Casey O'Gorman: Bad Habits, Love Island Transformation & Marathon Training

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me, Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid on what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello sir, good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their stuff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Now, you actually knew Princess Anne. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the present. But before that interview, no-one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game-changer? So join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5, as we catch up with the Royals.

1:26All on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today. Here's a tip for you. There's a podcast out there with fans waiting to be your next customer. They tune in every week. They trust the host. And that host wants to talk about brands like yours in their own words to their audience. The problem is you just haven't been introduced yet. We're Acast, where that introduction happens. As the world's largest podcast marketplace, we let you browse shows, see who's listening, and book host-read sponsorships or run your own ads all from one platform. Transparent pricing, real-time data, complete control.

2:06Start advertising on podcasts by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

2:16Hello and welcome to The Good, The Bad, and The Healthy. This is the podcast that dives into our food and lifestyle choices of our amazing guests. And I want to show you, the listeners, just how easy it is to live healthily and cleanly without having to cut out everything we love. After years of being ill myself, I decided it was time to make a change and start paying attention to what I put in my body. So now I'm here to try and help you guys. So let's talk about the good, the bad, and of course, the healthy. so today we're joined by Casey O 'Gorman many of you will know Casey from his appearances on Love Island season 9 and All Stars 1 and 2 which apparently you won this year I did very good, exciting have you got a trophy?

3:03no, I didn't get a trophy I got some money though well that's good that's better than a trophy I think you won something on the mantelpiece though but no, very good and you also recently run the London Marathon and you did a High Rocks last year yeah so you're into your health and your fitness and staying well but we're here today to talk about what you put in your body to understand what you're doing to fuel your body to look that good on love island um and you know what your relationship with food is like essentially so we always like to start from the very very beginning so we've got to go back to the beginning childhood what were your memories of food like as a kid were there particular meals you had as a family you know what was your staple go-to as a kid do you know what my my mom was such a great cook and I absolutely loved her meals and I'm such a foodie I've got two brothers who are massive foodies as well but I feel like when I was a lot younger I was a lot more fussy as a kid like now I eat pretty much anything but I didn't appreciate mum's meals as much like when I go back now I'm like so grateful to have like a meal cooked in front of me but back then I used to so take it for granted but she used to do this amazing sausage and mash like it was unbelievable that that was sticking my memory um and then she did this like unbelievable spaghetti bolognese and lasagna that that those were her top three for me um and again i was so lucky because my dad we lived in a little village called albury and my dad owned two pubs and we used to go there all the time for food and obviously because you own them we could get it for free so i used to rock up maybe like on a Friday night if I was by myself and just rock up by myself get a three-course meal have it all to myself it was great could that be dangerous though as well like in terms of you can just be like eating all the desserts and the cakes and none of the 100 it was dangerous but I was like 12 years old so I didn't really love it yeah you absolutely loved it well it sounds like they they themselves took an interest in food right and they cooked real food their own meals and was your dad in the kitchen in the pubs cooking or was he just front of house no front of house giving his orders giving his orders making it good but that's a nice way to grow up right yeah no experience all those things so okay so your top three with sausage and mash bag bowl were there any like naughty cheap meals takeaway fridays things that you can remember yeah there was this place called the regal it was this chinese place that we lived by and we used to get it every other wednesday or maybe even every wednesday sometimes but it was so good i've and And it's sharp maybe when I was 17 or 18.

5:42And I don't think I've had a Chinese since because it just doesn't compare to how good this Chinese was. I just feel like every Chinese I have now or like if I've had one since has been so greasy and just makes me feel so bad. But this one just didn't. It was so good. I mean, it might have been because you're a kid. And when you're a kid, you're an invincible, right? But no, that's really interesting because I think everyone has that kind of nostalgic meal, whether it was at home. Did you have brothers, sisters? like what was the relationship like around the table at the family yeah two brothers um we didn't exactly get along too well we were we were so different in just how we looked i was always very skinny as a kid and they were a bit bigger they were always like the props or like the hookers in rugby and i was always the winger so did they beat you up yeah all the time yeah i used to call them fat when i was little and they used to just come and chase me and beat me up they hate it brutal brutal i had an older brother as well and he always beat me up as well so he was seven years older so it was not a fair fight no any stretch and i think that's that gives me trauma to this day probably but yeah i don't know why i was skinny then because i feel like as a kid i was always the one eating more chocolate i was always the one and we always ate the same like we we grew up together we had the same meals so i don't know why i was always the skinny one genetics metabolism I guess different ways.

7:05I mean, they might have been eating bigger portions without you really knowing it. Sneaking off when I was asleep. Sneaking off when you're asleep. So did you guys fight over food ever? I wouldn't say we fought over food, no. If we were, like if there was like a, oh, I remember this TGI Friday's massive like chocolate sundae we used to get as a kid and we used to share it all and we would all, it would go in about two seconds because we'd all be fighting over it. Really? But apart from that, we didn't really share our food. and that's another one that's dead now. I think TGI Fridays is gone. R.I.P.

7:37R.I.P. Rest in peace. That's gone into the history bank, so you can't have that anymore, unfortunately. Do you have a favourite snack as a kid? Can you remember the treats you were having as a child? Chocolate. Like, I absolutely love chocolate, especially galaxy chocolate. That, for me, is like... Mum, still to this day, gets me these big, massive galaxy chocolate bars. Like, even... I'm now 28, and it's like, Mum, come on. like i can get it myself now but like growing up there was this huge chocolate bar like ever since i can ever remember that i yeah i still get to this day the one kg yeah chocolate bar galaxy is so creamy it's so ridiculous so good so good i used to i used to get it and it would be a week later i remember having like maybe like half of it and then it's gone from my jaw and i'm like where's this gone always mum yeah she would nick my chocolate maybe that's why she got it from me it makes sense yeah yeah yeah fair enough yeah or your brothers right no it was definitely mom it was definitely mom okay she was stealing the chocolate from the cupboard fair play i mean it's everyone has fights over the last sweet or biscuit in the cupboard right it's classic all right so then let's kind of move it forward a bit obviously the next kind of moment so you come out your parents house did you go to uni did you when did you leave home and in leeds went to uni and did you know how to cook then i had absolutely no idea no like not a clue and it i think it only took me till about second year to actually start making proper meals everything of mine was just frozen chicken nuggets frozen this frozen that like i don't think i used the hob for the whole first year of uni really yeah so you literally just turned up and you're like all right let's just do some chicken nuggets yeah straight to iceland straight to the frozen home jeez i mean it's a it's a moment in time that everyone has to go through right it's like you got to fend for yourself and you got to figure it out and i guess you just default to the easy the easy option i mean everyone probably has like certain i felt rubbish in first year because i drank so much but do you think that affected your health did you feel good did Did you notice you put on weight or like how did you feel in first year of uni?

9:53Yeah, I definitely think I put on weight for sure. And it's the excessive drinking at uni as well, which doesn't help. And then because you're drinking a lot, you're then hung over and you're craving crap food when you're hung over as well. So it's just a cycle of just putting on weight. But you were studying sports business management. I was. So like sports, putting on weight and eating chicken nuggets don't go together so well. Like what happened? What happened? Were you playing sports for your uni? Yeah, I played football for the first team at university. So I was always like a keen sportsman.

10:27I was always into my football, rugby. So I was training twice a week, playing once a week. So although I was going out and eating not the best food, I still was exercising, going to the gym and that. So that's why I didn't turn into some sort of like bowling ball. you could have if you were just eating microwave meals and frozen chips and nuggets but what was your like quick and go-to meal then was it the chicken nuggets or was there something else that was like your staple chicken nuggets pizza i love a pizza that's my i think that's my favorite takeaway now for sure proper pizza proper pizza italian yeah yeah yeah yeah not not the domino's or the papa john's but the proper italian thin cut pizza but back then was it papa john's or was like frozen peeps back then it was probably papa john's yeah yeah those thick greasy yeah yeah do they still do the 20 inch the 20 inch papa john's that was my thing that was wild it would feed you for like three days it was so big but it was insane um all right that's good so i just want to touch on you said like it wasn't until second year you started to like try and cook like what made you change my housemate who so i moved in with a lot of the football boys and my housemate was actually a really good cook.

11:45So I remember the first week of second year, he'd see me putting all this frozen stuff into the oven. He's like, what are you doing? He's like, have you cooked a meal? I'm like, well, not really. Like, can you teach me? He's like, yes, I'll teach you. So we used to cook together. And like the more I was with him, the more we were cooking, the more he taught me. So eventually by the end of second year, I could actually cook a good solid 10 meals. Oh, wow. Yeah. And what was the first thing you learned to cook then? Oh, it was this like prawn linguine, actually. Prawn linguine. Yeah, it was good.

12:22Come on, fancy for uni that is. Were you trying to impress a chick? Probably. That's my go-to date meal now. Is it? It's still. 10 years later, you're still going with the prawn linguine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, at least you wanted to learn, right? Yeah, exactly. You wanted to learn and you took an interest and you took the opportunity to learn. I think that's, you know, a lot of it for people is like they just see food as this like convenience thing. I just need to eat. Don't really care. Yeah. And then they don't ever bother taking an interest to learning to cook. Like learning to cook is actually so, so easy and fundamental.

12:53I luckily my gran was like classic English meat and two veg traditionalist. So lunch was like a proper cooked meal every time we'd go to my gran's and then dinner as well. like she just didn't get the whole like convenience food thing at all so when I was about to go to uni well the year before because I took a gap year um she was like just promise me one thing like you're gonna learn to cook on your gap year because when you leave you're gonna be screwed if you don't and so when I was traveling I went to like Thailand and Africa and a few places everywhere I went I would like sign up to the local cooking course so all I did was probably like a week cooking course in thailand and then a couple of days in africa but just understanding of like how the spices and the things go together to create the flavors like that just set me up then to kind of continually just trial things test things out and learn because it's all it is it's just like testing things out and you know if you need a bit more sweet you're in a bit of honey or whatever if you need more salt acid whatever you combine all the flavors and away you go and i think it's the key to actually being able to eat like real proper food right yeah um so good on you for taking an interest that's really good so okay so let's move on and talk about now what do you do today obviously you pay attention to what you put in your body you got super good and in shape for love island like what was your prep regime for love island oh it was brutal you know when i first found out that i was going on love island it must have been about two months before the show started started and I was in okay shape but I wanted to be like shredded like I wanted to walk in there and be like you could see like abs on abs on abs so and I think that was my first season I think still to this day I was never in better shape than I was then I feel like as I went to the second series second series and the third series I was like oh it's fine like they know who I am I've got the chat now so it's all right but back then I was like right no one knows me I need to look seriously good and I went on this eight-week program and one of my best friends is a PT so he like I was able to actually tell him like I didn't want to tell some random PT because he could go away and tell someone and then I could be leaked or whatever so I managed to get a plan off him and it was it was serious I was like not having carbs after 2 p.m um it was just high protein low carbs, low fat.

15:22It was horrible. It was horrible. Yeah, do you know my little tip actually that got me through it? I don't know why, but I used to watch YouTube videos of like famous, like people that eat a lot of food, like Beard Meets Food. Have you seen him on YouTube? Like people like that. And that used to fill me up. Like watching them eat like tons of food and like these mega, mega portions of like 10 ,000 calories. I just watch it before I go to bed and be like okay fine like you're fine i can sleep yeah wow there must be some like psychological brain thing there yeah watching me all this like greasy food i was like okay i actually feel better now wow yeah interesting that's really interesting never heard anyone say that but i mean maybe there's some psychology to it that you know changes it i mean there must be because it worked for me so how did it then progress you did a smashing eight week program you looked amazing you went on love island did they feed you the right foods there what was the kind of food on love island like was unbelievable for food um i don't know i because i i did the one in south africa every year so i don't know i've heard the one in majorca so the summer one isn't as good from what i've heard from other people but the one in south africa like was unbelievable like it was like a buffet of food every lunch and dinner you could have as much as you want and the meals were like really good quality and it was something different every night and i think the best thing about it was that they they did a salad option every night they did grilled chicken every night with a carb but then they also did like a lasagna or like a lamb chops or something else so there was always like tons of options and it was great like not having to cook as well like it was unbelievable i mean yeah who doesn't want a free buffet every night but i mean literally sat there chatting to girls all day sunbathing and then they're like right okay lunch buffet there you go hard life yeah i know it was tough and no drinking as well which i think helped like still look in shape as well because yeah wow so you've done it three times you're going back for four because the food's so good no no not not for a fourth but people say oh he's done it three times why'd you go back like that is one of the reasons like especially because i did it in january so for two months when people are here in the cold miserable miserable i'm in south africa in a massive villa it's being cooked for yeah being cooked for and sunbathing it was great the good life right that's what we all want no um awesome all right so then now post you're out of it it's done like what does your day-to-day look like are you maintaining are you just giving up with it what's what's the vibe no i i think since coming off I've always kept in good shape just because we're now in the public image and like a lot of what we do we're having to do photo shoots we're going on brand trips we're going on holidays and stuff so a lot of the time you are having to be topless and like you need to keep on top of it and keep in good shape so I don't think I've ever been out of like in bad shape since I've come off about two years ago which has been quite nice I would say at the moment right now i'm probably in the worst shape i've been since i've been on but i'm still not in bad shape no um so yeah very good but are you like following a strict diet regime or you just eat what you want but still train yeah i i think i go through phases i think since i came off um well since i did the london marathon i was like right okay let's relax a bit let's just enjoy myself and then I've seen summers pretty much here now I'm like oh god I need to get some shape again I'm going to my beef the next month yeah okay so no rest but so what's like a typical meal for you then now like you're on the home on your own what do you cook for yourself that sound could mean a lot of things and when something's going wrong at home the hardest part can be figuring out what the problem actually is.

19:30At Thumbtack, you can upload a voice message or a photo, and our AI-powered search will help diagnose your project. Plus, the pros we know have over 14 million five-star reviews, so you can hire with confidence. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today. You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing. So why do your marketing results look the same as six months ago? That's because you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else. Podcast listeners are a different audience entirely, more engaged, harder to reach through traditional channels, and ready to act when someone they trust makes a recommendation.

20:08We're Acast, and we put them right in front of you. Browse thousands of the world's leading podcasts, book host reads or run your own ads, and track every conversion in real time. Same skills you already have, brand new results.

20:25Do you know what I'm actually obsessed with? Heck, chicken sausages. Oh, yeah. I literally have them pretty much every other day. Quick and easy. Straight in the air fryer. I have them with, oh, it's so good. No, is that not good? I've just got a thing against air fryers. I'm like, why? Like, we have an oven. We have a hob. Like, it's the same. Yeah, but an oven takes about 10 minutes to heat up. You just whack the air fryer on, you chuck it in for 10 minutes and they're done. I think it's a convenience thing for me. Well, I get it. It's convenience, but I also don't get it because I learn how to cook.

21:03And I'm like, well, I'll just whack it in the oven. It's the same. I don't get it. Why do I need this extra appliance in my fucking kitchen that cost me another 300 quid? Not my thing. But anyway, that's fine. So go on then. What motivated you to do the marathon? Because that's quite a big task to take on a lot of training. I think so. my first marathon was about three years ago um four years ago actually um my granddad just passed away from leukemia and I wanted to do something to remember him um and in just memory of him and raise some money um and that was my really reason to do it um and it was it was great it was so emotional but just the feelings I had running that marathon and the support I got was just like unmatched and it made me want to do more and then I did the New York one and then I managed to get get a place for the London one again.

21:53And it's just the best day out and it's absolutely amazing. And for me, I think I want to do the big six. I've actually just received a place for the Sydney Marathon at the end of August, which I can't wait. Like I've never been to Australia. So for me, it's just that feeling. I just think you can't get that anywhere else. Yeah. I did the Paris one once. Can't remember, like 2014 or 15, somewhere around there. And it is, even though no one could speak English and I couldn't speak French, but like the feeling and the emotion of everyone cheering you on is amazing. And then you're doing it for, you know, personal course, right?

22:27Which heightens all of that. That's awesome. But what was the, what was like the fueling training regime? Like, how did you feed yourself on those long runs? A lot of carbs. Like I was having a lot of carbs because I was running so much throughout the week. I was doing like 50, 60 K throughout the week training so in order for me to get that fuel and like go on these long runs i was i was having a lot of pasta a lot of rice um a lot of oats um and then gels as well smashing the energy yeah smashing the energy gels man the energy gels i mean i did it when i did my marathon i was smashing the energy they can't be good for you well they're just nonsense in terms of like them the first ingredient isn't even sugar anymore because sugar's too expensive so they've changed the ingredient to maltodextrin which is a starch derived from corn which is even cheaper but effectively acts exactly like sugar in your body and it's just really not good for your gut it's not good for inflammation it's like not like it's a junk ingredient you don't want in supplements full stop and like these are that's the first ingredient and it's like 90 % maltodextrin liquid and it's just it's horrendous.

23:38I was going to the toilet all the time on it so you know it's yeah it's gross i mean there are it's starting to evolve now like where people are getting like sachets of peanut butter are a great way to like get more calories in because peanut butter is quite high in calorie and then you can also get sachets of honey and honey's you know pure sugar essentially but from nature so can stop some of those like run to the toilet side effects that you don't want because i do love my honey honey's great i'm obsessed with it if you get the real works my hay fever as well i buy this like local honey from richmond and yeah my hay fever's pretty much stopped i mean it's proven in science if you eat local honey you're exposing your body to the pollen around you from the local area and therefore building your immune defense to not overreact to pollen because the the thing that people actually misunderstand about hay fever is they typically think it's like oh i'm reacting to the pollen there's something wrong with the pollen that i don't want but it's actually your immune system just reacting to something that it shouldn't react to so if you expose it to your natural environment slash um slash like local honeys you're priming your body and preparing your body for that exposure to that pollen and so weirdly you get more hay fever in cities than you do the countryside because in the city you've got all the air pollution which makes your nasal passages in immune system more prime to react the particles in the air than if you're just in the country exposed to pollen naturally as we were so it's quite a weird thing that's so weird because i thought for years that i never had hay fever and then i moved to london maybe four years ago and i was like why have i all of a sudden got this really bad hay fever it'll be the pollution yeah it'll be the pollution in the city like pollution in the city no one likes to talk about it because we all love cities and like you know london's fantastic yeah but you lose about two years of your life living in the city compared to living in the countryside fact just from pollution so it the pollution side of it kind of sucks um yeah and that's where your hay fever probably came from it's wild um okay so marathons lots of oats who doesn't eat lots of oats i think i remember i used to get up at like 7 a.m eat a bowl of oats wait an hour and then go on my like three hour sunday morning run it was wild but yeah i i would have done loads more marathons because the experience itself is amazing but i just the training got too much i was just like it's such a time i start my training next week and i'm it's gonna be a slog i'm not looking forward to hours you got it's so intense i just haven't got time how do you manage that with your schedule um you just have to make time um and to be honest it's so nice having this marathon in end of august because the whole training period will be over summer and it's gonna be bright at like 8 9 p.m so i'm able to go on these runs that late i'm able to go on these runs that early in the morning and like the days are so much longer the worst is training for a marathon in winter because it's dark pretty much most of the day well the london marathon in april is like you start training first of january and you're like oh shit and that's why for this london marathon so many people passed out like it was the like record number of people that passed out because they're training the whole way through the winter pretty much and then i think it was like one of the hottest days of the year at the london marathon and i'm running along and i'm just seeing all these people on the floor like what's going on not prepped no you need that hot weather training should have had a training camp in spain yeah exactly in the way um but all right like so it's time to move on to the crux of the podcast which is the good the bad and the healthy where i want to hear about what you currently do and i want you to tell me what's one good thing first of all in your diet one of the things you're most proud of oh um my air fryer

27:43um your air fryer cooking skills yeah i i would say um the fact that now rather than when i was at uni and before i cook so much of my food and i eat so many whole foods now which I think is a positive and I can really see the difference like energy wise, like my sleep just from the stuff that I'm eating. What did you eat last night for dinner then? I had chicken. It was actually really good. I had chicken breast and asparagus. That's it? That's it. I didn't have any carbs at all. I told you. Any flavour? Yeah, it was like a marinated chicken breast. It was like peri-peri on it. Did you marinate it?

28:26no the supermarket did oh come on you said you're a good cook i know i know but i was i was in a rush last night so do you know what the first ingredient is in peri peri marinade that you buy in a pre-bought sachet in the supermarket spice aisle no sugar really genuinely the first ingredient on like the little sachets of peri peri powder sugar that's why it tastes so good yeah of course you just pour sugar on your chicken it's like great yeah it's fantastic um so yeah we'll you know we've got to teach you how to make your own dressing that would be the way to do it but let's get on to the rubbish bit what's a kind of treat that you know you should cut out but you don't and that you're loving at the moment i'm such a sucker for sauce like i love my sauce and i think i don't realize how many calories or how bad sauces for you like the amount of sauce i consume is actually quite disgusting like i will go through half a bottle of ketchup with my Nando's.

29:25With one Nando's? Yeah, with my Nando's. What? Yeah, like I just love my ketchup. I love my mayonnaise. You're joking. No, there's this new sauce that my friend bought me. It's Chick-fil-A sauce from America. It's so good. So yeah, I would say... And half a bottle at a time? No, not half a bottle of that. No. No, just ketchup at Nando's. Just ketchup, half a bottle at a go. Yeah. But only with Nando's or with everything? No, just with Nando's. Right. So on the chicken? On the chicken thighs. Well, it's just that sugar, right? Because you just want that sweetness to go with your chicken because you love sugar on your chicken, basically.

30:06That is wild. Do you just buy straight up Heinz or do you get at least one of the low sugar options? I will get low sugar Heinz. Oh, you will? Because of the amount of sauce I have. So I have to get low sugar on them. You know you've got a problem, but I'm treating it. It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. nice okay that's cool um and then what about the healthy like what's the healthiest thing you do or a recent like swap or hack you've made to your health regime cutting out fizzy drinks completely um i basically just drink water now unless i'm going out for a drink with friends um drinking what's up or vodka iced tea or vodka iced tea yeah um it will be yeah just drinking water like even in the house like my friends will be having a even a diet coke or a coke or something and i'll just stick to water so i think that's a positive that's a big positive that's a big one for a lot of people because you just love that sweet taste right and you're addicted to it and you're going out so you're like oh let me just treat myself and you think oh it's diet so it's fine but it still tricks your brain into like craving more yeah um so yeah that is a good one to cut out well done um all right so this is now the segment of the podcast where we get to nosy into your trolley i asked you to bring a receipt of what you've been shopping and we want to see what's actually in your basket bear in mind that this was mine and my friend's receipts there's something on here that i actually like have a phobia too so you've got to guess what it is I've got to guess what your phobia is.

31:35Damn, okay. So it's Asda. It's quite a bland list. All right, we've already got all the spices and all the herbs and stuff at home. You've already got your sugar on your chicken, so there's no sugar on here. It's red onions, mince, meatballs, sausages twice. Heck. Heck sausages twice. Pasta, chicken, tomato puree, basmati rice, spaghetti, tuna, tomatoes, bread, and semi-skimmed milk. yeah two pints yeah so you've got a phobia to one of these things i can't be in the same room as someone if they're eating it like genuinely like this i won't i won't give any clues we know you love chicken and sausages and it's not going to be the tuna yeah tuna yeah i got it right damn why are you scared of tuna i don't know i think it's just the smell of it it's like that tuna mayo consistency it's them like opening it up in that little tin pouring out like the tuna juice before they eat it like everything about it just like weirds me out do you eat fish i eat some fish yeah but not fishy fish but not fishy fish but i love like a tuna steak oh you love a tuna steak yeah but yeah so no sardines no mackerel no sardines no anchovies mackerel salmon i don't like it's too fruity yeah you're just straight up cod haddock haddock yeah sea bass the easy ones yeah nice okay fair enough well at least you're still getting your omega-3s from the other fishes yeah um why semi-skimmed milk i don't know i went through a period of drinking oat milk but someone told me it was bad for me true really well it depends depends on the oat milk but um typically like the oatly brand has added seed oils in and then oats are actually very high in the glycemic index um and essentially like if you're having a latte with oat milk in it you could potentially be having up to about three teaspoons of sugar in that latte right um because it's very sweet um in in that from the oats naturally it's not added sugar but even still you're just better off drinking milk because it's lower glycemic index and it's one ingredient doesn't have added seed oils so i would always say milk but i would always say whole milk because actually a lot of the nutrients from dairy are in the fats the fat soluble vitamins are in the fat so you want the whole unprocessed milk because essentially you take milk and then you're processing it another step to get semi-skimmed and then you process it another step to get skimmed and skimmed milk can be so like gray with like nothing left in it that they often had to add like white powdering back in to give it when you say whole milk is that full fat milk full fat whole milk yeah the legit the og the original but i only really have milk in my coffee in the morning oh so it's only a little yeah so i don't really drink milk anywhere else you're not having it in a bowl of cereal for breakfast no i don't eat cereal i don't know sorry i don't eat breakfast really don't eat breakfast No, you're faster, intermittent faster.

34:42Yeah. So I'll go to the gym in the morning, but on an empty stomach, just have a coffee. And then my first meal of the day will be about midday. Nice. Yeah. It's a good thing. Is that a bad thing, missing breakfast? No, no, not at all. Like people, you know, we were kind of all trained to be like, you know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it sets you up for the day and blah, blah, blah. To which an extent it is actually. But actually when you have your breakfast, no one really had to define. It doesn't have to be at 7 a.m. before work or before the gym. Like it is whenever you want to break your fast and if you want to prolong it by not eating until lunch.

35:19Totally, totally cool. Your body knows how to deal with that. And actually a lot of people seem to thrive off it better, but I tend to just do it flexibly. So like if I've come here today, I'm on the train at 6 a.m. and I'm not going to eat at 5.30 before then because I'm not hungry. and so then I might have breakfast at like 11 when I've done my first bit and I'm in London so just eat when you want and when it suits you and then other days I'll have breakfast at eight or seven whenever just depends I just always feel like I train better if I don't eat yeah a lot of people do yeah yeah because a lot of people like get on this thing of like you rely on the fuel they have a pre-workout they might have like a big breakfast or a bowl of porridge and they're relying on the short carbohydrate fuel to then go and drive that workout and that can work and it can work really well and especially for competitions it's probably better but you don't have to and your body can fuel itself from the energy it's got we've all got abundance amount of energy and fat stores in the body that we can just run off and you just got to kind of train your body to run off the two fuel sources basically um so yeah that's a good list though man i have to say that's a very healthy one of the best you've had yeah come on it's up there it's definitely up there i mean i don't know what type of bread you bought would be the other area of question i don't actually have bread so that that would have been my housemate and i'm not even just saying that are you sure are you sure you don't eat any bread um i went back for a barbecue at mum's on monday night i had some bread there but like in my day to day day to day when i'm living in london i don't know it's a solid effort i mean not that there's anything wrong with bread it's just typically we made bread this horrible ultra processed thing with 25 ingredients when if you buy actual sourdough it's like four and it's way better for you so i eat bread i'm not actually against bread yeah no nor am i i just it's just not really in my diet yeah okay well that was very interesting very revealing so so when do go shopping do you shop online or do you go through the store are you looking at ingredients list do you bother looking what's on the back of the pack if i'm being honest no i don't no i just think in my head oh that looks healthy or that looks good and then i'll buy it i won't look at the back like you said about the peri peri sauce like for me i'm not going to look at the back of the peri peri sauce to see if it's good i'm just thinking in my head oh it's a marinade it tastes nice i'm gonna buy it fair enough i mean who's got the time right i'm pretty much the only one who goes through the supermarket and reads all the bloody labels um but it you know it's it's time consuming and the marketing's insanely good right because even on a pack of cereal they can be like high in fiber or grain and you're like must be all right yeah and then it's like more sugar than anything else and complete nonsense for your health so you've got to be careful out the supermarket's a dangerous place yeah there was this pack of bagels um a couple of weeks ago and it was like 15 grounds of protein on the front i was like oh sick yeah perfect sounds good sounds great yeah isn't great when you look at the back of the ingredients because often those protein bagels are like hardly no more protein than actual normal bread or bagels because the fact it says protein that's why it gets my attention i don't know that's crazy to say but I mean, it's probably the biggest trend in the supermarket for the last five years is whacking protein on everything.

38:48And it basically sells more. And in principle, it's not a bad thing. Like we all need to eat more protein and it fills us up better. But typically they're often ultra processed and actually don't have that much more protein in them to make it like a viable choice. Right. Like you see protein pancakes popping up everywhere in the supermarket. And you're like, guys, they're like 20 % more protein than normal pancakes. a pancake does not have protein in it like it's just nonsense like this is crap like it's not good for us like eat eggs if you want protein eat cheese like that has protein in it i think for the last like three pancake days i've i've gone for protein pancakes because i'm like yeah it's it's healthy kind of healthy and i'll slather like nutella on it it's fine because it's got protein in it don't worry about that okay cool um so let's do the quick fire round and so we can get into the detail of a few things i'm gonna ask you probably about five or six really fast questions i need quick answers okay if that's all right um so what's your favorite guilty pleasure takeaway oh uh pizza pizza classic love it it's called berberay pizza in cluffer molletown so good okay proper italian south proper italian thin or thick crust thin thin nice got this amazing garlic aioli and it's so good.

40:05Very good, very good. Okay, so what's your go-to healthy snack? Is biltong healthy? Yeah, it can be. Yeah, it's pretty good. I love biltong. Nice. It's so good. It's a good snack. High in protein. Yeah, I figured out in South Africa and it was amazing. I mean, you just live off it there. Yeah. It's legit. I love it. Ideally, you want to find one without nitrates because nitrates aren't that great. So if you can find one without nitrates, that's the way to go. But you can get them in the supermarket. yeah um what's the oldest item in your fridge right now uh there's definitely some strawberries back there that have been there way too long i'm just thinking about it now moldy yeah moldy trick with strawberries put them in a bowl of water in your fridge really last for like a week without going moldy okay because otherwise it's you've got like two three days and then they're done i'm the same um meal prep yes or no no no no i i used to when i was at uni when i was a lot more like money conscious like to save money but now i don't i i should but i don't okay you don't need to i think i i find it incredibly boring i like the variety of like cooking something different every day you're feeling shit you've had a bad day favorite comfort meal is that the same as pizza or oh no wing stop wing stop yeah the wings dirty wings i don't even know what's in their sauce but boneless wings with the ranch dip oh my god okay all right it's making my mouth water you love it you're a winning stock man okay one health hack that you've learned and now live by on peri peri sauce it's not your ketchup issue that you need to address yeah and probably that half a bottle of ketchup at nando's is not acceptable you're just vying for a heinz ketchup deal aren't you yeah that's what you want you want a heinz ketchup deal all good All right.

42:05So at this point, we want to give you a chance to ask me any questions you've got in the world of food. It's confusing. The supermarket is mixed with all marketing messages and different too many choices in many ways. So do you have any questions or any things that you're doing that you want to learn more about, whether it be supplements or some of your habits that? yeah i i guess for me i don't take supplements and i never really have but in my position especially leading up to a marathon would you take any supplements and if so what would you take i would i mean some people are like fully anti-supplements um because for whatever reason they have an idealistic view that you shouldn't get everything from your diet which 100 you can like whole foods is the best way to go but where i when i it was actually when i was working at barclays bank and i was doing the paris marathon and these things i would get ill all the time and i thought i was eating healthy i'd eat you know chicken breast and salad and that was my dinner because it was like protein no carbs that was my vibe as a young guy living in london but in the end i just kept getting ill all the time because i wasn't getting enough nutrition in my diet and like everyone looks at protein carbs fats but everyone forgets nutrients vitamins minerals and these things we actually need in our body every day and whilst whole foods are fantastic if you actually look at the data over the last sort of 50 years we've lost between 30 and 50 percent of the nutrient content in our vegetables just to kind of factory farming practices and not doing proper crop rotation and just farming the same soils because essentially that food pulls out all the nutrients from the soil and after a while there's none left so it's getting harder and harder to achieve so i supplement i supplement all the time if i was doing a marathon you know i would get a good quality whey protein you know whey protein tried and tested really proven you know it's an easy way to get extra protein in because it can be quite hard to hit your goals especially if you're like doing those long runs um i would just watch out for which one you're buying right because a lot of them add in gums artificial sweeteners and additives that you really want and can start messing up with your gut and other things so you can get clean sources which are just like protein bit of natural flavor maybe a bit of stevia for sweetness simple like to look for a good brand of whey protein um that is tried and tested the other supplement that's probably the number one most studied supplement in the world is creatine um really good for muscle recovery and performance um so most people associate it with being a kind of gym supplement just to get you jacked because it helps with water retention and it helps muscle but actually it's good for your brain and it'll be good for that kind of performance and recovery of your muscles as well so it's not just a aesthetics thing it will actually help your performance so I'd definitely go on to creatine and then the other thing that's well very well proven is they've done lots of studies on long distance runners which you would be classed as as doing a marathon and actually the further you run the more you're depleting your body of vitamins and minerals so they've studied it mostly in vitamin c but your body is using vitamin c as an antioxidant in the body and exercise is a stressor on your body you're pounding the miles you're putting a lot of pressure on your body so the more you put oxidative stress and damage in your body through doing more and more exercise and long distance running the more you need vitamin c and other vitamins and minerals to support your body through that process because it's a proper grueling thing so I would just get a very good all-round like multivitamin without plugging my own brand but like there's lots of options out there that you can get which you just need to top up that baseline make sure you're getting enough because you'll find it'll help with recovery it'll stop you from getting ill as much like long distance runners get ill all the time and that's because they end up having chronically low levels of vitamins in their body.

46:08So you just need to replenish your body essentially because you're putting it under stress. Like we all know exercise is good for us, but it's actually a stressor. And especially like do a 5K, it's kind of like fine. You can get away with it. But when you start doing 10, 15, 20Ks, you're putting proper stress on your body. So you got to just think about it like fuel, right? It's fuel for your body. You got to nourish your body. And yeah, I think supplementing is a really important part of that ultimately. nice nice any others um are you good with your training regime you know what you're doing yeah i would yeah i guess would you just say prepping for a marathon as well carb loading is the way to go i don't think there's any way around it with those kind of distances um although that being said i know plenty of people that have done like ultra marathons being keto so you can do it and you could fuel yourself on fat if you want to go the other way but you have to be really strict on that way so your body gets into that fat burning mode but as far as i understand it from a pure play performance perspective carbs is the most efficient way of you know burning fuel getting you know your glycogen stores replenished in the muscles and those kinds of things so i would stick to that but i would skip the gels and try and do it with honey and i think you'd find you you have just as good as performance without potentially running to the toilet if you can do it with local honey do it man i don't know if you can get your local honey and sachets but you know if you can do it i think that would be the best way and you know often when people are training they get so focused on like the macros that they're like well i just need to get these calories in so i'm going to eat you know a plate of pasta with nothing on it or maybe half a bottle of ketchup in your case, but like, you know, you're just going to eat pasta and it's like, great, fine.

48:02Like that will give you the glucose and carbs you need for restoring, but it does not do anything for your vitamins and your minerals. So just make sure you're thinking about the micronutrients as well, because vegetables are a carb, right? You could fill that plate up with some pasta and peppers and onions and courgette and whatever else to get more carbs in, but get the nutrients from the vegetables as well so just don't forget about the micronutrients and you'll be in a much better position yeah yeah so you're quite clearly like into your health and fitness but with love island and the kind of influencer party scene like how do you balance those two things i don't think i did at first at all i remember coming off the first love island and you're getting invited to all these brand events and there's three, four a week and it's free drinks at all the events and all these other influencers are going and all these other Love Islanders are going.

48:59I was like a little kid in a candy shop. I'm like, oh my God, this brand want me to go here and there's going to be this person in this person who I've watched on Love Island before. And it's like, I'll go. And then it's a free bar. So you end up drinking and then there'll be an event a couple days later and you're drinking at that so I did get into a bad routine and definitely bad habits when I came out um and I was partying a lot um and it wasn't great at all back at uni yeah literally back at uni but just free drinks which makes it even worse yeah all these events um but I think as time goes on that definitely did wear out um and by the next time I went on the show.

49:45I barely went to any events, nothing at all, because you just get into such bad habits and such a bad routine. So I would say, yeah, it was definitely hard and I did struggle coming out of the show the first time around. And like you said, it's like being back at uni where you're hungover and then you're eating bad again and it's like... It's free temptation. Yeah, it was tough. and you're going on these brand trips and you're topless and you're getting pictures and stuff and you're like, well, in order to do that, then I can't eat if I'm drinking and it was like, it was just a slippery slope.

50:27Dangerous game. Yeah, yeah, it was tough. So what was it like on the show? Were you drinking on the show? Not at all. You were allowed one drink a night. That's it? Yeah, that's it. you'd get the option between a rosé, red wine, white wine or a beer. And it was all in like a little flute glass. And so there was barely anything in it. So your chat up game had to be strong. Yeah, people are like, oh, I do such a better job. It's like, well, try doing it sober with all these cameras looking at you, knowing that millions of people back home are watching you. Like, it was nerve wracking. That is genuinely very hard for a lot of people.

51:10Yeah, I remember my first day that I went in the first time around and I was sat there on a sunbed waiting for the girls to come out into the garden and I had this glass and they were like, right, okay, you've got your glass of booze here or whatever they said. And then I drank a bit and I was like, have you guys put alcohol in this? And they were like, no, it's just orange juice. I was like, I'm walking in for the first time. I need a bit of courage. It was tough. I was like sweating. I was like shaking. Orange shoes ain't going to cut it. Yeah, no, it was tough. And then I think All-Stars the second time, well, the first All-Stars, they would give us two glasses a night, which was a bit better because they were like, right, okay, you're veterans.

51:54You've done it before. There's your second glass. Did they say why they limit it? Or it's just a policy to not get drunk? At the start, when the days of the Scott Thomas was going on and like the first and second series it was like a free-for-all I think they're all getting drunk every night and they were smoking in the garden but it's changed so much and I think they do it maybe because it has got a lot more PG the show and I think they don't want you to do anything when you're drunk and regret it in terms of um get sexual in the in the bedroom or like just say something you don't mean in the garden and like when tensions are heated which normally they are in love island especially at night time there's arguments happening if you're drunk it's not gonna it's not it's not gonna end well but i mean on the bright side your game must be strong now like now you can go to the pub sober and just chat up anyone no yeah but i was always quite good at that and i think that's why they liked me and wanted me to go on the show and i think that's why they pick a lot of these people to go on the show because in the interviews they're not like oh yeah I love a drink I'm a party boy I'm going out you very much have to be like I'll approach girls on the street I'll approach girls on the underground like they don't like this whole oh yeah I'll pull a girl on the night out sort of thing because they're like right well that kind of means that you can't do it sober yeah yeah well I mean I think it's a lost art though with all the dating apps and stuff yeah like yeah do you go up to random girls now and i'll swim out on the street um not as of recently no no i haven't no i'm not and i'm not really on any well i'm not on any dating apps as well i think give it a bit of time a bit of time yeah a bit of time okay you're confident in your game your game will come back yeah it'll come back nice man no it's really interesting because so many people like rely on that you know couple of drinks take the edge off give them a bit dutch courage but i found it because obviously i was at uni i drank loads when i was in my 20s and partying every weekend and you know it gives you that kind of vibe but then i think at some point when i decided like i'm just going to basically give up drinking you then just realize like just a person like you can do any of this without alcohol right Like you don't need it.

54:16You just somehow get hooked on that feeling or that buzz to just give you the, like free your inhibitions a little bit, don't you? Yeah. But you don't need it. No, you don't at all. And I love it. Like I'm able now to go on a night out and not drink and it's great. Like it's just completely fine. And you feel so much better the next day. Yeah, it's great. But I went on my brother's stag do the weekend just gone. My first ever stag do. oh my god the amount of drinking like i still haven't really recovered like now like how many days was it it was three days so we went on thursday to sun sunday and i've never felt worse than i did on on that sunday and monday like sweating in my sleep like profusely like it was horrible and it's made me now just be like right okay i need to take some time off like that was that was heavy what was the worst thing that the stag had to do well his outfits were just ridiculous like he was dressed as a bride like he had these he had this most disgusting airport outfit that he wore which was great um just degrading yeah yeah creating those outfits i never want to wear them that was good it was good fun but never again never again once you do those trips you're like right i'm done forever and then you kind of get this amnesia and then next year you're like let's go do it again yeah damn so give me a typical day in the life of Casey what does food look like breakfast lunch and dinner snacks can you spill the beans yeah absolutely so I wake up in the morning at around half seven eight and then I have my cup of coffee we've got a great coffee machine amazing and then I'll have my electrolytes as well what's your go coffee um flat white flat white yeah and it like throffs the milk half it's amazing it like grinds the coffee beans oh you got the proper yeah you literally just like swipe along choose what one you want cappuccino i literally click it it's got our i've got two other housemates and it's got our faces on them and you just click casey and then it's got exactly what you want yeah that must have set you back a bit i didn't know you could get your face on a coffee machine you what it was gifted i was a gifted pokes of being an influencer solid and then i'll have my electrolytes my liquid ivs and then hold on liquid what liquid iv your electrolytes yeah it's called liquid iv so yeah yeah no i know what it is oh right but why do you have that um because i think they're great they taste great yeah you know what the first ingredient is here we go it's sugar man do you know how much sugar's in one of those sachets no correct me if I'm wrong but it's about 11 grams of sugar per sachet so it's about 2.5 teaspoons almost 3 teaspoons in fact per thing so like you wouldn't have 2 teaspoons of sugar in your morning coffee would you but then you're just whacking up 3 3 teaspoons almost 3 teaspoons in your electrolytes since I've started using them I feel so much better and I feel so much more hydrated I feel like I've got so much more energy well electrolytes are great yeah don't get me wrong like electrolytes are super important we should get them but you don't need the levels of sugar that's in liquid IV like you can get some with like one gram of sugar or you can get some with zero grams of sugar because I mean we make them ourselves and we put no sugar in it because most people consume more than enough sugar they need in their diet throughout the day anyway so that we just don't need to add any more and you're going to get proper hydration just from the the minerals the sodium the potassium the magnesium that you need so i'll just switch that out sorry i don't mean to ruin your routine carry on and then i'll train i'll go to the gym so i'll either do a run or get a weight session in and then around midday I will have a protein shake at David Lloyd it's called Top Banana it's so good yeah it's got protein banana peanut butter and milk some sort of milk I don't know it hasn't got sugar as the first ingredient might do I don't know I don't know what David Lloyd's doing I'm sure they don't it's fine I'm just joking but one thing to mention though is because you're not having your breakfast you're having a flat white with milk and then you're having your electrolytes with sugar so the benefits that most people get from like prolonging that fast and not eating until lunch time you're actually not getting because you're consuming milk and sugar in the morning so if i would if i were you totally up to you but i would swap the coffee for a black coffee and then get an electrolyte without the additives and then i can't click my name on the coffee machine what do you mean you can make a black coffee no i know but it's just not the same without the coffee milk it's not the same but you have two coffees in a day surely just one you only have one yeah ah that's brutal because i usually have like a black coffee first thing in the morning right and then later in the day i'll have my milky one do you yeah so i do it because i like both what time's your last coffee try and have it just after lunch so around like one one day something like that because it does affect your sleep the later you have it yeah i feel like if i have it normally after yeah one two ish then yeah you gotta stop yeah people there's some psychos out there that go to starbucks at like six o 'clock yeah i don't know how like restaurants will offer you a coffee after you eat as well i don't get that yeah that's like an italian thing isn't it to have the espresso So after dinner, it never made any sense to me.