company and we aimed to basically create something that with all the science that we have and we don't have any real conclusive science in gut health space at all at the moment really because it's such a ginormous topic like where do you even start your gut bacterial composition is as unique as your fingerprint so if you're thinking about trying to find patterns across people with every single person is unique it's more kind of overall trends that we need to focus on so we looked at the specific types of bacteria we're putting in there the ones that actually did have the high highest body of evidence and science behind them and then what's really important when you're taking probiotics is that they're actually getting to where they need to go and alive and so many encapsulation methods are rubbish so you're buying these pills that say probiotic good for your gut health digestive health and frankly you're literally wasting your money because you're buying something that a you don't know how it's been manufactured you don't know the survivability of the probiotics in there in the first place and then the cap just gets broken down and the majority of it is destroyed in your stomach acid so we invest in something called duo cap technology that has like an inner core that houses all the bacteria strains and the outer core that has all these kind of like gut supporting things like vitamin d zinc phos which is a type of prebiotic and if you're thinking about that supplement space do you 100 % need a digestive health supplements have good gut health no I think I wanted to just create something that people would be able to trust and held a standard in what I believe should be set in a very unregulated industry and our customer feedback speaks for itself I mean it's pretty life-changing there's nothing that's been more rewarding especially because if anyone's going into the new year and they've struggled with gut issues digestive issues IBS you know how debilitating it can be there is nothing worse when you feel out of control with your gut health.

19:44And as a nutritionist, there is so much information out there about take this, do this, this is the right way to do it. But with gut health, unfortunately it's so individualized and it's so unique. My biggest comparison that I like to make when I talk about gut health is think of your gut cells and your gut barrier as the same as your skin. I feel like we know a lot about our skin barrier. We talk about it a lot. Protective, keep the healthy fats in there, keep it nice and subtle, strong, resilient, it protects you against environmental aggressors don't over exfoliate we remember back in the time where we've had a had a play with those the acids and the scrubs yeah when you have bad lifestyle habits and you're not eating properly and you're stressed and you're not sleeping well the same that happens to your skin when you're over exfoliated is what happens to your gut so i want people to imagine their gut as this kind of like lovely barrier and this lovely lining that has all of this kind of like thick mucus and all the lovely bacteria that live there and it keeps it solid and safe when we wear it down when we over exfoliate it we start to get this kind of like weakening of the junctions between ourselves which we may have heard of leaky guts and it sounds a little bit woo woo and a little bit oh that's something that is that a thing it's a chinese medicine term right yeah yeah and we call it kind of hyperintestinal permeability as the sciencey word but because i'm just gonna stick with leaky gut because i don't know exactly Exactly.

21:07But if you imagine when that gut goes leaky, so much of our immune system is housed around our gut. We start to get this kind of stimulation of our immune system. And that's where people can start to experience things like increased anxiety and mood disorders through the stimulation of the immune system. Skin disorders, things like eczema, psoriasis, anything that's kind of slightly autoimmune-y. And then also just resilience and your ability to be able to kind of digest and tolerate your food properly. and the biggest thing that you can do for your guts is look after your gut barrier function the same way that you look after your skin and it's exactly what i said earlier nice diverse diet that you're building up slowly and every single day you need to be eating for two every single meal are you eating for two when you're building your breakfast lunch and dinner what on there is my gut bacteria and my gut microbiome able to eat to support my gut barrier and that's such an easy simple way to look at it so the next time you're you're you're putting together your egg breakfast plate so what are you a breakfast person what do you tend to have for breakfast oh this is where i'm like oh she's gonna judge me um no no judgment breakfast is the one that i am bad with because i am the coffee is the most important thing then i make my kids this most amazing breakfast i get it all ready for them this morning it was waffles and some fruit and some yogurt my son will have some eggs blah blah and then I completely forget about myself run around and then I'll probably grab like one piece of toast on the way out of the door I am not good with breakfast I'm much better with lunch dinner and lots of snacks throughout the day but tell me what I can do I'm here to learn so if you're thinking about kind of waking up and making sure that you're kind of supporting your gut bacteria if you're having that slice of toast maybe you can nut butter all the way sweet or savory person probably oh I don't know a bit of both probably more sweet in the morning.

22:56Probably more sweet. I'd say, yeah. piece of toast, seeded, whole grain. Yeah. It does make a difference. I know people are just like, oh, brown bread, a bit boring, but no. If I'm being really niche, I love wild farmed seeded bread. It is my absolute bloody favourite. I love it. I love it. It's the best. So good. So bread, chunky nut butter. Yeah. When you blend nut butter, you're basically pre-digesting it. So you can add a little bit of extra chunk, it creates a little bit more work. Okay, that's interesting. The digestive system to do. Okay. And then squish some frozen raspberries or fresh raspberries on it.

23:25So raspberries are some of the highest fiber berries that you can get. Delicious, yummy. Buy them frozen so they don't go off if you're thinking about food waste and making sure that you're, even like frozen doesn't matter as seasonally as if you're buying the fresh off the shelf as well. And they'll always just sit and last. And then that's it. Extra sprinkler seeds over the top. I've never done that. I'm doing that tomorrow. And suddenly your slice of toast that you quickly wolf down is just giving you that extra little bit of love and gut support, which in turn is going to feed into your mood throughout the day, your immunity, your skin health, everything is connected to the gut.

24:02So bearing in mind that we're all slightly different and our gut health is similar to a fingerprint, how do we start to discover what works for us? With all of this information out there, knowing that there are certain things that are always going to benefit us, like fibre and making sure that gut health is good, is that just sort of trial and error that we work out what bespoke diet works for us? 100 % and it's one thing that I really want to try and like encourage this year is independence in our own thoughts about our own bodies and I think sometimes we can get so lost in all of this information that we don't trust our bodies anymore and it's one thing that I always did with my clients I listened to them I listened to what they were telling me about their bodies because no one knows your body better than yourself of course don't go and be a google doctor and self-diagnose or your own issues.

24:50Never do that. Please go and see a professional. This isn't me kind of like taking out all of the power, but I want to give people the confidence in understanding what works for them. And a lot of the times when you work with gut health clients who are going through certain kind of digestive issues, you end up doing a trial and error system anyway, where they recognize the foods that are triggering. You tend to kind of pull it all back and introduce slowly. And I can't tell that. You have to be able to tell that. And there's some people that I've worked with who just can't eat broccoli. The cruciferous vegetables kill them.

25:22Like it's just, it's not a vibe. And now I can sit there and be like, yeah, but it's so good for you with these sulfur containing compounds. But if you can't stomach it and you can't digest it, it's fine. Leave it. And there's so many other things that you can do. Absolutely. I think that's the thing is not feeling the pressure of everyone's told me I have to eat this. How do you feel? Having that awareness, I guess you could write it down, like have a little food diary, see how you go. And you know, if you can digest bread and pasta and it feels great, bloody well eat it. Bread's never caused...

25:51I'm very lucky. I love bread. It doesn't bother me at all. I function best off bread. I love it. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert, right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie.

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27:59Much like myself, you had dysfunctional eating back when you were a teenager. I mean, mine was really a little bit later. I was 19 onwards, maybe a little bit before. And that has clearly driven this incredible passion that you've got. And obviously all of your qualifications since I obviously didn't go down the qualification route, but it's certainly driven me down a route of loving cooking and touching food and understanding it and experimenting to really try and paste over all of the shit from the past. talk us through what what catalyzed that issue and and you thinking about food in a dysfunctional way for the first time so I came from a family who loved food food was our life every single birthday celebration always over our house it was chaos but we always cooked and we had this massive dining table that we always used to sit and pile around and every single breakfast lunch dinner we ate at the dining table it's definitely like a moment for us and my granny was a chef and And my first job was actually in her restaurant kitchen.

29:02My favorite thing used to be when I used to help on Sunday roasts. And she used to give me a big Yorkshire at the end of shift. Oh, yes. Wrapped up in kitchen when I used to eat it warm. Oh, it was so good. And I just grew up with a very normal relationship with food. No one in my family dieted. No one was doing a Slim Fast or a Weight Watcher. So I was very protected in that sense. Then I get scouted to be a fashion model when I was about 17 years old. And I was young at the time. I've always been tiny. I didn't blossom or grow until I was a little bit older. So from the ages of like 17 to kind of 18, I started to become a woman.

29:39And I remember having an amazing traveling period because I was finally able to kind of a bit more financially independent. So I was able to go abroad and eat all the foods I wanted to eat and try. And America was definitely very good for that. and I came back and my modeling agency at the time took my polaroids and then they took me into a little room at the back and they looked at these photos and they're like we just think that you're going to work better if like we slim down your thighs that your thighs are just shooting a little bit big and I look back and honestly I'm so furious that they told little m that because I was just a beautiful healthy free young girl and I don't know what it was I don't know why I reacted in that way but it was like a switch went off in my brain and I remember I remember specifically going home turning around to my mum refusing to eat dinner with my family for the first time in what lasted probably about an intense period of six months of quite intense restricted eating and I still have the first Nike app run logged in my phone of that day and that evening when I came back and I ran and I started not eating and I started intensely exercising with the pure focus of ah my body's a mass equation I want to appease these people and and in the way that I'm going to do that is to be able to lose weight I'm going to do the best job at this ever so the more I burn and the less I eat the better I'm going to do at this and it became such a OCD ritualistic habit that sometimes I think it's hard to explain to people that it's not about what I looked like or the weight anymore.

31:19It became this obsessive controlling outlet that was incredibly addictive. And eating disorders, we say eating disorders, this is a wild spectrum. There are so many different types of eating disorders. Not a single eating disorder looks the same from person to person. And I feel like I'm speaking a lot about individualism on this podcast, but it's really important that we don't just like be like eating disorder, obesity, anorexia. Like they're not just singular entities. They're very different. And my love for food always outweighed the kind of addictive behaviors that I fell into. And I remember this one day that I just realized I couldn't do this anymore.

32:01I was sick and tired of like, I weighed my spinach leaves on my fitness pal and tracked them. It was so, it was too much. and I ended up seeing the most incredible therapist, did some really great CBT therapy, had more awareness, separated myself in the industry and I was a bit of a science nerd at the time and I was going to go to uni to do maybe human physiology or something and I realised that I wanted to do nutrition because I knew nothing about nutrition and everything that was available on the internet and everything that was available out there was nothing to do with the nutrition that I love, which is what you see on my Instagram feeds.

32:41It's what you see in my recipe book. It's what I make for my husband. It's when I go home and I cook with my mum and we sit there and we eat really nutritious, gorgeous food, but it's not health food in my mind. It's just food. And I just want everyone to be able to go into this year to make that commitment to themselves, to eat better, but just eat the food. Why is this shit not taught in schools? It's like, I'm always frustrated. Like why? It's so important for everything. It is bonkers. And we're not taught anything, even within the science arena. We're not taught about what food is doing to our bodies and how we can positively benefit from it, let alone cook.

33:17You know, when I was at school a thousand years ago, we still did home ec and my kids don't cook anything at school. That's not a thing. And I find that so bizarre. And going back to that sort of individualistic look at eating disorders, I think it's really important to bring therapy into the equation. because each eating disorder for each person will have a root cause. There is no person that's got an eating disorder because they simply want to be thin, which I think is the hugest misconception that anyone from having anorexia to bulimia to whatever it is or dysfunctional eating is because they want to be thin.

33:54Much like you, it surpassed that greatly for me. And I lost sight of any of that. It was just about control and secrecy and having something that was just for me because my life felt like chaos. And I actually didn't go to therapy until way later down the line. So I think being that bit older than you, it wasn't a thing back then. And now it's talked about much more freely. And I mean, not that the access is much easier for people to get, but there are more resources out there and ways to get help. But I think that's the thing to do. And I guess for people listening to this who have got someone in their life going through it, obviously it's human nature to think, I want to fix them.

34:35I want to help. And you just like, please eat. Like that's all you can think to say or, you know, whatever it is or stop being sick or whatever it might be. That was in my case, obviously put my mum for absolute hell. And actually what that person needs is emotional help to sort through whatever is the root cause of that issue. it's it's so important it's not it's not about being thin it's not about weight loss there's there's something amiss that desperately needs looking at and that's why I had to remove myself from the situation yeah and that's and that's something that was I mean at the time like that was a big financial thing to give up like the modeling is a very lucrative career and and and it was so promising for me and I knew that I was never going to do it forever but But I just I knew that if I wanted to really kind of honor myself and who I really am, I had to just remove myself from the situation.

35:30And sometimes we have to make difficult decisions. But it was the best decision that I've ever made. And I mean, I feel like everything I've ever done and been through in my life has led me to exactly where I've needed to be. And now I get messages every single day from my community telling me how much I've changed their whole life and their whole relationship with food. And they send me pictures of like their babies weaning in the high chair, eating my chicken pie and girls who have never cooked and are at university and making my five a day lasagna for like all of their flatmates. And that is everything to me.

36:04Yeah, so brilliant. And I think when you've got a backstory, when you've got something that's driving it in that way, when you understand the opposite end of the spectrum, the passion is relentless and almost effortless because you know you don't want other people to go through it. You know that there are alternatives and it's a really beautiful thing. what was the turning point for you obviously you removed yourself from the situation but to recover to unpick those things that have become not only habits but like you say ritualistic things that are your brain sort of rewired to see food differently to see how your day runs differently to sort of punish yourself and beat yourself up if you stray from this sort of strict rigid set of rules that you've put in place how did you start to do that so the brain is actually very plastic and and when we're thinking about new learning behaviors the more and more we do something and the more and more we reframe our wording and and and where we look at things the kind of easier it gets to set it in stone the same way that we brush our teeth every single day and it becomes something that we don't think about I always am so careful with language and it's the one thing that I'm always really really careful across all of my social platforms I will never ever use language that it's like oh love doing this class to burn off my sins or like love love doing this to kind of like it's it's not about that kind of use of language now I move and I exercise because it makes me feel good because I'm so grateful to be able to move my body and and I eat well and if I have a lovely big Chinese takeaway on a Sunday night I'll wake up on the Monday morning and I'll have a breakfast that's like full of all the good nutrition so I'm like isn't it so nice to be able to just enjoy the foods that I love and also enjoy the foods that loves me um in that sense of my body so I think the level of it's it takes work every single day to make sure that you're always using the right language and the right mindset to to make sure any sort of like old habits old routines old OCD doesn't trickle back in yeah it's really tricky to unpick and I think anyone listening to this is going through it it it takes time it's not I mean it took me years and years to I mean not only well for me it was bulimia so not only to stop that and I had a little relapse later down the line that was a one-off and I had to sort of you know find some level of acceptance with that and then again start again and move on but I think it's emotionally checking in with yourself making sure you've got some self-compassion which can be really hard and give yourself a break but know that it takes time and certainly I think support you've got to have the right support massively and like life is a bloody journey yeah and it's never linear it's never going to look the same yeah it's an absolute fucking nightmare i'm riding the bloody waves i'm like i'm done like where's the calm sea but i think it's really important that as you said like forgiveness and love and compassion and ease and understanding that nothing has to be perfect for it to be perfect for you and every single person's journey and and and the way that they navigate through that is is theirs the right people around me is one of the reasons why I think I was able to recover so quickly I remember my mum she had no idea or no concepts of like what I was going through but she was really good to to not just be like Emily why can't you just eat she used to drive me to every single therapy session she's just outside in the car she used to bring a little snack in the car and after I used to have therapy we used to sit and we used to like eat the the butter toast together or have the biscuit in the car together and it was like those tiny steps and I I just remember every single one of those moments and yeah my mum's such an incredible person yeah good on your mum that's so lovely because I think it's hard for parents you know I look back and I think oh god I put Paul Lynn Cotton through so much hell and you know we've talked about it a little bit since but for the parents it's you feel so out of control and you know there's nothing you can do in that moment You can't talk sense to that person, you know, in the way that you believe would work and snap them out of something that is so entrenched in daily routine and self punishment and all the depths that you can go to.

40:13I think it's for parents. It's really hard. Really, really hard. And I've I've spoken a lot of parents reach out to me, actually. And there's only so much I can give across. Of course. God, baby. It's a lot. Yeah. and it's it's just one of those things that you have to be able to just be there get ready to catch get ready to hold and support where needed and and go through that river and and it will pass and you have to believe it will pass and try and do every single thing that you can to remove yourself from the situations that you feel are driving it and if there's anyone who's listening to this and they're having quite a difficult time with their food it's like as you said at the beginning identify the cause there's something there that's like that's the driver and if you can make tiny commitments every single day to try and get yourself away from that trigger remove the triggers remove the causes then that's where it gets easier just kind of drift away from those those rigid habits and build new ones yeah and also I guess just it's not going to be linear you know my journey was certainly quite bumpy getting out of it and you know there's a bit of progress and there's a few back steps and there's a bit more progress again and it's a to and fro situation but I think as long as you've got in mind that you want to feel healthy and vibrant you want to feel happy you want to enjoy your life it's so important to try and stay on track and have good people around you that can you know be there and that you can lean on just going back to something you said a minute ago so you know obviously you do have this you know like I do in a way and sort of looking at mental health slightly a place of responsibility in terms of people do look to you for advice and you know I know fuck all I'm just sort of talking about my own life experience and having a great time interviewing people about theirs but I'm certainly passionate when it comes to talking about mental health and sometimes people will ask me advice and and it can feel overbearing and knowing what to say and also just the huge amount of people that might be coming to you for that sort of guidance how do you you cope with that in terms of social media so I I set strong boundaries now where I make sure that I can't reply to everything I I accept that and I try not to feel guilty for that my audience are amazing they are so amazing I think we all connect through our mutual love of good food and also health and wellness but health and wellness is rooted in making us feel healthy and well and that's the one thing I think so much of people's misconceptions with like health and wellness is oh it's it's about kind of changing every single thing that I am where it's no no it's meant to make you feel really good if there's any kind of like singular conversation or someone reaches out and it's incredibly personal I will always make an effort to to respond to that but right now where I am I have the most gorgeous wonderful relationship with my community with my social media with with everything I love what I do I if I just had to make recipes for the rest of my life film them post them and that's it I'm going to be the happiest person I want to be old and gray and still doing it in my kitchen I will never get bored and sick of it I feel the same it's a good thing we're very lucky I mean obviously your growth on social media was huge and quick I mean it was a lot I've been doing this career for nearly three decades and I still find it incredibly difficult to deal with feedback I don't think it's natural for anyone necessarily to hear strangers talk about their opinions of you yours has grown so so quickly and obviously there's a whole backstory and you having your nutrition clinic and the qualifications but I'm talking about the visibility element has been very quick how how do you remedy that how do you deal with that because it's overwhelming I am so I have the most boring social life I probably count my friends on on one hand my husband is my best friend I do everything with him and I protect my space and my time you won't find me at the parties you won't find me at the event nor me no I'm like oh it's by the way they're all shit I know yeah I know they're really bad so for me yeah if you describe my ideal evening it's Friday night I've made something delicious maybe like a chicken pie or one of my favorite lasagnas I'll sit there I probably would have had a bath Bath, everything bath, all my oils.

44:33Put a hair mask on. Yeah. Fluffy pyjamas, slippers. Movie, bed by nine. I'm coming over next Friday. Honestly, like, that's talk dirty to me. It's the best. And now it's Christmas. It's like a couple of quality things. I know. And you can actually start that at like four because it's dark. I know. I can have a bath at four. No excuse. Be like, it's the night time. Sun goes down. All right, right. I'm done for the day. Bras coming up. Let's get those comfy joggers on. But I think I really realized and I went when it grew so quickly at first and I got my first experience of trolling and I took it so personally.

45:07I took it so hard. It's hard not to. Really hard. It devastated me for a while and I wouldn't be able to talk about it without crying. And now I kind of look at what I do. I'm like, babes or bro. I'm like, I make foods. I make healthy, delicious recipes to make people happier. What's your problem? Like if you have a problem with me, it's like I'm not here based on this. I'm here based on what I do. So if you don't like what I make, if you don't like my food, then quite frankly, you can just fuck off. Yeah, fuck right off. Too right. I mean, as we all know, you would never send someone a message like that.

45:43I wouldn't send someone a message like that. People are not happy and they're lashing out in the easiest ways. I'm almost jealous sometimes that people have that much time to commit to me. I'm like, imagine if I had that much time in my day that I could do like full, like deep dives, make fake profiles. Oh, wow. Yeah, the whole shbang. But I'm just like, yeah. It's the Wild West social media. It's quite great. It's a funny thing. It is. But I think, you know, you're putting it to really great use and that's all we can do is create a positive space and hopefully do some good, put some good stuff out there, make people feel connected, make people feel better.

46:21so looking at your January ahead how are you going into it well I don't want to use the word goals because that sort of pisses me off but what are you what's the feeling going into January for you I really want to help manage my stress levels and anxiety levels more I'm actually quite an anxious person I don't think I ever portray that it's there's certain kind of lanes I stay in when it comes to my content creation but I struggle with overwhelm I get a bit overwhelmed very quickly because I am a bit obsessive and I work really hard. A bit of perfectionism going on. Massive heavy weight of perfectionism.

46:58You always have anxiety with perfectionism. Yeah, exactly. So sometimes it can be really crippling and there'll be days I just cry and I'm just like, oh my God, I'm a mess. But I wake up the next day, I'm like, right, project this, do this. And I'm obsessed with the growth, but I'm also a bit soft as well. So it's kind of a balance between achieving everything that I want to achieve in 2025, continue to offer value and hold responsibility in the space that I'm in to continue to give my wonderful audience what I feel like they would benefit from and what they need, as well as looking after myself and making sure that I don't feel guilt for prioritizing myself or being a bit selfish in a way.

47:44Yeah. Is it even selfish? You're just looking after yourself. Yeah, but you see what I did there? Self-ish. Self-ish. A little bit ish-y about the selfishness. I hear you. You know, it's a new thing. I'm trying to put myself first for the first time in years, and it is wild. You know, it's a strange thing, but we all need to do that more and take care of ourselves. And finally, Emily, where is your happy place? My happy place is crispy morning walk where there's still a bit of frost in the ground with those hand warmers in my pockets and a little cup of tea. And I'm just with my husband chatting stupid things and there's not a stress in the world.

48:29Heaven, I love that one on a crisp, lovely morning. Can you imagine and smell it? And it's like little Tweety birds. Oh, gorgeous. Yeah. I love it. Well, it's been so good talking to you. And I really think this is an important listen for people starting out a brand new year feeling utterly perplexed about food and what they're doing and self-loathing we don't need to be doing that this January just take care of yourself and it's been so good to hear all of your thoughts around it so thank you thank you so much for having me and and everyone just go forward you have permission to be able to eat good nutritious food that fills you with joy vitamin j enjoy it yeah vitamin j is the forgotten vitamin yes Bitumen joy always.

49:13Oh, Em, thanks so much for that chat. I really loved that and learned a lot. I'm going to do that peanut butter with the chunks in. Hadn't realised that was a good idea. With the raspberries on. Why have I never put raspberries on my toast before? I've been missing out for 43 years, for Christ's sake. Right, back next week, ready to crack on with the brilliant 2025 on Happy Place. We cannot wait for you to be here with us. It's going to be gorgeous. Until then, a massive thanks again to Emily, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios and to you, look after yourselves lovelies.

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