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Nicola Vaughan: Functional Nutrition and Why You Are Always Tired · The BEYOND Podcast

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Unknown: In this episode of Beyond the Boardroom, we're going to be
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speaking to Nicola Vorgan, who is one of the UK's most uniquely
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qualified nutritionists. A former aerospace engineer with
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a first class physics degree, now applying that same
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scientific precision to helping people like us heal chronic
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health issues, fix their metabolism, and just feel human
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and energetic again. She has a really rare gift of
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making complex nutrition really, really easy to understand.
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No fluff, just real answers grounded in scientific and
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genuine knowledge. I think you're going to enjoy
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this one, Nicola. Welcome to be on the Boardroom.
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Thanks for having me. So like I said, I've got a
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little intro for you that I've put together trying to, you
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know, do you justice for all the things that you know, your big
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brain and your beautiful knowledge of nutrition.
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But I would also like to know how you would see yourself.
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How would you introduce yourself?
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OK, so I, I am a nutritionist. I'm a scientist as well.
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So I find that what I love the most is this unique blend of how
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the body really works, how we can understand when things are
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going a little bit wrong and how to correct it with nutrition.
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So that's my, that's my job as a bit of a health detective, as a
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nutritionist. And yeah, I I enjoy finding out
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about how nutrition can really influence somebody's well-being
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for the good. Yeah, I love that you've got
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your science backed. There's a lot of, dare I say,
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nonsense out there at the moment.
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There's so much misinformation, there's such an overload of
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information that the world of nutrition, if you even try and
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find anything out, there's just all this conflicting stuff.
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You just, it's overwhelming to know a lot of noise.
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What should we be following? What shouldn't be following?
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You know, as of 2025, you know, summer, what should we be doing?
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And that's why I brought you in because I love evidence based,
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scientifically proven facts. OK, That's yeah.
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And it's, and I think, you know, we have to consider there isn't
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A1 size fits all for everybody as well.
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You know, we're all unique. We all have our different health
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goals, what we want to be achieving with our health.
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We've got our different journeys, our different terrain,
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you know, our different upbringing.
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Everything has to be personalized really.
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So there isn't like A1 size fits all.
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But that's not to say that there are absolutely some minimum
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standards, some minimum, some non, you know, kind of non non
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avoidable things we have to be doing right, which I think a lot
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of us perhaps don't know about, which is great to kind of spread
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the word about a little bit more.
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Well, we'll, we'll go into those minimum things.
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So what I've done to make sure this is of maximum benefit to
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our viewers is I've looked up the most popular, the most
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commonly asked over and over questions that people really,
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really, really want to know about nutrition.
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So these are things we're typing into Google all day long, all
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the time, all over the world. OK, so we're we're going to.
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Flick through, help me. OK, OK.
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Well, one by one we're going to knock those babies out, OK OK,
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So the first and biggest question which I can relate to
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is why am I exhausted all the time?
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And is food the reason? Can it be the reason?
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A. Great question.
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And isn't the world walking around, you know, people walking
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around feeling absolutely flat? Food absolutely plays a huge
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role. What we eat plays a huge role.
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And so 100% is food. One well, it's it's probably
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food, it's probably a little bit of stress, it's probably a lack
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of sleep. But food is involved.
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Food is absolutely nutrition is absolutely essential and when we
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think about how the body works, we need energy production.
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We need to make sure that we've got good kind of circulation
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going round. We need to have steady supply of
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energy over the course of the day.
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That's probably the number one reason why people will feel
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completely flat is that they've not got those building blocks.
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They're not fueling themselves with enough iron, enough B12 to
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make our red blood cells. That's.
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Right. The first thing we said to each
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other, just so the viewers know, this morning is so well, what
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did you eat for breakfast? Breakfast.
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And of course you. Had I had eggs, I had eggs and I
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had a protein coffee in the morning as well the.
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Standards are so high the. Standards are and you did a
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workout and I did a workout as well.
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I know, but it's, it's just about reframing your day,
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reframing your day, going to bed well so that you can do all of
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these things before. You know, OK in the morning.
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So I'm field on probably like most of the public, 2 coffees
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already quite strong and nothing else.
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How am I functioning right now? Am I digging into my reserves
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because I've got the energy? But I'll probably go flat, won't
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I? You're running on probably quite
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a lot of adrenaline as well, you know, adrenaline, cortisol.
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So your stress hormones are keeping you going.
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You know they're going to be firing you.
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Well, it's not probably sustainable.
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It won't keep you going for very long, whereas we need to have
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steady supply of energy over the course of day.
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And the best way we're going to do that is making sure we're
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incorporating good quality protein with every meal.
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Protein, good fat, good healthy bit of fibre, you know, wherever
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we can. And breakfast is often the meal
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that people really, they either neglect or they don't.
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They don't really think about, you know, they, they.
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Yeah, but isn't it good because you hear all the stuff on the
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Internet like, oh, fasting, like, oh, don't eat after 8:00
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at night or 7:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon or something, and then
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keep not eating until, like, lunch.
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Yeah, there's all that stuff. So should you have breakfast or
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should you have breakfast? I think.
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Timing is everything. Timing is everything.
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I think, you know, the fasting piece is really interesting and
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you've kind of touched on two things there.
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The should you be eating later at night and do you have
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breakfast in the morning? They're two separate things
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really. If we think about it, we do need
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to have a period of not eating. Not eating is almost as
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important as what we're eating. Interesting.
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Yeah, so we do need to give our bodies a rest, our gut a.
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Rest How many hours do we need to not eat?
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So ideally we should shoot for 14 hours between 12 to 14 hours
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overnight. Wow.
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That's quite a long time. Well, I yes, we, we're designed
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to do it though. We're designed to do it and
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we're giving our body that really good period of rest.
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We can turn on so many processes to clean things up to, you know,
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cellular repair, to rest the microbiome, all the kind of
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internal housekeeping actions. They happen when we've not got a
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state of fed, you know, we've not got food that we're bodies
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need to break down. Yeah.
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So there's the kind of not eating too late at night,
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definitely no snacking later on in the evening, you know,
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sitting down on the sofa. Crisps, you guys the popcorn.
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Not helpful, not helpful because we're we're constantly providing
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our body signals. If we consider that food is is
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signals, you know, nutrition is information really.
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It's not just, you know, grazing and it's energy.
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It's providing the body with signals of, well, I need to do
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something with this. You know what, it's going to be
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triggering hormones to be released that will have
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different impact in the body. So stopping eating, you know,
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after your last meal and trying to bring that last meal as early
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as you can. Not eating your last meal at
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9:30, ten at night, you know, and then going to bed really
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late and then not being able to wake up in the morning.
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I hear you. OK, so we've already established
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if you're feeling tired, food is almost certainly part of the
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issue. It's part of the problem.
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We need to be fasting, you know, for 14 hours, let's say around
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there to give our bodies a break.
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And we need to be having like a good protein.
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Protein for the breakfast, Yeah. So those are just normal facts
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and those are pretty scientifically based.
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They're scientifically based, they're non negotiables getting
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and I feel, I feel, you know, breakfast does need a bit of a
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rebranding exercise because we go for we go for foods that are
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often really lacking in protein. We're not setting up cornflakes.
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Cornflakes, a croissant. You know, I lived in France for
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a while and yes, I loved my croissant in the morning for
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breakfast. It's delicious, but it's not
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panna chocolate, Panna chocolate, panna Raisa.
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They're fantastic foods. They're delicious as a little
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treat, maybe on a weekend. The French have got good like
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bodies. You walk around there, they look
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good. I don't.
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Know if they eat these every single day.
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Oh, right. OK.
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But I think that we, you know, and when we think about our
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children as well setting them off to school with not having a
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good I mean, we hear this term blood sugar balanced meals,
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right? And what this is really meaning
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is that we're giving yourself food that is going to be giving
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your body a steady level of energy for hours to come.
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And we're not going to have like a blood sugar spike from just a
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bowl of cornflakes or even worse, you know, jam on toast.
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Yeah. And that's it, you know, keeping
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some. Protein mine.
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My kids actually had oats. I did put the oats on for them.
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OK, OK. Oats with a bit of not.
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Yeah, yeah, just be nice and and properly cooked.
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Not those, those packets, but the the hardcore, the real, the
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real deal. OK, so the the next question,
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popular one, how can I tell if my metabolism isn't working?
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So if you have these blood tests and the doctor said, but you're
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fine, we you know, there's nothing really wrong with you.
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How do you know if it's your metabolism?
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Yeah. So, well, first of all, the
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blood tests, you know, we need to recognize that standard blood
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tests that we do are based on a normal population, right?
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They're based on data that's coming in.
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That's normal. Normal's not optimal.
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Normal's not firing super well. Everybody's doing really great.
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So I always, I, I mean, I review a ton of blood tests that come
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through where people are saying, yeah, but the doctor says my
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bloods are fine. And you look at it and go,
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right, OK, you know, there's stuff going on here that's not
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optimal. But going back to the question,
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how can you tell, You know, regardless of any blood tests,
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and there are some real tale, tale signs.
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And the first would be if eating makes you tired.
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So if you have a meal and you need a bit of a nap after a
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meal, that's the classic sign that you're not, that you're
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verging towards insulin resistance, verging towards
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metabolic dysfunction. We should feel energised from
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food. And yet so many people, they
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have a meal and then they have a bit of a crash, they have a bit
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of a slump, an energy slump, they sit on the sofa and maybe
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have a bit of a nap. It's a real sign that your body
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is not metabolising that food particularly well.
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So that's probably the number one is, you know.
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Never occurred to me feeling sleepy.
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Feeling sleepy after eating? That's not normal.
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Not normal, not normal. And maybe if you're finding that
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you're putting on more weight around the middle as well.
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Bloating, like not necessarily bloating.
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Bloating is, is a bit different, but temporary.
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We have more, more transient. Yeah, we hope.
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No, I'm, I'm talking more lights.
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Like we've started to put fat around the middle, fat around
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your waist, you know, and it's not just a case of, well, I'm
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getting old and my metabolism is slowing down.
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No, it's just we're not supporting your metabolism in
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the right way. So you're putting down fat due
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to hormone changes that are going on tied into metabolic
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health. So that kind of fat accumulation
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around the middle is also a sign that metabolism.
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So fat accumulation on the middle.
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You can't say it's because I'm aging.
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No, I love that because it sort of frees you of the AG post.
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I was like, oh hang on AG, don't you try and give me that fat
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around the middle. No, we absolutely can address
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that. For sure.
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Hormonal changes, especially for women, are going to be
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influencing where fat is going. Pesky, but it's not inevitable.
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OK inevitable. So is it possible to look
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healthy but be metabolically I'll sick?
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Oh, that's a great question and 100% absolutely.
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I mean many, many signs of metabolic dysfunction, many ways
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in which it will show is not necessarily biophysical
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appearance. There can be stuff going on at a
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cellular level or hormonal level that will be tied into metabolic
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dysfunction and your metabolism not working well.
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And there's even there's a phenotype called TOFI.
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Have you heard of it? No.
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Thin on the, thin on the inside, fat.
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No. Hold on, let me get this right.
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Tofi Thin on the outside, fat on the inside, thin inside, thin
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outside, fat inside. Essentially it's a skinny
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phenotype. You're skinny, but you have got
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fat around your organs, fat on the inside.
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You may have very low muscle mass.
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You know, muscle is a very, very important metabolic organ,
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really helps us be metabolic superheroes, you know, muscle
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tissue. So you can be very, very skinny
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and metabolically not very well. You could be suffering with
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things like polycystic ovarian syndrome, you know, which is you
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would not visibly necessarily show any signs.
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You know, on the outside, you don't have to be overweight to
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suffer with PCOS. And yet, you know, it's the
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number one cause of unexplained infertility for women, and it's
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tied into metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistant.
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Which is tied into what we're eating, what we're eating.
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So what we're eating can really be problematic and cause
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disease. I mean, we kind of we know this,
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but we don't really grasp it. Like we don't until we get ill
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and then we go, Oh no, shall I change my diet?
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And then you hope, you hope it's not too late.
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So can you rewire your metabolism?
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Can you alter it? Or do you have it for life?
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Like is that you're, you're born with it.
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Oh, she's got a great metabolism.
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Oh, absolutely changes, absolutely.
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We influence this. We influence it by what we're
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eating and how we're moving. I touched on muscle tissue being
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a really, really helpful metabolic ally for us.
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So by incorporating changes to the way in which we exercise,
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focusing on building skeletal muscle, really important for our
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metabolic health. I preach about it all the time.
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You know, whenever I'm working 1 to one or in Group programs,
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it's all around, you know, not just what you eat but how you're
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moving your body and that will be impacting your metabolic
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health 100%. It's not a given.
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You know you're not born with it and that's it.
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So let's just clarify this once and for all, OK?
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Why isn't this calorie counting working?
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What is it? This whole thing about calories?
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If you watch all these other podcasts, this Zoe podcast, this
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podcast, that podcast, what? Let's just settle this right
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now. Yeah, let's settle it.
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Let's settle it. So calories are are accounting
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for it like an energetic value for food.
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OK, that's what calories is. And I suppose if we were a
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perfect thermodynamic engine, you know, calorie model would
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work quite well because what you put in versus what you expend
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out, you would say, OK, you know, there's a, a perfect.
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Thermo put in an output it's. It's fine, but our bodies are so
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complicated. They are dependent upon hormones
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that will be influencing different ways in which energy
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is stored versus versus energy is burnt.
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So it's much more complicated than that.
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And if we look at a pure calorific model, like, I don't
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know, like an avocado super calorific piece of white toast,
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hardly any calories to it. Does that mean that the piece of
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white toast is better for you with a a low fat spread and a 0
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sugar jam? You know, very, very low
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calories. And yet avocado, salmon, eggs
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way higher in calories. But steak, what steak?
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Amazing. What the body will do with the
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food is very different from what it would do with your simple
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kind of white toast and jam. So we've got to think about the
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what you're putting on your plate as information that you're
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providing to the body to say, I'm going to do something with
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this. I'm.
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And in the case of if it's just calories from carbohydrates,
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your body will say, MMMM, OK, we're going to have some
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insulin, which is a hormone that's secreted when we get a
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lot of this kind of carbohydrated foods in the body.
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But I want to store that as fat. So it will store that as fat
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rather than, you know, saying, OK, this is going to be helping
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me make skeletal muscle. This is going to keep me
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satiated for. OK, so so I don't know if you've
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heard of Elliot Kipchoge. So he's like world class
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marathon song runner. Absolute legend.
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To our marathon, yes. So, so he, well, I watched what
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he eats on one of those little documentary things and of course
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he has his beans and rice and all the lovely proteins and
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everything he has that late at night, but actually after his
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morning run, actually, no, before his morning run, before
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his morning run, he has a tea and he has a bit of toast, which
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is on this white bread with jam. He has that.
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It's like the the wrong food. But then he goes for his 15K
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run. So that's utilize it's the
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information. I'm sending you an information
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to say we're going to go here, we're going to burn that, then
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we come back and then we have proper food and then we and then
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he's got all this process. So there is a place for let's
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say the naughty food. I don't know.
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We shouldn't kind of demonize food, really, but.
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Sugar's not all that bad, right? It's not all that.
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Bad, That's what I'm saying. And for him, he's going out,
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he's burning it. He's running burning, you know,
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but we don't generally, you know, we are absolutely.
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But we most population will be eating and sitting, you know,
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eating and then commuting in a car or eating and sitting
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behind. A Yeah, we're not burning it.
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We're not burning it. We're not.
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And when we burn it, when we move our skeletal muscle again,
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we're sending signals to say right, what we've just eaten.
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I want that. I need that.
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I want that to be burned. I want that to be used.
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So it's one actually a a really healthy habit stacking thing
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that people can start to do after eating is just moving
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after eating. Don't sit after eating.
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Move, move. Go for a 15 minute walk, do some
19:18
escorts in your kitchen. You'll be sending messages to
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your body to say I've just eaten, I want to burn that.
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Please don't store it. Yeah, please.
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I don't want to store that right now.
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Please don't store it. Don't store it because you know
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what it will be stored as. It will generally be stored as
19:35
fat. FAT.
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Yeah, FAT. So snacking that's helping us
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getting stuck in fat storing mode.
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It's basically the the snacks. There's biscuits every biscuit.
19:45
50 calories. 100 calories. Yes.
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And when we think digestive, digestive, what are they mainly?
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They're mainly carbohydrates, which is sugar, you know, so the
19:57
body, the body doesn't need it. And I suppose there's a few
20:02
different problems to snacking 1 is we're not giving our body a
20:06
rest. We're not giving it any kind of.
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Fasted state, micro fasted states, not talking how like,
20:13
you know, 1214 hour of a night fast.
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But going 3-4 hours without eating is really important for
20:19
digestive processors to have a clean out, to be able to kind of
20:24
push things through, to chill, to push things through, to
20:27
metabolize them, to break things down.
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It's really important if we're constantly grazing or every hour
20:33
or so, we're just having another little something.
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You know, it's all of that is being providing information to
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the body. As I mentioned, it's saying do
20:42
something with this, do something with.
20:43
This Yeah, but you know what the information problem is having
20:45
like my husband, he's the, he's the information problem because
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he puts the biscuits, he buys the crisps, he buys all this
20:50
stuff. He's so like, he loves all that
20:53
stuff and it's everywhere. And then I see the information.
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The information is there's digestives there.
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And I can't help but pick one up because I'm walking past.
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It's like, I wouldn't, I just would not put that in my house
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ever. But it's there.
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It's there and you know these food carbohydrates, they are a
21:10
perfect, they've been designed, you know, the big food companies
21:13
design needs to be super palatable, highly addictive,
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perfect mix of in the case of a crisp, a bit of bit of
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carbohydrate, a bit of fat, bit of salt.
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You know, it gets the reward centre of the brains going.
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So addictive and it's known it's addictive.
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You know there is an addiction to these ultra processed foods,
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so the best thing to. Do is just not have them in the
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house? And replace them.
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You know, if you feeling that you need to pick me up, go for
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something with protein and fat. Go for some nuts, go for some
21:43
biltong, you know, dried meat. Go for something that will
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actually provide you with good building blocks rather than just
21:51
sugar. So another question people
21:53
asking this one is about glucose, but it's not
21:55
necessarily for the diabetic, you know, because obviously if
21:57
you have diabetes, the glucose bugs are very dangerous and it's
22:00
just an everyday person is a glucose spike or too dangerous
22:05
or not? Like how how serious is that?
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I mean, you've got these things that monitor the glucose spike.
22:09
Should we be doing that? Yeah, I, I love encouraging
22:14
people to try and continue a glucose monitor for a couple of
22:17
weeks, 4 weeks if you can. It's a really interesting
22:22
individual experiment for people to do where you're able to see
22:28
what your blood sugar levels are doing after eating different
22:31
things after exercise in. Science.
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Science. It's science, it's great.
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OK, I don't become too fixated on it.
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It's perfectly. It's a normal physiological
22:42
response to have a spike after eating something that.
22:45
Contains carbohydrate. That's normal and we don't want
22:49
to fear the glucose spikes. We do, however, want to make
22:54
sure that we have a healthy climb back down again to a
22:59
healthy glucose, blood glucose range.
23:02
So the where we kind of find these wearables really helpful
23:06
is just saying how much time are we spending in that healthy
23:09
range? Because if we're not, if we're
23:11
taking a long time to come back down into range, that's a sign
23:16
that maybe your body isn't using that glucose very well.
23:20
If you've got crashes afterwards, maybe it's a sign.
23:23
So it's actually really extreme thing.
23:25
We want to be just come down nicely.
23:28
So we need the science, we need the wearable for it, and we want
23:31
to know about that, that kind of.
23:33
Super helpful and we're all individual, you know, super
23:36
helpful. But I do feel that, you know, we
23:41
we place quite a lot of emphasis on tech and on trying to kind of
23:45
see, you know, is it helpful? Like your intuition is probably
23:50
quite needy. Yes, to to to be working quite
23:53
well as well. But I find these CGMS really
23:57
interesting. Self experiment.
23:58
Can I tell you something? So I had so I was diagnosed with
24:02
Graves' disease, which is like an autoimmune hyper hyperthyroid
24:07
disease thing, which I'm now in remission for, thank God.
24:10
But the only reason why I found that was because of the
24:13
wearable. It's because I tracked my
24:16
running stats, you know my heart rate, you know my VO2 Max, which
24:22
is how my body processed oxygen, my running speeds, the paces,
24:26
also my weight on the scale and all that together showed me a
24:29
picture that despite very, very good training, pretty decent
24:33
nutrition. I mean, I want the best in the
24:34
world, but I'm also not terrible.
24:35
I don't love sweets and all that rubbish but but I noticed all
24:39
those going down. So why is my VO2 Max dropping
24:41
when I'm training and I'm training so hard and I thought
24:44
I'm just being not training hard enough and maybe I'm aging and
24:47
I'm just supposed to get slower and all these things.
24:50
And of course the intuition, but there was all sitting saying
24:53
something's not quite right. But really those stats.
24:56
And when I went to the doctor, NHS doctor, it was like, just
24:59
stop, stop looking at these stats.
25:00
You're just stressing yourself out.
25:01
It's just stress. There's nothing wrong with you.
25:03
You're so healthy. Look at you, you can outrun all
25:06
of us and all that sort of thing.
25:07
When I shouldn't have actually been running.
25:08
But when I went to my endo, she said, look, the, the wearable,
25:13
it's actually good. Do monitor because something
25:17
like your heart rate is so important to know what your
25:21
regular heart resting heart rate is and what an abnormal heart
25:25
rate is for you. Like you're saying everyone's
25:27
different so there is a place for it.
25:29
I guess medically from what she's said as well.
25:32
We'll be picking up on your recovery, your stress, and these
25:36
are all signals your body is under some kind of strain,
25:39
invisible strain, you know, invisible strain.
25:43
But they are, yeah, they, they're, it's, it can be very,
25:46
very helpful for people just to monitor totally.
25:49
Helpful because also with the metabolism, you know, with like
25:52
your, your running speed, your body won't give you the muscle.
25:56
If there's something wrong with you, it's not going to be put it
25:58
because muscle's expensive for the body.
25:59
So my muscle mass was going down and things.
26:02
And now that I'm in recovery and I've listen, don't get over it
26:05
forever, but basically I, I've, I've, I'm on the other side now.
26:08
You see the muscle mass is improving.
26:10
You see the running speeds are improving and your body say, OK,
26:12
well, I'll give you some more muscle back.
26:14
We'll make that and we'll let you have a bit more, you know,
26:17
the whole running speed comes back that we'll let you go a
26:19
little bit faster now. And you think, OK, so therefore
26:22
I'm on the right track now, but we don't want to mess that up
26:26
with only two coffees and then go back to those old patterns.
26:29
You need to, and a lot of it comes down to sending your body
26:32
safety signals, you know, through nutrition and you know,
26:38
stress plays a role in this as well.
26:40
But sending your body signals by eating the right things that are
26:44
saying I'm good to make thyroid hormones, I'm good to build
26:49
muscle. Here are your building blocks.
26:51
And we don't get the building blocks through supplementation.
26:55
We can, but it's not ideal. It's not ideal.
26:57
You know, you want to be getting the building blocks, these amino
27:00
acids that are essential, these fats that are essential for
27:03
building your hormones, for making your cells work well in
27:07
the body. All of this comes from the
27:10
nutrients that you're putting on your plate and the way in which
27:13
you're digesting them, the way in which you're eating them.
27:15
So it's really, you know, we kind of take the take the
27:19
information from the wearables, but we, we then have to think
27:24
about really, you know, making sure that our plate is.
27:28
Yeah, adjusting and breaking the old habits and then even someone
27:32
like me not going back to to the bad habits or if you do
27:35
temporary to bring yourself back and go.
27:37
I'm going to have the, you know, protein breakfast tomorrow I
27:40
didn't have today. Tomorrow's a new day.
27:43
Tomorrow going to do it and try and adjust.
27:46
Be interesting to know how you feel throughout the day.
27:49
You know, in in not having a good whether you feel kind of
27:54
jittery or if you start to feel a bit hungry kind of mid
27:57
morning, you know, you should be able to eat breakfast.
28:00
What a banana, but you we should be able to eat breakfast at 7
28:04
say and go through till 1. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and
28:07
that's good, 100%. OK, So what is the healthiest
28:12
way to eat? Because this this whole plant
28:14
based thing. So do we want to eat less meat?
28:17
Do we want to eat more meat? Do we want to eat plant based?
28:20
If you want to eat less meat, what's the healthiest way to eat
28:22
less meat? This whole topic OK, which is a
28:25
crazy 1. You know that and people are
28:27
typing it and they want to know like what are your thoughts on
28:30
this plant based and meat? Good for you, not good for you.
28:33
How much? Yeah, well, I should say I'll
28:37
put my bias out straight off, OK?
28:39
I'm an omnivore. I eat.
28:41
I eat everything. Sing it.
28:46
Yeah. I'm a proud, proud omnivore.
28:49
I'm not fearful of meat at all. Yeah, in In fact, it's very
28:56
important. Very important for me, where I
28:59
am in my life. Perimenopausal woman putting
29:04
muscle on. You know, working for my
29:06
longevity. Keep those iron stores up.
29:09
Keep. Iron keep my B12 up, you know,
29:12
really important. There are some people who I feel
29:15
unless it's a very, very well thought through, well
29:19
supplemented plant based diet, then it's not for everybody.
29:25
There are certain demographics who really do need, you know,
29:29
arguably we all need a lot of these minerals and vitamins that
29:33
you find in so beautifully packaged forms in animal based
29:39
foods. So there are, there are so and
29:44
if if somebody is suffering with anemia for example, you know, I
29:49
would say where are you getting your iron from?
29:52
Where are you getting your B12 from if you are following a
29:55
plant based diet? Because we know that accessing
30:00
some of these really, really important nutrients like choline
30:04
as well for the brain for detoxification pathways.
30:08
Choline. Choline, I mean the choline is
30:10
abundant in eggs. You know if somebody's finding a
30:13
following a plant based diet and they're suffering in any kind of
30:18
way with fatigue, with heavy menstrual bleeding maybe.
30:22
So you've got iron losses going on, whether you are suffering
30:26
with hormonal fluctuations, older age, needing good quality
30:32
protein. I would say just think really
30:35
carefully about whether plant based is the right thing for
30:39
you. The brain, the brain needing
30:43
omega-3 fats, for example, you know, and we get them so much
30:46
better when we're eating oily fish rather than eating plant
30:50
based sources of these omega-3 fats.
30:53
So there are certain demographics who perhaps a plant
30:57
based diet is not ideal for. That being said, plants I'm all
31:01
for, you know, I love my cruciferous vegetables.
31:04
I love a bitter salad. You know, there's a definite
31:07
place for plants, but I think that sometimes it's to the
31:11
detriment of, you know, what are we missing out on?
31:15
And certainly for many people trying to hit those protein
31:18
targets, it's really difficult, you know, eating sufficient
31:21
protein for our brain health, for our muscle health, for our
31:25
overall well-being, It's quite hard to do if we're not eating
31:30
animal. Sources.
31:32
I'm with you. I love, I love meat.
31:34
I couldn't give it up. So this obsession with eating
31:38
clean, is it a good obsession or not?
31:42
That's a great question. So eating clean, by which we are
31:46
meaning eating, Are we meaning they're just eating more plants?
31:52
Or are we meaning eating organic?
31:54
Or are we? Let's take this from the from
31:56
the Internet sphere, OK? Eating clean.
31:59
Eating what? Who knows what people mean by
32:02
eating clean? I don't know.
32:03
Maybe it means just 0 processed foods.
32:06
Maybe it means no sugar. I actually don't know that's
32:08
that's a problem in itself. I think it is a problem in
32:10
itself. I certainly love the concept of
32:14
going back to basics of eating how whole food, eating whole
32:19
food, cooking from scratch, avoiding packets and barcodes
32:24
and boxes and foods that have got many ingredients.
32:28
So there is this concept of ultra processed foods which are
32:32
ubiquitous now in our environment.
32:33
We've struggled to go anywhere without seeing foods that have
32:37
got you look at the label on the back and half of the ingredients
32:41
you won't be able to even pronounce.
32:42
They aren't items that you would be able to go into your
32:46
cupboard, pick out those ingredients and make whatever it
32:49
is that you have found. Let's be honest, we don't read
32:51
those labels. We.
32:52
Don't and we should because I feel that when we can start to
32:56
recognised what are some of these, these ingredients which
33:00
are emulsifiers, they are preservatives.
33:03
There's no place for those in our well, let me rephrase.
33:09
And they have become such a dominant part of our diet, and
33:14
yet they are nutritionally often devoid of many of the nutrients
33:20
that we need to be healthy. They will have vitamins that
33:24
have stripped out of them. So what are they then?
33:27
What What? What were they just filler
33:28
foods? They're filler foods.
33:30
They're convenient. They are, they are super
33:35
palatable. They're foods that are designed
33:38
to, you know, satisfy our cravings for something that is
33:42
going to be, you know, high in fat, but high in sugar, high in
33:47
salt at the same time. So there are classic, you know,
33:50
fast foods, prepared ready meals that are, you know, easy to
33:54
throw in the microwave, heat up and there you go, you've got a
33:57
meal. And yet they won't have a lot of
33:59
the nutrients that we really need.
34:02
Yeah, sorry for interjecting, but you know, I, I'm in
34:05
marketing and it's just so sad how marketing was utilized to
34:10
give us, give people, give the World Food that's just so awful
34:14
for the planet and awful for us. And the marketing behind it is
34:18
so good, which is why I, I really believe in, you know, as
34:23
a marketer, I only want to market what I believe in.
34:27
That it is a, you know, I'll stand by that.
34:29
It's great. It's a good product.
34:31
I don't want to ever market a ready meal or.
34:35
And it's really hard because they're they're targeting,
34:38
they're targeting the demographics that are very
34:40
vulnerable. Yes, right.
34:43
They're targeting with children, you know, picking for the
34:46
breakfast cereal that has got the plastic trinket in the box
34:50
that is going to be a, you know, an exciting thing to.
34:53
Shoot against the law? Really.
34:54
It it really is, it should be. Do you know to to kind of
34:58
acknowledge how addictive these foods are as well?
35:01
Yeah. Or give us warning labels like
35:02
you know, with cigarettes, you know, you show the throat with
35:05
cancer, like why don't you show colon cancer or show big warning
35:08
addictive or you know, could cause cancer.
35:10
Like 70% of people, people eating this get cancer.
35:13
I mean, I don't know if something like that.
35:14
Just warn us, please. Warn us and taking them away
35:18
from vulnerable places, yes, taking them out of hospitals
35:23
where people are there to get well, whereas the cafeterias in
35:27
hospitals are full of these kind of.
35:29
Things, Yeah, shouldn't be allowed.
35:31
It's really simple. No, shouldn't be allowed.
35:33
OK, so there's a lot of, you know, diets going on that are
35:38
out there on the Internet and influencers talking about them.
35:41
Things like keto, you know, gluten free.
35:45
I don't know if you call that diet dairy free.
35:47
So let's start with keto. Yeah.
35:50
Yes or no? Keto I I love a low carbohydrate
35:56
diet. I think let's distinguish that
35:58
from keto because I think that so the ketogenic diet in its
36:03
true sense is, is very, very low carbohydrate, like 20 grams a
36:08
day carbohydrate, very low carbohydrates.
36:10
What? Does that mean in real terms 20
36:11
grams? Like was it a handful?
36:13
Like is it? If you're following a very
36:15
strict ketogenic diet like that has been used medically for
36:19
putting epilepsy treatment. So you would really need to be
36:24
working under the supervision of somebody who is going to be
36:27
measuring food and literally measuring and checking that the
36:32
carbohydrate content doesn't go above too much and it has to be
36:35
very, very high fat and moderate protein.
36:38
That's like your true ketogenic therapy type diet that's really
36:43
used medically for epilepsy because of the way in which
36:49
treatment resistant epilepsy can people with these this very
36:54
difficult condition, their their brains can respond really well
37:00
to ketones and ketones is what is the end product of a
37:03
ketogenic diet. So it's what the liver will make
37:06
as a source of fuel. OK, so that's what the key to a
37:09
strict straight ketogenic diet is essentially that.
37:13
However, keto type food, keto diets have become very, very
37:20
popular and have done for years and years and years.
37:23
You look at the Atkins diet for example, that was very famous
37:28
until the poor gentleman died and then people were like, well
37:30
maybe the Atkins diet isn't so great after all.
37:32
But the Atkins diet as well is a very low carbohydrate diet.
37:37
Not being fearful of eating fat and good good quality protein in
37:43
the diet. These are all very healthy diets
37:47
because of what they're doing to your blood sugar level.
37:52
OK, OK, so by restricting carbohydrates, by lowering
37:56
carbohydrates, especially the kind of carbohydrates that
38:00
haven't got any fibre with them. So our breads and our rice and
38:04
our potatoes. Yeah, we want the fibre in the
38:06
car. We need, yeah, fibre's OK.
38:08
However, when we eating these kind of foods, we are raising
38:14
our blood sugar levels and we only want about a teaspoon of
38:19
sugar in the blood at any one time.
38:21
It's about four or five tabs a teaspoon.
38:23
That's it. That's your perfect homeostasis
38:26
level. Those builders that ask me for
38:27
two heaped teaspoons all the time, you tell them.
38:30
You tell them they're drinking. But they have several you.
38:33
Think about what's then happening.
38:35
So insulin then comes because we don't want too much sugar in the
38:38
bloodstream. Too much sugar becomes quite
38:40
sticky and damages and these to aging and all kinds of metabolic
38:45
chaos. We'll get to that.
38:46
Ageing, we'll get to ageing, inflammating, so we'll get to
38:50
ageing. But you know, too much sugar in
38:52
the blood is, is dangerous. It's not helpful, it's not
38:57
conducive to good health. So what happens is our body's
39:00
really clever and the pancreas turns on and says, right, well,
39:04
let's get insulin to come in, grab that sugar and tell it to,
39:08
you know, be put into cells. And that's Insulin's job.
39:12
Now, over time, when we're constantly eating foods that are
39:15
going to be raising our blood sugar like we do in these all
39:18
these carbohydrates that are everywhere in our diet, like our
39:21
builder with our 2 teaspoons of tea that we're just sugar
39:25
drinking with two teaspoons of sugar, you know, that sugar gets
39:28
into the bloodstream very quickly.
39:30
And Insulin's job is to come and like, say, right, we need to
39:32
deal with this. Elliot Kipchogi.
39:35
He's going to run. That's fine.
39:36
He'll burn it off. Yeah.
39:37
Because you need the the carbs. If we, if we're not burning it
39:40
off, yeah, the body just says insulin would say like I want
39:43
let's just store this as fat. Yeah, because I was working with
39:45
a running coach at one stage and the coach said, look, you need
39:47
to up your carbs because you're running too far to justify
39:51
having so few. So in my case, when I was
39:53
running electrical some longer distances, you need more carbs,
39:56
right? Yeah.
39:58
Yeah, I mean it's A and there, but there are some who are very
40:01
well fat adapted athletes who run on no carbohydrates, very
40:05
low carbohydrates. They're tapping into fat storage
40:08
and that's perhaps a topic for another day.
40:10
But I think that, you know, going back to the ketogenic diet
40:15
and why that's so helpful or a lower carbohydrate diet is that
40:19
what are we doing to our blood sugar levels when we're lowering
40:23
these carbohydrates? We're lowering our blood sugar
40:26
levels. Not hypoglycemic, we're just
40:29
steadying them and we're able then to lower insulin.
40:33
And that is really important because it's actually insulin
40:36
that's associated with so many diseases of prosperity, these
40:40
diseases that we associate with, you know, diabetes,
40:44
cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, Alzheimer's,
40:48
even, you know, all of. These.
40:50
Diseases Cancer Many cancers associated with elevated insulin
40:55
from elevated blood sugar levels.
40:57
So these refined foods, these these without fibre, let's say
41:01
the the sugary ones, they are genuinely behind disease.
41:06
Like in as in scientifically proven they are.
41:12
So when we have these questions, the headlines, MailOnline, Sun,
41:15
whatever it is you're reading, Telegraph that so many young
41:18
people are getting cancer. Why is it so many young people
41:20
getting cancer? It's these foods.
41:24
It it's probably a number of factors, but you you cannot say
41:28
that food has got no impact on it.
41:30
When you look at the diets, you know, making sure that we are
41:35
well, if we look at what are these people eating, what are
41:39
these the people who are being impacted by these diseases, it's
41:44
not only going to be down to food, but by certain account
41:49
nutrition and sugar and excess glucose and insulin is having a
41:53
major role without a doubt. OK.
41:56
So, so OK, fine. So gluten free, dairy free, just
42:00
quickly touching on those two. Slightly different.
42:03
Slightly different. There are absolutely cases where
42:07
people should be avoiding. Gluten in particular can be very
42:11
damaging to the gut. Given that 7080% of your immune
42:16
system resides in the gut, I always consider whether gluten
42:21
is playing a role in any autoimmune conditions.
42:25
Certainly because your immune system is reside, you want to.
42:29
Get. Tested for that, yeah.
42:31
And there is such a thing. I mean, the celiac disease is at
42:34
1 extreme. That is a, you know you.
42:36
Can't have any gluten. No gluten dangerous, but we have
42:39
got non celiac gluten sensitivity.
42:43
OK, so people can genuinely be very sensitive to gluten and.
42:47
Then you bloat. And we bloat.
42:49
Gluten can contribute to leaky gut, which is a term that's
42:52
often used, but essentially gluten is breaking apart these
42:55
tight junctions, these proteins that are holding your epithelial
42:59
cells together, Your cells that are lining your gut wall can get
43:03
damaged by too much gluten. So avoiding grains containing
43:08
gluten can be really beneficial for a lot of people.
43:13
And dairy similar, you know, dairy people will be often
43:19
suffering with either the sugars that are in milk.
43:21
So lactose is different to dairy proteins, which is casein.
43:27
So you can either have an issue with the protein in the milk or
43:31
the lactose sugars in the milk. However, one way which I love to
43:35
encourage people to incorporate dairy is go for fermented dairy
43:39
because the action of fermenting.
43:41
So Kefira for example, or Greek yogurt, Kefira really helpful,
43:46
really beneficial. And a lot of people who can't
43:48
drink milk are fine with Kefira because the bacteria have
43:52
already started to break down some of those sugars.
43:55
They've fermented the sugars. See, I'm really like, I'm really
43:57
grateful to my parents now because as you're talking about
43:59
these things and you know, I mentioned the oats and things,
44:01
this is and, and just normal foods you cook at home.
44:05
You buy the steak, you know, you have your grains, your beans.
44:07
This is the way that I grew up at home.
44:09
You know, my parents just did that sort of thing.
44:11
And I remember going to school and looking at what other kids
44:15
have for lunch, and I would get jealous because they'd have
44:17
like, you know, like Nutella sandwich on my wagon.
44:19
Rail. Yeah, and they had crisps and I
44:21
think, why are my parents so boring?
44:23
They gave me a tomato and they thought there was a treat.
44:27
So but actually I'm so grateful because it meant that all those
44:30
foundational years growing up, I, you know, had such healthy,
44:33
beautiful food and then must account for something.
44:36
If you're growing up with a nice, you know, I've tried to
44:38
give my children the same. Of course, there's lots of
44:40
exposure to things, but in general, you know, to lay the
44:43
foundation of decent food. Yes, common, common sense food.
44:47
Common sense food and I you know, when I was making packed
44:50
lunches, Ditto you know, it was the thing I would struggle with
44:53
the most was the pressure the. Pressure to have the truth.
44:56
From, you know, the little packets of crisps that go in,
44:59
the chocolate that goes in, you know, these foods, they don't
45:02
add any value. They're not sad, the kids.
45:05
They do, and they feel like they're the one missing out.
45:07
I get the cucumber, you know, great, they're missing out.
45:10
But we try, and I try and help my children, I have two children
45:15
as well, and try to help them understand that food, what
45:19
they're putting in their body is information for the body and we
45:22
need to tell the body. I want to make strong muscles, I
45:26
want to have a good firing brain, I want to be having loads
45:30
of energy to run around on my break time.
45:32
You know we won't be doing this if we're not providing our body
45:35
with those building blocks. Spike in those insulins.
45:39
OK, so on the bloating we've we've touched about because lots
45:43
of people bloat. So one of the questions is why
45:44
am I bloated? But I think we can establish
45:46
that you could have a gluten intolerance.
45:49
You could be to check your bloods.
45:51
Yeah, it could be. Do you know, so many of us are
45:53
in a state of fight or flight, So many of us are stressed.
45:58
So many of us eat on the go. We eat in the car or we eat at
46:02
our desk. And we need to consider how the
46:07
body's digestive system is designed to work.
46:10
And when we're eating and we're stressed, we're not able to
46:15
secrete stomach acid. OK.
46:19
And this is, this is so important.
46:21
We think about digestion starts in the mouth.
46:24
We've got a chew for certain, OK, You can't just inhale your
46:27
food, much as my 14 year old would like to demonstrate, at
46:30
meal time, you've got to start to break down the food.
46:34
But only when we have got really good stomach acid production,
46:39
when we're not in a stress state, we would be able to start
46:43
all of those enzymatic processes of breaking down the food.
46:48
Bloating often happens due to low stomach acid.
46:51
So when the food gets into our small intestine, it's just not
46:56
had a very good start up in the stomach.
47:00
You know, digestive juices haven't started to really flow
47:05
and it's like a cascade that then also doesn't work well a
47:09
bit slower down the chain. If you don't have good stomach
47:13
acid production, you won't get all those messages to say,
47:17
right, I now need my enzymes. I now need, you know, load of
47:20
lipases and amylase and. We never thought about that.
47:24
We never thought about. You know, when we're eating in a
47:27
rush, it. Yeah.
47:29
And often it's one of the simplest things we can do that
47:32
has the biggest impact on our bloating is slowing down
47:36
digestive process. It's so hard to slow down
47:39
Nicola. It's.
47:40
Chew your food, slow down, chew your food well and get.
47:44
Sit at the table and have that meal with the family calmly.
47:47
Yeah, have conversations. Put your knife and fork down
47:50
between mouth. Italian whale Frisco pulls off
47:53
it. Yeah.
47:54
Do we need probiotics? Should we be swallowing those?
47:58
Oh, well, that's a great probiotics have absolutely got
48:02
incredible research behind them. I'm not a fan of broad strain,
48:08
you know, like just pop a probiotic for any kind of
48:11
reason, because there's a lot of research behind particular
48:14
strains of probiotics being really important for different
48:19
aspects of health. So there are, for example,
48:22
psychobiotics, which is a new term that is looked at these
48:26
probiotics that directly help the gut brain access, so are
48:32
directly supportive of anxiety, for example, you know, so I
48:37
wouldn't go kind of popping any old probiotic if you suffer with
48:40
anxiety. I would look at the specific
48:44
strains of probiotics that really we know OK influence.
48:48
Shall we go to a nutritionist to check what we need?
48:51
Or shall we, can we go on ChatGPT and go, which one shall
48:54
I take? You know, what do you recommend?
48:56
I mean, I know people are doing this.
48:57
They're saying, you know what diet do you?
48:59
What do you how? How do we know which one we
49:01
need? So you could ask ChatGPT.
49:05
So I'm suffering right now with anxiety.
49:09
These what what I would always start with food.
49:13
You know, what kind of foods are really going to support me with
49:16
this? And it will, you know, hopefully
49:18
give you lots of ideas and then you can look to see why am I
49:21
eating all of these? You know, how am I?
49:24
How am I doing? You can do stool testing to
49:27
actually look at your microbiome.
49:30
But what I always consider it's a very transient place, the
49:33
microbiome, you know, it's changing all the time.
49:35
Changing. You go on holiday for a week to
49:38
France and your microbiome will be very different from one week
49:41
and it. Affected but also church GPT
49:44
still makes mistakes and it's not going to tailor to you
49:46
because it doesn't know your blood unless you put all your
49:48
test results in there. I have been guilty of using
49:52
church GPT for such things sometimes, but it's interesting,
49:54
the analytics, but it makes mistakes.
49:57
So you've got to be careful, don't you?
49:58
Yeah, it would. And I would, I would look for
50:02
reputable types of probiotics as well.
50:04
So you know where you source your probiotics from.
50:08
You know, you want them to survive the transit of your
50:13
stomach acid. You know, they need to be
50:15
enteric coated. They need to have a coating on
50:18
the capsule so that they get to the gut.
50:20
You know, we don't need probiotics in the stomach.
50:23
You know, we need probiotics in the gut.
50:26
So yeah, I seek seek advice from a professional.
50:30
Yes, it's it's probably the way forward.
50:32
OK, let's look at our environment a little bit.
50:35
When we spoke before in our pre podcast call that we had you
50:39
spoke to me about mold. There is an issue in the UK with
50:43
mold. There's also an issue in these
50:44
fancy mansions. You you heard about Gene Hackman
50:46
and all these things with mold in these in this when it's dry
50:49
in LA, I'm like if it was in LA, if he lived.
50:51
I might be wrong, but. Well, anywhere where you're
50:53
having air conditioning, generally.
50:56
Air. Conditioning, air conditioning,
50:57
ducts and, and what have you. Yeah.
51:00
Mould. Mould is a, an issue that I see
51:03
a lot in my clinical practice as being a major contributor to
51:09
illness, to poor health. And it's not the mould we see.
51:13
So when we, when we think about mould, sometimes we as home
51:18
owners can become a bit embarrassed.
51:20
It's not, it's not any sign that your house is dirty.
51:24
We need to kind of take away the stigma of mould completely.
51:27
Mould is often very hidden, OK? And it's not the mold that we
51:32
see that is necessarily the problem.
51:35
So mold creates spores. So mold most often originates
51:39
from water. So water damage in a building,
51:43
mold will make spores, and spores throw off these
51:47
mycotoxins into the environment. And these are tiny, microscopic,
51:51
you know, they're nanometres inside inhale.
51:53
Them or do they go through our pores or what?
51:55
Both so we inhale them so they get into our respiratory tract,
51:59
we ingest them so they get into our gastrointestinal tract.
52:03
They, you know, we, they penetrate the skin.
52:06
So we, we can't get away from it.
52:08
We can't get. Away from onslaught attack.
52:10
It's an onslaught and not everybody.
52:13
You know, when I work with people that are suffering with
52:16
sickness that's tied into mycotoxin exposure, you could
52:21
have a House of 4-5 people and only one person may be affected,
52:26
may have signs that it's bothering them that their body
52:30
isn't able to kick out the micotoxins.
52:33
Well, and this is where I find the world of nutrigenomics
52:38
really interesting. So your genetics, so how your
52:41
genes are working plays a massive role in helping us
52:47
understand why somebody is not able to cope with a mycotoxin
52:52
exposure compared to the next person.
52:55
So it, you know, it's not like I'm not looking for genetic
52:57
mutations. This is like a little spelling
53:00
mistakes that are helping your genes detoxify.
53:03
OK, so detox, a natural detox from your own genetics.
53:07
Helping your genes in metabolising things in helping
53:11
your genes, you know, transport things around the body like you
53:16
know, we're all you're very unique to your siblings, very
53:20
unique to your children. You know, your blueprint is
53:24
absolutely just you and we can test for this.
53:28
And you, when you have these tests, it's goes with you for
53:30
life. It's a really important, I
53:32
think, you know, valuable insight into how we work.
53:36
But why mycotoxins and why mold will affect some people more
53:40
than others is often due to how they are built, how they work,
53:47
and their sensitivities. So what, what, what areas do
53:52
they need more support in than others?
53:54
Why are they more vulnerable than the next person?
53:57
You know, this is the the the brilliant world of nutritional
54:01
therapy really is kind of looking at exposure, looking at
54:04
nutrients to support them, but looking at genetics, looking at
54:08
how they're built, how they. Are so so the solution would be
54:12
obviously to stop the exposure, but then also heal the body from
54:16
detoxify. Use the right food and and
54:20
actually address it and you can test for this.
54:21
So if someone came to you, you would test for.
54:24
Yeah, it's a urinary test that I use for looking at mycotoxins.
54:28
So they're excreted in the urine.
54:29
It's worth doing. Yeah, it's a really, it's a non
54:31
invasive test as well. So it's a really important test
54:34
to do. And the exposure can be years
54:36
ago. Oh, right, it doesn't have to be
54:39
a current exposure. So mycotoxins, if you don't
54:42
eliminate them, they become trapped in the body.
54:45
They become trapped. They are they, they get
54:48
incorporated into fat tissue in particular.
54:52
So they, yeah, they. Get those out.
54:54
Get them out. Terminate that and we.
54:56
Can do it. You know, we think about how to
54:58
get them out I mean you touched on a really important point,
55:01
which is you need to get out of the environment.
55:03
So if the environment that you're in right now is where
55:07
you've had a water leak or you've had plasterboard, that
55:11
is, you know you've seen this in water damage, or if you know
55:16
there's visible signs of behind posters in student
55:19
accommodation, there's black mold behind it.
55:21
You know, you get out of the environment first.
55:23
Get out first and foremost. You know you need to.
55:26
Go to Nikolai, get a urine test. And then you test.
55:29
And eliminate that stuff. Test and you're.
55:31
Going to do something about it. Food is so helpful.
55:33
Food is really helpful. You know, it's, we need to make
55:36
sure we've got lots of good quality fat because it's stored
55:40
in fat. So we want to make sure that
55:42
we're moving around our fat and incorporating lovely omega-3
55:46
fats. Our oily fish in particular
55:49
really helps. Prevents helps.
55:51
Yeah, and natural binders, you know, things like kale, flax
55:55
seeds, they're naturally going to bind to their mycotoxins and
55:58
help with the elimination. Wow.
56:00
Yeah, we need really good gut health, so.
56:02
We really. Need a whole podcast of mold?
56:05
This is, well, this is very important.
56:07
Yeah, it's really important. And it's because it's so it's so
56:12
rarely looked at it. It's quite often that missing
56:16
piece. If somebody's been suffering
56:18
chronically for a number of years with fatigue, mental
56:21
health, you know, ADHD as well, the development of tics,
56:26
suicidal ideation, really low mood.
56:29
You know a lot of mental health conditions can be tied to a
56:32
mycotoxin exposure. You're.
56:34
Kidding me? It's huge.
56:35
Absolutely huge OK to. Everyone watching you have any
56:40
of these or anyone you know suffers from any of the things
56:43
you've just said. Yeah, go and get a urine test.
56:46
Get a urine test. They're not expensive to do.
56:48
They're simple to do. It's a urine test that will look
56:51
for mycotoxins. I'm happy to, you know, chat to
56:54
anybody who wants to. Look, we'll leave your details
56:57
in, in the podcast description so people can can contact you,
57:00
but that is I mean. Yeah.
57:04
I want. One, and interestingly, just on
57:06
what, how serious mycotoxins can because it's under, it's under
57:10
appreciated. the United Nations, you know, they publish their
57:14
little, you know, if anyone going out in the field and
57:17
working on dangerous, you know, dangerous sites, they have a
57:20
little flip chart that kind of has all the dangerous, dangerous
57:23
like a sphere bus and things like that.
57:25
Ebola. Oh yeah, Ebola's right.
57:27
Ebola's like the next one under Ebola is one of those
57:31
mycotoxins. No, it's that dangerous to our
57:34
health. Really.
57:35
It's right there. Literally under you've got.
57:38
Ebola. Actually, you've got Ebola.
57:40
So they are. All over the water like this is
57:42
a global. Yeah, it's you're published by
57:44
the United Nations so they it's they are recognised of you know
57:49
there's acratoxin is a main one that I see aflatoxin.
57:54
There are, there are tons that are tested.
57:56
The urine tests that I work with, they test 15 or so of the
57:59
most common. But yeah, ocritoxen in
58:02
particular is really damaging to, you know, carcinogenic.
58:06
It's a whole list of things which is not good for our
58:10
health, but they affect us in many, many ways.
58:13
And we said we're ingesting things, we're ingesting, maybe
58:15
we're having too much sugar, we're having those digestives.
58:18
The packet of crisps comes out, the Red Bull, whatever it might
58:21
be. And the mold comes in, inhale
58:24
it. And it's this combination.
58:26
And then you give someone a hectic crazy life and and stress
58:30
and all that and it makes everything worse, like a spiral.
58:33
And I do wonder if I'm seeing more and more of it now because
58:36
of all of these other things which are not in place, you
58:39
know, because of the dietary issues that we've got, because
58:43
our bodies is already maybe under so much strain.
58:47
You know, we've always lived in damp environments.
58:50
You know, the UK is a, you know, loads of trees, it's a damp old
58:54
houses. But we see so much more
58:56
mycotoxin illness now, maybe because the pressures that our
59:00
bodies under, you know, like our detoxification pathways, are
59:04
already choked full. Pollution.
59:07
Pollution, plastics, you know, all of these endocrine
59:11
disruptors, things that we're inhaling, that we're eating,
59:14
that are damaging our hormones, glyphosates, you know, things
59:17
that we sprayed on our crops, You know, maybe it's that we're
59:22
just under so much burden now compared to 20 years ago, you
59:27
know, and that's why we're seeing so.
59:28
But then we try and eat this, sorry, then we try and eat this
59:31
food to help us. And then they've sprayed it.
59:33
They've. Sprayed it.
59:34
Yeah, they, you know, it's a it's a big issue.
59:37
It's a big issue. Eat organic.
59:39
I mean, yeah, I'm trying to find solutions here in this world.
59:42
Of so certainly so. Yeah, what can we do?
59:45
Let's just go pause. So what can we?
59:46
What can we do? So there is something called the
59:48
Clean 15 and The Dirty dozen when it comes to environmental
59:51
toxins. OK, so these are products,
59:54
vegetables and fruit that are sprayed.
59:57
So the Environmental Working Group publishes a free guide
1:00:01
each year they review it. What are our top 12 foods that
1:00:06
are most riddled with pesticide residue?
1:00:09
OK, that's OK. I'm not going to be able to
1:00:11
sound off the top of my head. Just give us some.
1:00:13
Some on there will be strawberries and apples.
1:00:16
Oh no, stop it, I love. We love them.
1:00:20
Just clean them, clean them before you eat them.
1:00:22
Wash them really well. If you can't buy organic, you
1:00:25
know, not everyone can buy organic everything.
1:00:27
I'm not suggesting that we do, but wash them.
1:00:31
A simple kind of I get a bowl and just put water bicarb, you
1:00:36
know, simple bicarb and a little bit of vinegar in the water.
1:00:39
So not just washing in waters enough you have.
1:00:41
To no, you need to kind of rub off, you know, not rub off, but
1:00:45
just leave. Them I thought a little 10
1:00:46
minutes or so suffice like no. Not going to get rid of
1:00:50
pesticide residues so yeah, if you why didn't.
1:00:53
I meet you earlier to tell me this information.
1:00:54
This is this is crazy. Because I think most.
1:00:56
People just wash. Like, yeah, yeah, a bit of
1:00:59
bicarb, a little bit of lemon juice or, you know, something to
1:01:02
activate the little lemon juice. Just Jeff, lemon juice.
1:01:06
You get bicarb, put it in the water, it fizzes a little bit,
1:01:10
but put your apples in that water.
1:01:12
Just leave them for 10 minutes or so and then drain them on the
1:01:15
side. Oh gosh, grow your own if you
1:01:17
can, if you have the luxury or a little allotment or garden or.
1:01:21
Whatever fantastic and find a friend that grows you know and
1:01:25
you grow one thing, they grow another and you share it about.
1:01:29
Some of these companies that do like get organic farming and
1:01:31
they can. I love my community farm yeah
1:01:33
community. I support a community absolutely
1:01:36
a vegetables so. That is the way forward.
1:01:38
Oh, it's just absolutely horrible.
1:01:40
And then the pollution, there's not much you can do about that
1:01:43
pollution in the streets of the London and all that stuff.
1:01:47
So, yeah, so we're basically bombarded by all this stuff.
1:01:52
And then we can protect ourselves to an extent.
1:01:54
You know, we can eat the right food.
1:01:56
We can get our sleep. We can test.
1:01:59
We can, if we have been, you know, attacked by something like
1:02:03
the molds, we can take something, eat something to
1:02:07
eliminate that, right? So we don't have to.
1:02:08
It's not all doom and gloom. There are things that we can
1:02:10
genuinely do. We can wear our wearables,
1:02:12
right. And we've also spoken about the
1:02:16
basics of, you know, try and not eat between these meals.
1:02:20
Give yourself a break, right? Try and have the 14 hours have
1:02:23
the protein breakfast. Yeah, protein with every meal.
1:02:26
Yes, eat the Whole Foods. Is there anything else that that
1:02:29
we should really know? Like common sense, you know?
1:02:32
Common sense I feel, which is not food related, but it's my
1:02:38
world related in nutritional therapy and that is making sure
1:02:43
we look after our frame our. Body OK.
1:02:46
OK, our muscle tissue and our bones in particular for women.
1:02:51
But do you know what? Everybody needs to be doing
1:02:54
this. I say in particular women
1:02:55
because we genuinely, we aren't the ones that are concerned
1:03:00
about building muscle tissue, you know, and I love the mantra
1:03:05
strong, not skinny. I think it is so important to
1:03:08
give those messages out to our, to our teens, to our
1:03:12
girlfriends, to our moms. You know, we need to have good
1:03:19
muscle tissue. And after the age of 30, we'll
1:03:21
we lose it. It's a really sad use it or lose
1:03:25
it, lose it or lose it and muscle tissue is so much more
1:03:29
than just looking good in the gym or just looking good in a
1:03:32
swimming costume or something. Like that?
1:03:33
Oh, that helps. Oh, there, that helps.
1:03:35
Quite nice. It's so important for us.
1:03:39
So not only does it protect our frame, you know, so muscle
1:03:43
tissue is constantly going to be providing signals to the bones
1:03:48
to grow. You know, we have a new
1:03:49
skeleton. Every 10 years or so we get a
1:03:52
new skeleton. Our bone tissue is not inert.
1:03:54
We are building and breaking. Down bone they get new skin.
1:03:58
So you say we. Get a new skeleton.
1:04:01
Yeah. So, but we we only build the
1:04:04
bone if we're providing signals to the bone that we need to grow
1:04:08
it. And the best signal is from
1:04:10
muscle tissue pulling, making little stress on the bone to
1:04:14
grow. And that's really important as
1:04:16
we age, you know, we consider, you know, what what are the
1:04:20
risks of ageing is frailty. It's it's issues related to kind
1:04:26
of body decline, you know, us having a fall and breaking a hip
1:04:30
or a bone. And then you know, that being
1:04:33
the downfall, you lose mobility, you lose the ability to look
1:04:37
after yourself. So muscle tissue is really
1:04:40
important for skeletal health, but it's also going back, tying
1:04:44
it back into metabolic health, like it is a glucose sink.
1:04:49
So you're eating the carbohydrates.
1:04:50
If you've got muscle tissue there, like Elliot Kipchogi,
1:04:55
you're going to be using it, You're going to be taking it in
1:04:57
and using it and burning it, you know, So it's really important
1:05:01
for that. But also when we think of the
1:05:03
context of, you know, the way in which our body gets flooded with
1:05:08
inflammation, we hear about inflammation and inflammation.
1:05:11
It's very, for us, buzzwords, A buzzword.
1:05:13
It's a buzz inflammation. It's inflammation that.
1:05:16
Because a lot of what we're doing to our body is causing
1:05:19
inflammation is like a natural process, OK, you cut yourself,
1:05:23
you have inflammation. It's an immune response that
1:05:25
comes in. Healing, so it's good.
1:05:27
It's good when it can be turned on, turned off, that's.
1:05:30
Like you were saying the up and down not.
1:05:32
Constant, so constant state of low grade inflammation that we
1:05:36
associate with fat tissue that is going to be secreting
1:05:40
inflammatory messages around the body.
1:05:45
You know, muscle tissue promotes anti-inflammatory chemical
1:05:49
messages that kind of counteract all of this.
1:05:53
So it's, it's so much more the, you know, muscle tissue I think
1:05:57
would be, you know, being strong.
1:05:59
For our future is that the tip really that you can give people
1:06:02
is really work on your work on your strength, whether you're a
1:06:05
man, woman, just work on that muscle.
1:06:07
Everyone should be lifting. Everyone should be.
1:06:09
Everybody should be lifting, strength training, resistance
1:06:12
training, even body weight exercises.
1:06:15
You know, if you're new to it, you know, I'm often asked where,
1:06:17
where do you even start? You start with just using body
1:06:20
weight, body weight exercises, but just having that as your
1:06:24
form of self love. You know, you're looking after
1:06:27
your body because you're sending your body these messages that,
1:06:31
you know, I need my muscle tissue and I need it for all of
1:06:34
these really good reasons. Yeah, that's that's really good.
1:06:39
And you just, you have to fuel yourself right as well.
1:06:42
You know, to build muscle tissue, you need building
1:06:44
blocks. You need protein to do that.
1:06:46
Definitely. But I think often we focus a lot
1:06:50
on the nutrition piece. And actually incorporating the
1:06:55
right kind of exercise is really important as well for, for
1:06:59
longevity, for being well, for, for addressing disease.
1:07:03
You know, most diseases are associated with inflammation as
1:07:06
well. So most issues are going to be
1:07:08
supported by good muscle tissue. Yeah, Nicola, I mean, I loved,
1:07:13
just love this podcast. Listening to you just have a way
1:07:16
of explaining things just so, so nicely.
1:07:20
So clearly you've just demystified all this noise, like
1:07:25
you're saying noise on the Internet, and just essentialise
1:07:28
it into what we really should be doing.
1:07:29
And thank you so much for your time.
1:07:31
Thank you so much for inviting. It's been really fun.
1:07:34
Thank you.