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Feeling flat? It's the time of year, and it isn't just you · No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK

• 0:00
  @paulthenutritionist: Hello and welcome to another episode of No Forking Nonsense and this episode is for you because you're feeling a little bit flat at the moment. And I know you're feeling a little bit flat at the moment because a lot of my clients are also feeling a little bit flat at the moment. I m going to explain to you why, I m going to explain what you can do to minimise it, how you can pull yourself out of the rut and hopefully make yourself feel a little bit better. It s interesting the longer that I work with certain clients, so I've got clients who've worked with me for two years now, and the longer that I work with certain clients, the less we talk about nutrition and if we're honest, you could probably get all the nutrition knowledge that you need off the internet, especially these days with AR, could say, time me in a meal plan and you could probably get a meal plan, but that isn't what you need, what you need is a human being who understands you, understands the human body, understands what you're going through, can empathise what you're going through, understands the working and why you might
• 1:08
  @paulthenutritionist: be feeling, what you're feeling. That is Really that's my role.
• 1:16
  @paulthenutritionist: A few times a year I notice patterns. When you work with humans, we're looking to optimise the health of humans, not just nutritionally but your nutrition impacts how you feel in your head and your mood and how much you concentrate and how much energy you've got, how much vigour you've got, your sleep quality, your sex drive, your relationships with peers, with partners, whatever it may be, all of that falls into the bracket of what me as a nutritionist will talk about. Now it may be because I have an absolute interest in psychology, like my undergrad was in psychology and counselling and I did some work within
• 2:05
  @paulthenutritionist: counselling world when I first left university I feel like it's all well and good explaining to
• 2:14
  @paulthenutritionist: you what a carbohydrate is but if we are
• 2:17
  @paulthenutritionist: not explaining and going into details about how all of
• 2:21
  @paulthenutritionist: these things impact your emotions then we are probably doing a bit of a disservice. Usually at certain times of the year, there are common occasions as to why people are feeling flat. This is a really good one, I think it's probably underestimated, we've all heard of Blue Monday which happens, is it like first week of February or something like that, no one's got any money, it's been Christmas and we kind
• 2:42
  @paulthenutritionist: of accept, okay well that makes sense, but why would you be feeling flat at mid to the end of September? The reason for that is that I've identified September is one of those parts of
• 2:56
  @paulthenutritionist: the year that feels like you should still be feeling the highs of summer, because it's September, right? And despite what we all think, September is actually still seasonally summer. October is autumn, November and then we go into winter. Because regardless of whether you've got kids or not, we are all well aware of the summer holidays, right? July throughout August to the start of September, kids are off.
• 3:29
  Kids are off, doesn't matter what industry you work in, August is always a time where people kind of put the tools down, everyone's on annual leave, those who aren't on annual leave because they've been clever and they're booking it for
• 3:42
  @paulthenutritionist: September when the kids go back, they're all kind of half heart in it. You know if you've got
• 3:48
  @paulthenutritionist: kids yourself, they're knocking around, we're outside a lot more,
• 3:52
  @paulthenutritionist: it's just more upbeat, right? And then September comes, kids are going back and when the kids go back, suddenly everything's a little bit quieter, even if
• 4:02
  @paulthenutritionist: you haven't got kids. I know where I live, it's been fantastic, all some of the kids have basically been playing outside my house and it's been really loud at times because they've been playing football, it's been really good to see by the way, these kids from the ages of five to 14, 15, didn't see one mobile phone, which is really nice to see.
• 4:24
  @paulthenutritionist: But they're gone now, they're in
• 4:26
  @paulthenutritionist: school as I record this, it's twelve point
• 4:28
  @paulthenutritionist: three four in the afternoon. It's very quiet,
• 4:31
  @paulthenutritionist: people are back into a routine and it's also of the start of a new year for all of us, not just kids starting their new school year, we've kind of got one eye on Christmas,
• 4:43
  @paulthenutritionist: but we don't want to humour it too much because it's a long way away. The other thing
• 4:48
  @paulthenutritionist: is that summer is kind of ending, like we have that huge heat wave through August and it was really hot, probably too hot, now the grass is getting some colour back, it's pissing it down most days, the clouds are back in the sky and it's kind of like a smack back to reality and you kind of feel like you should still be maybe wearing shorts but it's still a little bit too chilly to do that and the only thing really you've got to look forward to is Christmas,
• 5:19
  @paulthenutritionist: but that's still three months ago away and the problem with that is that you're kind of in this no man's land. So
• 5:29
  @paulthenutritionist: it makes sense that you're feeling a little bit flat because you want to start, you want to refocus after a kind of unplanned perhaps August off. Summer has been a time where you probably have as I said kind of put the tools down a little bit and you perhaps let yourself maybe have a few barbecues, maybe a few more beers than you typically like to and people are like, once September comes around kids are back at school, even if you don't have kids, once kids are back at school I'm going to really knuckle down and get back into the gym. I have a lot of people go, I want get fit for Christmas, I want get in good shape for Christmas because as
• 6:06
  @paulthenutritionist: soon as Christmas comes along, things
• 6:07
  @paulthenutritionist: are going go to shit and I want to challenge that. Because really our aim shouldn't be to have these moments where we're just kind of
• 6:16
  @paulthenutritionist: allowing ourselves to be dictated of Christmas is going
• 6:21
  @paulthenutritionist: come and then we are all going go to shit and then we are going to start again in January, because we shouldn't be going in and out of these diets, that isn't a way to live our life, you should be able to pretty much make some form of progress and to be the healthiest version of yourself all year round. I stand by the fact that to be ultimately happy, you want to be able to eat as you like, eat the foods that you enjoy, but also eat foods that make
• 6:48
  @paulthenutritionist: you feel good. You shouldn't be
• 6:50
  @paulthenutritionist: putting yourselves on these diets that cut all of these food groups out and prevent you from going out and being social. There are a few
• 6:57
  @paulthenutritionist: things you can do and they are really simple, some of them
• 7:00
  @paulthenutritionist: are nutrition related, some of them aren't. The first thing to do if you are feeling a little bit flat right now and you feel overwhelmed and you have got a huge to do list and you don't know whether you are here or there, is go into a room, shut the door, get a blank pen and paper and write down everything that is on your mind. I call this the everythingness and I mean everything, even the
• 7:19
  @paulthenutritionist: stuff that feels almost like a little bit daft, like hanging the washing up or painting whatever it is, doesn't matter. Write it all down and then stand back and look at it and say to yourself, out of those things, which of these jobs takes less than five minutes? Whatever of those jobs takes less than five minutes, do them. Do one a day for the next week, and you'll find that once you've
• 7:45
  @paulthenutritionist: done one, you start the motor, and then you probably do a second
• 7:48
  @paulthenutritionist: one, third one, fourth one.
• 7:50
  @paulthenutritionist: Next thing you want to do is look at the next seven days and allocate some of these jobs to the next seven days, and maybe the next month. The aim is that you are sectioning these things that you have written down which have been clustering your mind, they have been causing you to wake up in
• 8:05
  @paulthenutritionist: the middle of the night and you have now got a place for them, and you don't want to
• 8:09
  @paulthenutritionist: make it too overwhelming, you just want to section them into certain days across the next week or two. By doing that, what you're doing is you're allowing yourself to make some form of progress, and what you're doing is you're finding that you're going to be closing those loops, and that again is really important. Because what happens and the reason often that we feel shit and we feel overwhelmed is because we have all of these open loops and it's so important that we close those loops. Because the worst thing that we can do is wake up feeling like we're in chaos mode. Which brings me on to my next point prioritise your sleep as best as you can.
• 8:44
  Now some of you are listening
• 8:45
  @paulthenutritionist: to this going oh here we go, I can't, I've
• 8:48
  @paulthenutritionist: got kids, I've got this, I've got that, I get that, but there's still things that you're doing which are impacting your sleep that you can just stop tonight. If you're waking up in the morning, picking your phone up and scrolling on emails, on whatsapps, on social media before you've even got out of bed, stop that immediately. That's impacting not only your sleep in the evening but it's also fucking up your day. Because the moment that you pick up and you get those stimulation and you're getting your attention dragged away when your brain isn't ready for it, that is setting the precedent for the day. So wait, I have no notifications on my phone.
• 9:21
  The reason why I have no notifications on my phone is because I want to be in control of my attention. The other thing is to be really kind to yourself in the evenings. Allow yourself half an hour, with your partner or without, where you just embed calm. Stop putting bright lights on, make sure that your lights are dim, perhaps get yourself some Philips Hue light bulbs and turn them on red, or get some knock off ones, use orange lights. You want to assimilate calm orange red sunset.
• 9:50
  That in itself is going to help your sleep quality, as is getting an eye mask or blackout curtains, as is not having your phone in your room where your you notifications are on, put it on flight mode, just remove all stimulation.
• 10:05
  @paulthenutritionist: If you've got a TV in your room, throw it in
• 10:07
  @paulthenutritionist: the bin, just get it out of
• 10:09
  @paulthenutritionist: your bedroom. Your bedroom should be for sleep and for sex and nothing else. With regards to food, you don't need to
• 10:16
  @paulthenutritionist: make things complicated. You're going to write a shopping list this week and if you don't, then start there. But if you're writing a shopping list, you need to plan what you're having for dinner. Your minimum standards should be that you're planning what you're having
• 10:28
  @paulthenutritionist: for dinner. It's that simple. What you are having
• 10:31
  @paulthenutritionist: for dinner on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, even if Friday night you are going to Great Auntie Barrels, you write on there Go into Great Auntie Barrels for dinner, because you are pre planning. What that means is you can then write a shopping list and you know where that food is going. You know exactly what you're going to be doing with the food you're getting in the supermarket. Never go to a supermarket blind, because what's going to happen is Wednesday evening, when you've had a real tough time at work and kids have been kicking off and you've got all this shit to do, all these open loops, you're going to be stood there trying to create something from this mismatch of shite in your cupboard that you're probably not going to fancy and that's where you make poor decisions. So invest in your future self by taking that responsibility off your future self, plan what you're having for dinner, if you know you've got a really busy Wednesday, plan something quick and make an extra portion of it and have it for lunch the next day.
• 11:21
  For breakfast you should by now know exactly what you're having for breakfast. If you don't, that's not good enough, you're going
• 11:27
  @paulthenutritionist: to fail. I have the
• 11:29
  @paulthenutritionist: same thing for breakfast, five out of seven days. At the weekend I mix it up a bit because I like to, I don't know, I've got a little bit more time, I've got to get into work, I chill out and maybe have something a little bit more exotic than a smoothie. If you are unsure what to have, there is an episode on this feed, scroll back and it's super quick speedy meals, I think it was about a month ago. I literally talk you through what to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can't fail. If you do these things, you are going to feel a lot better about yourself.
• 11:59
  @paulthenutritionist: It s that simple. Look at your attention, where is your attention going? Ensure
• 12:05
  @paulthenutritionist: that you are in control of your own attention. Do not let social media, Whatsapp, emails, phone calls take your attention away when you are trying to
• 12:14
  @paulthenutritionist: be in control of your own well-being. And that's it. If you can do those things, you are going to be in a much better place. Hopefully this gets you out of the funk of your room. I'll chat to you Friday.
• 12:28
  @paulthenutritionist: That's it for this episode of No Forking Nonsense, I hope you found it useful and I hope that you're recognising now that being a nutritionist, some nutritionists they just talk about food, I certainly don't, I think it's really, really important that we are exploring all aspects of our lives to be the best version of ourselves. Remember, engage with this podcast. If you want to improve your algorithm on your socials, engage with this, listen to this, click, like, follow and engage on social media, Apple Nutritionist, because you're going to teach your algorithm, this is the information that you want on your feed. I'll chat to you Friday, hopefully you feel a little bit better having listened to this. Cheerio.