Fasting Myths, Gut-Boosting Pasta & A Five-Year Brain Boost

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1:02welcome to the wellness scoob your twice weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration and as always we're both here as your host i'm ella mills and i'm riannon lambert and after a decade in the wellness industry we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be and that's why we're here with this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple fun and personal and guys we made it to march oh my gosh i feel spring is in the air Oh, well done, everyone. It's just the warmth on my skin, just a little bit. And I'm sure you guys live in the Southern Hemisphere, different story.

1:36And thank you for listening all over the world. But certainly, I know for me, there's something like I woke up, so it was quarter to seven or something this morning, and I opened the curtains and it was pretty light. I could see the sunrise. I've got blossom on my trees starting to appear, pink or white blossom. I was like, oh my gosh. It's an unbelievable difference in me. It's like the school run, it's light. Spring is giving me a spring in my step. Yeah, so anyone listening around the world, I just cannot describe how depressing the UK winters are. And when you get a hint of colour and warmth, you just feel like a new person.

2:11January and February are rough. And I always think it's so weird, isn't it? I'm sure lots of you feel the same way. But the New Year's resolutions and aims to get healthier start on the 1st of January, when it's almost impossible to motivate yourself. 100 % and I just feel tired and lethargic. Yeah, whereas we've obviously just had Chinese New Year. It's the year of the horse, apparently, the magical horse, the fire horse. I know. I mean, it's going to be a great year, guys. But then in a few weeks, it's spring equinox, isn't it? And so basically, I feel like this is New Year, guys. This is like the positive New Year.

2:43And we're here. We can gallop into the sunset. Galloping headlines for you. Ella, what do we have in today's show? Okay, we have loads. But quickly, I have to say, guys, we are so kind of humbled, overwhelmed. appreciative obviously of your ongoing support but the emails that we're getting oh my goodness I went away to sunny Spain I made it there um last week over half term for and I think I was away four nights and I got back and we had over 400 emails and I didn't believe Ella when she messaged me being like you know I think you messaged me at first and it's over 300 I was like no surely not I was like no she hasn't counted them like she just looked like estimated through it and then i was like oh my goodness we actually have it's crazy so we're just so yeah it's so easy to say we're so grateful we really appreciate it and it sounds a bit wishy-washy but honestly we've really knowing this means something to you is just unbelievable for us and what's also helpful is even though obviously we can't get back to every single one most of them follow the same thread as well so we are going to be hopefully able to reply to all of you so keep them coming You know, we want to see as many as possible and we are here for it and we love reading through them.

3:55Totally. It really, really informs all the topics we take. As Ree said, there's such clear themes in there that you guys want more of. So thank you. OK, I'm sorry. What have we got going on? OK, we have got this is a really good one. There was a big, big, big new review. Ree was talking about it on Sky News, I think it was on intermittent fasting. So we're going to dive into that and whether it's any better or not so much than standard diets when it comes to weight loss. what the evidence says about that. We're going to talk about the underrated fibre ingredient that's hiding in your pasta, your potatoes, your lentils and how we can get more of that in our lives.

4:30Reading, writing and lifelong learning being linked to a 40 % lower risk of dementia which is absolutely wild. We're going to dive into that and a little bit more on the rise of matcha. There's some quite funny bits to talk about in there but we'll also go into whether it lives up to the hype and coffee versus matcha.

4:53how was spain then tell me oh my gosh it was just heaven yeah it really was we were there four nights um we were staying near marbella and we were just the weather was bliss and i always forget like i don't know there's something about that quality family time you just remove yourself from everything else that is just gold it's a good time to go i feel i sadly worked through february but it It went from nought to a thousand very quickly for me. Workwise, it wasn't meant to be like that. But I think it's so underrated. A lot of people book before, don't they? And perhaps it's the perfect time to escape.

5:28Oh my gosh, it was absolutely... Because it's warm, right? It was warm. It was sunny. We played a lot of Uno. The kids swam in the pool. And you met my friend on the beach. Met Ree's friend. From the world. Yeah, and the girls made friends with her daughter, who was so cute. So no, it was great. And just feel ready. As I said, I kind of feel like this is the new year. Yeah, bring it on. And then you can write about it on your sub stack. Yes, which I'm so enjoying. I've also signed myself up. I think I've said I'm doing my breathwork teacher training and I've signed myself up to another breathwork training and meditation training and yoga teacher training.

6:03So I think this is my big focus this year. I basically expect Ella to walk into the studio dressed in some kind of adorning robe. Flowing robe. Flowing like I am the... I am the AI monk. Yes, the AI monk. But it's wonderful. It really is. I'm so happy for you. It's so nice to see that all these things you wanted to do last year, you're able to actually do. Yeah. Do you know what? I mean, I did my first yoga teacher training back in 2018. So quite a long time ago now. But God, I loved teaching. And it's just sort of, I don't know what it was, but I was like, I want to get back to it. You taught me when I was pregnant.

6:36I remember. I remember. Anyway, you have, on the other hand, I feel like if I'm in my learning phase, you're in your absolute like power woman, power suit phase. Yeah. All over this place. It's a busy time. It's a busy time. I won't bore you all with it. There's just so much going on. I've got a new mission with Children's Nutrition as well, which I'll discuss in a few weeks. I'm working really hard on. What I will say is what I loved about the big Sky News feature that we'll get onto later is I was actually given time for the first time, I think, on a live TV interview. I was given like six or seven minutes to speak.

7:07That's massive. Massive. And I was able to get actual information out there. I feel there's been a shift in TV or journalism. There's definitely been a change. because when I was doing, you know, BBC World or Sky News like 10 years ago, it wasn't the same. You'd be on for maybe two minutes, three minutes. You barely got a chance to get a word in. So I feel very grateful. And I saw Matilda the musical. So I feel like that does just the icing on my cake last week. We're going in a few weeks. Yay. Yeah, I'm really excited. And you saw Cirque du Soleil. We saw Cirque du Soleil, yes. A few days ago.

7:37Oh, my gosh. Phenomenal. I know. Absolutely fantastic. It makes you feel like the weakest human on the planet. Oh, my gosh. This guy, who's our older daughter, was like, I want to be the contortionist. Okay, you crack on, live goals right there. Oh, I find it hard to watch. Right, I love it. I'm so glad you love that, Ella. Shall we tackle now the health headlines that matter?

8:05Reid, before we get into our three juicy headlines for this week, you actually have a pickup for us, don't you? I saw you popped in a brand new report that came out last week. I do. I got one of those lovely, fancy embargoed emails. And I was like, Ella, let's quickly pop that on. It is important because we know now that we've got the figures, the US ranks first now globally for ultra processed food consumption. We knew it was high, but it's gone up. So 79 % of Americans are eating ultra processed foods nearly every day. And this is data, get this, from 1 million people worldwide. So the 2025 Global Mind Health Report also found that this is just getting larger and larger in younger people, younger generations.

8:45It's increasing from 26 % among those who are 55 and over to 54 % among 18 to 34 year olds. Like such a key crucial age and development and growth. And that's the worldwide figures for consumption of UPF. So worldwide, 54 % of 18 to 34 year olds eat UPFs every day. And it just goes to show that in countries you wouldn't expect as well, this is happening, it is getting worse. And intake is highest, obviously, in the US and UK, and it is still lowest in the Middle East and North Africa, where I feel they just have a very strong food culture. I feel, you know, there's a lot of fresh food being made and still that family kind of ritual.

9:24But basically, previous peer reviewed studies had linked UPF food to high rates of depression, which we know plays a role, you know, mental health, emotional regulation. and I feel that is the link with ultra processed foods it's not being discussed in the press at the moment don't you think um I totally agree massively so it kind of links into the project I want to do with children and mental health coming up with food at the end of the year but essentially you know we really need to focus on the fact that mental health is in the decline and perhaps there's a wider link to food than previously thought do you know what I'll give if you want to slightly off topic, but tip that your friend Chessie gave me while we were chatting in the pool.

10:04She's the optimal sunshine girl. Oh, she's such a sunshine girl. But we were talking her daughter similar age to our daughters. And we were talking about cooking for kids and nutrition for children and kind of navigating the minefield or I'd see it as a minefield. And I was saying how one of the things that's resonated most with my girls in terms of, and they're five and six, just for context in terms of understanding the importance of eating proper food is this idea of their gut bugs and they have to feed their gut bugs and their gut bugs you know so they're always asking me like do gut bugs love this food or that food like that book that belly bugs book exactly and they really get the premise there that like the gut bugs need feeding anyway and so we were talking about this and she said yes my daughter finds it really helpful to imagine it as a pet and she has it as an animal i love that like a tamagotchi and your bugs and it was so helpful so the girls have chosen the animals so Skye who's the older one hers is a giraffe May has two guinea pigs and two hamsters she's a giraffe I know it's hilarious I just couldn't pick a different I just put it in your tummy you'd think like a fluffy rabbit I mean you can't quite the neck it's going to be uncomfy but anyway apparently she has a teeny giraffe on her tummy and then May says that she has two guinea pigs and two hamsters I'm doing it with the boys tonight bedtime that'll be my discussion now it was fantastic I'll get dragons though I bet you I know but they got it i mean dragons need power yeah so it's just this really they really got it when you're like no no no we need the peas or we need the chickpeas we need the lentils we need to have some fruit like we've come back from a birthday party we've had so much sugar you know we went to so to slay and they had popcorn and sweeties and all the rest of it and i'm like oh let's get some you know fruits and veggies i did tell her before she went i was like yeah you're gonna have to eat all the popcorn oh of course and i think it's part of the experience and they love it but But it was really, anyway, just as a recommendation, it was a really helpful tip for that visualization for younger people.

11:55I love that. Jessie, why have you not messaged me that before if you're listening? I absolutely love it. I'm doing that tonight. Everyone, let's name our pet. What pet lives in your tummy? Such a good idea. Amazing. So I think it kind of moves on to the opposite. The first headline today discusses starving our gut bugs. And it's with the trend intermittent fasting. And finally, we had a lot of research come out the other week that suggested that it doesn't do anything different or miraculous to normal weight loss diets, which I think we've said for a very long time. But of course, there are always those voices on the Internet that say it's a miracle.

12:31Yeah, it was interesting. Lots of the authors were basically saying this is just such a clear example of when kind of hype and desire for quick fixes and kind of internet conversations just don't match the evidence, which is so interesting. Anyway, Rhi, I know you're super clued up on this because you did a whole interview as we said about it. But if we take one headline, this, for example, was in The Guardian. It ran intermittent fasting no better than typical weight loss diets, a study finds. Researchers say limited eating, as in fasting, approaches such as the 5-2 diet are not a miracle solution amid the surge in their popularity.

13:07And it just makes sense because we're just all unique. And I did caveat in the interview, and this is the one I was given a long chunk of time on. I was so grateful for that nuance because I was able to say, look, it does work for some people as a weight loss tool. But for most people, it's just going to spiral into disordered eating and be completely unattainable and leave you feeling like a failure because you're just trying to restrict. Right. Have you ever tried it? No. I tried it when people were when it felt like, oh, gosh, maybe this was like five years ago. It just felt like such a hype.

13:36It was. I remember the one meal a book day. I remember getting an argument online with someone that was promoting a one. Honestly, it almost felt like if you weren't doing it, then you didn't care about your health to some degree. It's a bit like if you it's like not eating greens. Do you know what I mean? There was something about it. And so I remember thinking, OK, well, let's try this. And it's interesting because my husband and I tried it at the same time. I bet his results were better. He actually really felt good on it. The main thing for him was he he felt really good when he was doing it.

14:06And yeah, it was a success for him. But the problem for him was he would often then be like very busy at work. Like I need to break the fast and then not have time to break it with like a healthy meal. And so we'd end up breaking it with various snacks and things like that, which isn't ideal. So it was quite difficult in that sense within a kind of working in an office environment. I did not feel good on it at all. I felt dizzy. My period, which has always been super, super regular, very lucky for that, was a mess. It just did not. Anyway, I felt dizzy and I almost I was like, what am I doing?

14:37I know it's the female hormones. But I can understand why. Why not try it if you wanted to? But equally, obviously, we're discussing here in isolation it linking to weight loss, not other reasons for doing it, which is still debated, I must say. You know, there's no there's no solid research. It is beneficial yet. But what we do know, like Sarah Berry said when she came on our podcast, is that it is good to have a significant gap before bedtime and sleep and eating, because that is really beneficial for our gut bugs to do their job, do what they need to do. But you're talking about kind of 12, 13 hours here, like have dinner and then have breakfast.

15:10Yeah. To stop snacking after nine o 'clock is the one thing I always do since Sarah said it. I try really hard. It helps me to have a number on the clock. But sometimes when I'm working late, I'm able to break that because I don't have to sort of eating. I'm flexible. And I think if you find yourself thinking, I have to stick to this one number all the time, that's when there is an issue with food. But this review was published in the Cochrane database of systematic reviews. and it analyzed 22 randomized clinical trials, which is the gold standard. I love that type of study. It's really good. On 1 ,995 adults across Europe, Northern America, China, Australia, and South America.

15:47So really good high quality evidence. And they looked at different forms of fasting and that did include, like we've said, the alternate day fasting and the 5-2 diet where people basically do two days a week of fasting and then the other three they eat normally. I also find that really hard I think depending on your job and one of the things I said Ella in the Sky News interview and I actually threw it back on the presenter and I said would you want your doctor in a hospital to be fasting when he's seeing you he's like well absolutely not you have to think about your your lifestyle and what you do but yeah over a period of 12 months they found no meaningful difference in weight loss and I think it just sums up absolutely everything that we've said about this industry like you said at the start.

16:29I totally get it like who doesn't want a panacea who doesn't want you know a perfect solution but it's just it's amazing how quickly the internet packages something up as this will solve all your problems and I think fasting was really effectively packaged up as that as I said I feel like I'm pretty robust but even I was like I've got to try this. I mean there were huge advocates for it at the time as well and I actually remember being criticized for not supporting it at the time because I work obviously back then I was very heavily in my clinic completely in the clinic and I wasn't doing asthma I do the odd media jobs but I wasn't doing as much I had the food for thought podcast and I had I did an interview with Dr.

17:12Dr. Rona and Tony from Kings I think and she specializes in intermittent fasting and we were having this discussion and I remember getting so much trolling for saying look I work with eating disorder clients and someone's like yeah well not everyone's got an eating disorder I was like I know but for most women who've got their menstrual cycle it is impossible to do it like you said Ella your hormones it's just didn't suit me interestingly on average the participants who were doing various different types of fasting lost around three percent of their body weight so bad yeah but my understanding is that generally five percent weight loss is sort of considered clinically meaningful in terms of following diets and so actually it's not nothing but in terms of really fundamentally shifting your health if weight loss is an important part of that.

17:57We need to know to start weight though, that this is it, like we need more research on are these people looking at reducing their risk of type 2 diabetes or are they obese or what's the reason for the weight loss? Totally. And the authors did very clearly know that we do need still a lot more research to look at the impact of fasting on different health outcomes outside of weight. So things like type 2 diabetes, other different metabolic disorders, for example. So it's not to say that fasting is useless. it's totally pointless obviously i also appreciate we're talking about this as ramadan at the moment there are religious components to it will be giving up things for lent completely and obviously just goes without saying we're really not discussing the kind of religious element of this that's obviously something to be hugely respected anyone doing that i mean ramadan i'm in awe of you completely but if you in terms of just purely a weight loss technique i think it Suffice to say, this data is pretty clear that it's not a magical fix-all.

18:55Yeah, 100%. I'm really glad that it came into the headlines because hopefully, slowly, we're getting these messages out there to everyone. They don't need to fall for these online tricks.

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20:04You all know me. I'm about adding more in, not cutting things out. No fads, no diets, it's just evidence and transparency. And right now in the UK, everyone, 96 % of us, that's 96 % are not getting enough fiber. It's one of the lowest figures in the world. And I couldn't ignore it. So we've spent years obsessing over protein and other trends. And I'm delighted to share that after a year in the making, my new book, The Fiber Formula is available to pre-order. I have answered every question from gut health and energy, cancers and heart disease to aging skin longevity and even microplastics. Built on over a decade of clinical research, it gives you my fibre formula.

20:5030 grams of fibre a day, 30 different plants a week, 30 chews and 30 minute meals plus 60 delicious minimally processed recipes to make it doable. I've done the hard work so the protein, fiber and plant points are all laid out for you. I'm a small fish in a very big murky pond of wellness books and so your pre-orders really do matter and they help my message reach more people. If you head to the link in the show notes or any bookstore or on Amazon where you can get 15 % off and a lowest price pre-order guarantee. It leads us on in a very different note to headline two which is all about the nutrient you didn't know you needed and how to eat more of it yes exactly now that headline as we just say comes from at the times talking about uh resistant which i didn't put in the brief which we didn't put in the brief but that she was the contributor to because i saw it and i read it and i was like this is so great it wasn't even meant it wasn't even meant to be about the book at all but it was very nice to be able to talk about a type of fiber so obviously reese got the fiber formula book coming out in a couple of weeks in the beginning of march or mid-march but this whole piece was on resistant starch which is a really interesting thing obviously we talk a lot about fiber about feeding those pets in our tummies all our different gut bugs and how important that is but resistant starch is kind of one component part of the reason to eat more fiber but it has all sorts of quirks like you might see people say you should eat cooled down and recooked potatoes and things like that.

22:25So, Rhi, just walk us through this. What's resistant starch? Why do we need it? How do we get it? Why are we cooling and cooking potatoes? Well, it impacts your blood sugar levels after you eat and all sorts of things. It's linked to gut benefits with the bacteria preferring its food, essentially. I think we're going to refer to it as our pet in our tummy now. What's your animal? I think it'd have to be a cat, wouldn't it? What else would I choose? Yours is a dog, right? Oh my God, I don't know. I was like, I could see it being something really weird, like a hyena. Niguana. Niguana. Sorry. We digress.

23:03Yeah, it could be really good for your gut health as well. So resistant starch is a type of fiber and obviously all fibers kind of resist digestion, essentially, in the small intestine, which is where you absorb all the vitamins and minerals into your bloodstream. And then it travels into your large intestine and food is fermented by our gut bacteria or our pet that waits at the bottom. And unlike most starchy carbs, which are broken down into sugars like glucose, resistant starch, like I said, is more like a food. It's like a prebiotic for your little pet. So just in the world's most basic terms for people listening, basically resistant starch never actually goes into your body.

23:39It goes through your digestive system and then out into your poo. Exactly. You never get it past your intestines, essentially. But along that route in your intestines, it's doing all these amazing things. And that's why prebiotics and all types of fiber is so important because you don't want to be absorbing them. You want them to be pushing through and colonnading of all sorts of gut bugs on the way through. And really, I'm finding this, sorry, just personally, this is a really helpful visual, actually, in terms of thinking through like why we're eating these sorts of foods in the sense of, as you were saying, So you've got other foods which are not containing resistant starch, these different fibers, they are absorbed higher up in your digestive tract.

24:17They're kind of gone, essentially. So then by the time the meal gets to the large intestine where you want to feed your pet, there's nothing left. It's like you could have had a massive meal. There's a bit, but just not the beneficial bits that are really the icing on the cake. But you don't have this delicious Michelin star meal for the pet. And the pet's like... You're missing a course. The pet's just got scraps. Yeah. whereas when you're talking about resistant starch it's like you've given bits of the rest of your body but your pets have got the best bits so you've saved the best mouthfuls for the pets i'm loving this analogy today it just makes so much sense yes it is helpful like i know maybe i sound absurd or maybe i sound like i'm talking maybe we do let us know if you think we're being patronized i really hope we're not i'm personally i just find it a really helpful visuals to like the different types of food and for example like if you had a steak that's not feeding the pets in this way Oh, definitely not.

25:07And that's the problem with most of our modern diets, right? That we're not getting enough fibers that convert, especially into this newly discovered, what's not that new in science, but resistant starch. Because what you want it to do is you want your pet to eat it and create all these short chain fatty acids. So there's amazing like bubbles that the pet gives off, including things like butyrate and compounds. And they're the ones that are researched to lower our inflammation. And really, only the pet eating food in the large intestine can do that. Yes, yes. I didn't write this in the article in this way, but I should have used a pet analogy, but I don't think the Times would appreciate it in the same way we do.

25:42They're higher brow than us. They're higher brow than us. But no, because again, I think that's really, really helpful. So the only way to get these inflammation lowering super beneficial. One of the really effective ways is to make sure that your pet's eating it, that your bugs are consuming that resistant starch. And, you know, our gut's got all these junctions and you really want junctions tight and closed because you don't want toxins and things you're trying to come out in your poo essentially leaking into your bloodstream and what it does is improves that gut barrier the more resistant starch you have which again is why fiber is so much more and also the most common type that I would say most people would get is by freezing bread and then reheating it like putting your bread in the freezer is the best way to produce resistant starch it's the easiest thing to do and then just pop it into your toaster but you know this meta-analysis suggested that even supplementing resistant starch can reduce the bad cholesterol, you know, the LDL in our body.