Pod Insights Happy Place Eat for energy not weight loss! Em the Nutritionist: food impacts mood About this episode Making better food choices isn’t about changing who you are, but about making you the most energetic, vibrant version of you. Emily English, aka Em the Nutritionist, talks through how food directly impacts mood.
In this chat Fearne and Em both share their experiences of having eating disorders. Was it more about weight and appearance or control and secrecy? They also offer advice for those trying to support a loved one who has a difficult relationship with food.
So, how has Em gone from weighing out spinach leaves to piling plates with delicious nutritious foods? Her mindset is all about adding energising foods and movement into your life rather than restricting or taking away joy!
Plus, Em explains that we’re all allowed to – and should – eat differently to each other (and to that person you follow online!), and they talk through how to build sustainable habits you’re actually going to be able to stick to.
Emily’s recipe book, So Good, is out now.
If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like:
Ella Mills https://pod.fo/e/2527fe
Lucinda Miller https://pod.fo/e/264d40
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Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service.
Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/
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Transcript 10,159 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28 Fearne Cotton? Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that looks after both your body and your mind. Today, I'm chatting to Emily English, otherwise known as M the Nutritionist.
0:41 Speaker 02 One thing that I really want to try and encourage this year is independence in our own thoughts about our own bodies. If anyone's going into the new year and they've struggled with gut issues, digestive issues, IBS, you know how debilitating it can be. There is nothing worse when you feel out of control with your gut health. And we know that fibre is key for the gut, but also things like managing your stress levels, how's your emotions, that's really going to make a bigger impact and it's not just about the glass of wine or the sweets.
1:11 Fearne Cotton? Well, hi and a very, very happy new year to you. It's only bloody January. I think I'm quite excited about January this year. I don't really know why. I love Christmas. I think by this point, I am well and truly over it, quite frankly. I'm ready for a fresh start, but in a positive way. I don't want all this bloody pressure of having to set goals or to be, you know, doing things completely differently like I'm a brand new person. I'm still me and I'm flawed and I've got things going on and sometimes my brain works in a weird way and I'm not going to expect anything other than that. So I think I'm not having a new year's resolution of any sort, but what I will do is make a promise to myself that I'm going to be nice to myself because I think that is the one
1:56 Fearne Cotton? thing that I definitely can change. I can be a bit nicer to myself, a bit kinder to myself. And these are the sort of themes that we really want to look at in today's podcast. I felt like it was really important for January to sort of go against the grain and not talk about having to overhaul everything in your life to be this new shiny person in January. Quite frankly, fuck that. So, let's crack on with the guest. Emily is a nutritionist with a degree from King's College London. She spent her childhood summers in her granny's restaurant kitchen and her school time in the chemistry lab. So she's always had a curiosity for what the food on our plates does inside our bodies. But it wasn't until her own relationship with food suffered after a period in the
2:39 Fearne Cotton? modelling industry that she decided to study nutrition at university. Oh god, we talk about so much in this. We do talk a lot about Christmas wrecking havoc with routine and your gut and all that jazz. I mean, it just does. And it doesn't have to be a problem, doesn't have to be something that you feel wrapped with guilt about. You've enjoyed it, you've had a great time, but now what? How can we get that gut feeling good again after all the wine and the quality streets? We also talk about ditching crash dieting because it's a load of old shit. We also, we do get on to serious stuff because obviously I've got history with food problems. So we talk about how debilitating it can be when you feel out of control with food.
3:19 Fearne Cotton? And also how that impacts people around you, like looking at parents, you know, I regret putting my mum through so much shit with that one. So we do get on to that subject too. So there's loads and loads in here, advice and hopefully a bit of guidance and just some lovely chat too.
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4:58 Fearne Cotton? Right, let's do it. Here's the show.
5:21 Fearne Cotton? Hello, Em.
5:22 Speaker 02 Hello.
5:23 Fearne Cotton? It's so nice to meet you.
5:24 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me.
5:25 Fearne Cotton? Oh, it's lovely to have you on Happy Place. This feels like the perfect time to have you on the podcast. It's January. I think potentially the most confusing time of year when it comes to food. It's a time where there's a lot of pressure and noise about having to literally re-haul your whole diet out of nowhere and deal with it. And we're not even sure why we're doing that anymore. Why do you think this is such a confusing time of year? And how can we flip that on its head?
5:57 Speaker 02 I think that the health and wellness space is probably one of the most opinionated spaces where every single time you consume any information on any social platform, news article, magazine, every single thing is conflicting. So if you're someone who is thinking, okay, it's January, I'm going to start my health journey, you turn to these platforms and you're like, oh my God, where do I even start? And then you go down one route and you think, okay, well, I've sussed it, I know what to do. And then suddenly something comes out and it kind of like blows that out of the water. So I think for me, it's like. All of those opinions and the level of intensity and commitment to those opinions
6:38 Speaker 02 that these people have, like people will scream and shout and demonise and make everything feel really black and white, whereas.
6:47 Fearne Cotton? There's a lot of emotion behind food.
6:49 Speaker 02 So much emotion.
6:50 Fearne Cotton? I know, I can picture, I've seen the videos on Instagram where people are sort of saying, you cannot eat this, you should, and you end up feeling scared, like what am I meant to be eating, what's toxic, what shit, you know, it's just so bloody confusing. And I think this is also the time where people go on a crash diet because, and it's all about weight, we're not looking at anything else in terms of the benefits of actually eating food. So people end up doing a crazy diet that they'll probably sustain for two weeks and then they're like, actually sod this, this is miserable. And then you end up going completely the other way. It's so bizarre.
7:23 Speaker 02 Massively. And I think so much of that is fear mongering and I feel it. Whenever I go into a room or I meet new people and I say, hi, I'm a nutritionist, the automatic reaction is I'm judging them on their food choices. And people get scared, but to be fair, like I have met like really amazing people in the beauty industry and they're like, oh, what's your beauty routine? And suddenly I choke.
7:42 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:43 Speaker 02 Is this the right thing to say? But I think my whole mission in my area and my field and my love of both health and food is to normalise nutrition. Like nutrition should feel just like an extra part of you and your day and your food identity that makes you feel good. It's about nourishment. It's not about deprivation. It's not about fear mongering. It's not about making you feel guilty. And I always say as well, you are so unique. We are all so unique. We all love different things. We all like to wear different things, listen to different music. We are all allowed to eat differently as well. And I want people to have the permission to be able to like explore their health and explore their nutrition in their own unique ways.
8:24 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, let's look at that deficit because I think, because again, this is the time of year where we're told you cannot eat this, you cannot eat that. And, and this seems to be quite trend led a lot of the time, you know, I was definitely of that era when I was younger where it's like, you must not eat bread. And bread became this evil thing. I bloody love bread so much. Having looked at your content, you're eating bread, you're eating pasta, there doesn't seem to be food groups that you're steering away from, but I'm wondering perhaps processed food, sugar, they're the two ones that we should avoid. Now I'm contradicting myself slightly, but they're the ones that we know aren't gonna serve our bodies well.
9:00 Speaker 02 A hundred percent. And I think when we are talking about, okay, proper nitty gritty science and nutrition, of course, we know that there are things that aren't as good for us and there are things that we probably need to moderate and limit. Ultra processed food consumption is definitely something that we need to be aware of. And I actually think the movement can be seen in a really positive light because it brings awareness, not necessarily, I don't want it to bring guilt, I just want it, people to think, oh wow, God, in my breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'm probably consuming half of that as an ultra processed food. So what can I do differently? And it's about giving people that freedom and option and choice to be able to make better conscious decisions.
9:40 Speaker 02 I don't want people to then get so wrapped up that they can't go into the new year and refuse to eat a chocolate bar for the rest of their life. And they're suddenly saying, I will never eat sugar again. Because let's be realistic, when you, when you set yourself these rules and regulations and these restrictions, you actually set yourself up to failure.
9:58 Fearne Cotton? You want it more.
9:59 Speaker 02 You want it more. And it becomes this like obsessive thought thing. And as soon as you feel like you failed, that's where people throw in the towel. And if you're making New Year's resolutions and you really want to improve your health this year, do the things and make the changes that you know you can stick to for the rest of your life. And that can sound pretty dramatic. But if you know that you're not going to be able to cut out your chocolate bar for the rest of your life, why not make that conscious decision of being like, okay, I'm actually gonna have maybe my chocolate bar every other day? Or I'm gonna like have a chocolate bar, but maybe with an extra handful of like nuts and, and, and fruits and bits on the side and make like a bit of like a yummy bowl in the evening to add more.
10:40 Speaker 02 That's the kind of thing that you'd be able to stick to forever. And then that's the kind of thing that's actually gonna make a difference to your health.
10:45 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, chocolate is a non-negotiable for me, but I'm going super dark, really good quality. I'll have a little bit every day. Makes me fucking happy. And coffee, I'm never ever not gonna drink coffee. I love it. I love every bit of making it. I love that first sip in the morning. I'm a happy human when I have coffee. And I think it's so important that we know that we can eat those things that we love. And we can really, really enjoy them and not punish ourselves like I cannot eat this, I cannot eat that. The other thing about this time of year is people might enter January with some digestive things going on. Because over Christmas, we probably do overindulge. We're eating things we might not normally.
11:25 Fearne Cotton? We've got, there's bowls of sweets everywhere, or there's a lot of booze because you're going to parties and you've got Christmas lunches, et cetera. Digestion obviously can be kind of knocked in January because you've had that period of excess, which again is fine. It's Christmas. You're allowed to indulge and have a great time. But how might we look at rectifying that and getting a little bit of balance and equilibrium in the gut in January?
11:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, so Christmas wreaks havoc on your guts. Change your sleep routines, as you said, the booze, alcohol is not very good for your digestive system and your gut bacteria kind of composition. All the extra sugar, sweets and, and stuff. So if you're thinking about looking after your gut health, I always say start slow and build. And a lot of people will go into January and try and pick up every single piece of tip and advice. And if you go into January and suddenly try and put thirty different plants and all these extra fibres and all these extra kind of like legumes and bits and bobs into your plates, it's like going to the gym and trying to squat a hundred kilograms. You're gonna hurt yourself.
12:28 Fearne Cotton? Gradual.
12:28 Speaker 02 Gradual. Allow your gut time to kind of train into the better health habits. We know that diversity, we know that fibre is, is, is key for the gut, but also things like managing your stress levels. How's your emotions? My favourite connection as well is we know how much our mind is connected to our guts. Whenever we're nervous or anxious, we tend to go to the bathroom, like we actually changes our bowel movements. And if you're chronically doing that to your gut every single day, that's really gonna make a bigger impact. And it's not just about the, the kind of the glass of wine or the sweets. So it's looking after your stress levels. Sleeping properly, maximum diversity and colour that you're building up in a stepwise manner. And that's it, it doesn't need to be more complicated than that.
13:10 Fearne Cotton? No, it's all really simple and that feels doable, rather than you've got to do the strict diet. This is this new insane workout routine. It's like gently and slowly. And actually, I think when you do it that way, you see how all of those things are connected and helping each other. Because if you're eating well, you're probably going to sleep better. And if you're sleeping better, you'll have more energy to move and everything just feels very interconnected, but no pressure.
13:32 Speaker 02 It's all connected and I want people to look at their health and then their nutrition, not just from a plate of food. And something that you said earlier about when you have your coffee and it makes you feel a certain way. I always say we don't eat nutrients, we eat food. And food is so much more than just its scientific value and so is nutrition. It's about joy, it's about moments, it's about space, it's about pieces. It adds so much more to your life than just getting in your vitamin C or getting in your vitamin D. So always try and make sure that you're chasing the joy and and what life really means to you through nutrition and foods.
14:10 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I think it's that shift, isn't it? Because again, January is that time when weight loss is the thing. And there's diet books and exercise videos and all of this stuff is just sort of shoved down our throats. But actually, if we can start shifting the focus away from what our bodies look like and weight. And look at how we're feeling and also how it's impacting things like, you know, especially at my age, hormones. Diet is is impacting all of that and our mood, you know, we might wonder why we feel utterly drained or a bit bleak about everything. And it's bloody January, but actually if we're feeding ourselves, that is going to impact those simple things. The baseline of our hormones and our mood and our levels of happiness, there is a huge impact. I think we sort of overlook quite a lot.
14:51 Speaker 02 Massively, and I think sometimes people can see nutrition as kind of still rooted in that very much like diet culture concept. It's all about, okay, I'm going to do this January diet to lose twenty pounds in in twenty days kind of thing. Whereas nutrition to me is everything, it's it's something that makes you feel good, energised.
15:12 Speaker 02 It makes you happy, it's something to to sit there and connect with people that you love over. And there's this amazing trial actually called the smiles trial. And it took people who suffered from kind of anxiety and depression. It changed their diets into more of a Mediterranean diet pattern, which we know is full of all the good stuff. All of the the kind of dark green leafy vegetables, whole grains, legumes, uh, good proteins. Lots of olive oil, all that good stuff. And it showed that those dietary changes can actually directly positively impact people's depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms. So if you are someone who's going into the year and and you know that you really want to make a a kind of a bigger commitment to yourself. Focusing on nourishment rather than these kind of extreme diets can actually make a really massive difference to your life.
15:57 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, hugely. I think we just, we're not focusing on that. We're just focusing on what do I look like? And and that becomes just so, um, you have the tunnel vision and and that's where I think obsession comes into it and dysfunction comes into it. But if we can look at things more broadly and holistically and look at how it can aid our lives, that's such a a better starting point.
16:19 Speaker 02 A hundred percent.
16:19 Fearne Cotton? What what we say, first of all, I guess the the initial question is what's the difference between a prebiotic and a probiotic? Is my first question. And then part two of that is, should we bother?
16:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, so a prebiotic is essentially the food that feeds the bacteria. And we always think of prebiotics as fibre, um, they are some of the the kind of best prebiotics out there in our foods. But it's also worth noting that the colour and certain antioxidants in our food also acts as fuel for our gut bacteria. And I love this fact and most of the antioxidants and something called polyphenols in our food. We need our gut bacteria to digest before we're able to absorb them as humans. So if you're getting in all of this lovely kind of antioxidant rich foods in your diet, having a good diverse microbiome is really key. Then we have probiotics, which are basically the types of bacteria that live inside your guts. And there's loads of different strains.
17:11 Speaker 02 There are loads of different strains that have kind of different roles, they feed off different things, they have different functions, but. As a rule of thumb, the more diversity and the more types of strains that we have in our guts, the the better gut health we have. When we're thinking about probiotics as we ingest them, the issue is that the supplement industry is very unregulated. And I'm actually, as a full disclosure, I am a founder of a symbiotic company. And we aimed to basically create something that with all the science that we have, and we don't have any real conclusive science in gut health space at all at the moment, really, because it's such a ginormous topic, like where do you even start?
17:53 Speaker 02 Your gut bacterial composition is as unique as your fingerprint. So if you're thinking about trying to find patterns across people with every single person is unique, it's more kind of overall trends that we need to focus on. So we looked at the specific types of bacteria we're putting in there, the ones that actually did have the highest body of of evidence and science behind them. And then what's really important when you're taking probiotics is that they're actually getting to where they need to go and alive. And so many encapsulation methods are rubbish. So you're buying these pills that say probiotic, good for your gut health, digestive health. And frankly, you're literally wasting your money because you're buying something that A, you don't know how it's been manufactured, you don't know the survivability of the probiotics in there in the first place.
18:36 Speaker 02 And then the cap just gets broken down and and the majority of it is destroyed in your stomach acid. So we invested in something called Duo Cap Technology that has like an inner core that houses all the bacteria strains and the outer core that has all these kind of like gut supporting things like vitamin D, zinc, phosph, which is a type of prebiotic. And if you're thinking about that supplement space, do you a hundred percent need a digestive health supplement to have good gut health? No. I think I wanted to just create something that people would be able to trust and held a standard in what I believe should be set in a very unregulated industry. And our customer feedback speaks for itself. I mean, it's pretty life changing, there's nothing that's been more rewarding,
19:17 Speaker 02 especially because if anyone's going into the new year and they've struggled with gut issues, digestive issues, IBS, you know how debilitating it can be, there is no. Nothing worse when you feel out of control with your gut health. And as a nutritionist, there is so much information out there about take this, do this, this is the right way to do it. But with gut health, unfortunately, it's so individualized and it's so unique. My biggest comparison that I like to make when I talk about gut health is think of your gut cells and your gut barrier as the same as your skin. I feel like we know a lot about our skin barrier. We talk about it a lot. Protective, keep the healthy fats in there, keep it nice and subtle, strong, resilient. It protects you against environmental aggressors. Don't overexfoliate.
20:00 Speaker 02 We all remember back in the time where we've had a had a play with those, the acids and the scrubs.
20:04 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
20:05 Speaker 02 When you have bad lifestyle habits and you're not eating properly and you're stressed and you're not sleeping well. The same that happens to your skin when you overexfoliate is what happens to your gut. So I want people to imagine their gut as this kind of like lovely barrier and this lovely lining that has all of this kind of like thick mucus and all the lovely bacteria that live there and it keeps it solid and safe. When we wear it down, when we overexfoliate it, we start to get this kind of like weakening of the junctions between ourselves, which we may have heard of leaky guts and it sounds a little bit woo woo and a little bit, oh, that's something that, is that a thing?
20:41 Fearne Cotton? It's a Chinese medicine term, right?
20:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. And we call it kind of hyperintestinal permeability as the sciencey word, but because.
20:48 Fearne Cotton? I'm just gonna stick with leaky gut because I don't know what you just said, yeah.
20:51 Speaker 02 Exactly. But if you imagine when that gut goes leaky, so much of our immune system is housed around our gut. We start to get this kind of stimulation of our immune system. And that's where people can start to experience things like increased anxiety and mood disorders through this stimulation of the immune system. Skin disorders, things like eczema, psoriasis, anything that's kind of slightly autoimmuney. And then also just resilience and your ability to be able to kind of digest and tolerate your food properly. And the biggest thing that you can do for your guts is look after your gut barrier function the same way that you look after your skin. And it's exactly what I said earlier. Nice diverse diet that you're building up slowly and every single day you need to be eating for two. Every single meal are you eating for two.
21:36 Speaker 02 When you're building your breakfast, lunch and dinner, what on there is my gut bacteria and my gut microbiome able to eat to support my gut barrier? And that's such an easy, simple way to look at it. So the next time you're, you're, you're putting together your egg breakfast plate. So what, are you a breakfast person? What do you tend to have for breakfast?
21:51 Fearne Cotton? Oh, thi- this is where I'm like, oh, she's gonna judge me. Um, no, no judgement. Breakfast is the one that I am bad with because I am, the coffee is the most important thing. Then I make my kids this most amazing breakfast. I get it all ready for them. This morning it was waffles and some fruit and some yogurt. My son will have some eggs, blah, blah. And then I completely forget about myself. Run around and then I'll probably grab like one piece of toast on the way out of the door. I am not good with breakfast. I'm much better with lunch, dinner and lots of snacks throughout the day, but tell me what I can do. I'm here to learn.
22:26 Speaker 02 So if you're thinking about kind of waking up and making sure that you're kind of supporting your gut bacteria. If you're having that slice of toast, maybe you can.
22:35 Fearne Cotton? Nut butter all the way.
22:36 Speaker 02 Treats or savoury person?
22:38 Fearne Cotton? Probably, oh, I don't know, a bit of both. Probably more sweet in the morning.
22:41 Speaker 02 Probably more sweet, yeah. So pizza toast, seeded, whole grain.
22:44 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
22:45 Speaker 02 It does make a difference. I know people just say, oh, brown bread, bit boring, but no.
22:48 Fearne Cotton? If I'm being really niche, I love wild farmed seeded bread. It is my absolute bloody favourite.
22:53 Speaker 02 I love it. I love it. Yeah.
22:54 Fearne Cotton? The best.
22:55 Speaker 02 So good. Um, so bread, chunky nut butter.
22:58 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
22:58 Speaker 02 Um, the, when you blend nut butter, you're basically pre-digesting it. Um, so if you can add a little bit of extra chunk, it creates a little bit more work.
23:05 Fearne Cotton? Okay, that's interesting. Okay.
23:07 Speaker 02 And then squish some frozen raspberries on it, or fresh raspberries on it. So raspberries are some of the highest fibre berries that you can get. Delicious, yummy. Buy them frozen, um, so they don't go off. If you're thinking about food waste and making sure that you're, even like. Frozen doesn't matter as seasonally, um, as if you're buying the fresh off the shelf as well. And they'll always just sit and, and last. And then. That's it. Extra sprinkle of seeds over the top.
23:31 Fearne Cotton? I'm doing that tomorrow.
23:32 Speaker 02 And suddenly your slice of toast that you quickly wolf down is just giving you that extra little bit of love and gut support. Which in turn is going to feed into your mood throughout the day, your immunity.
23:43 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
23:44 Speaker 02 Your, your, your skin health, everything is connected to the gut.
23:47 Fearne Cotton? So bearing in mind that we're all slightly different and our gut health is similar to a fingerprint, how do we start to discover what works for us with all of this information out there? Knowing that there are certain things that are always going to benefit us, like fibre, and making sure the gut health is good, how can we, is that just sort of trial and error that we work out what bespoke diet works for us?
24:07 Speaker 02 A hundred percent. And it's one thing that I really want to try and like encourage this year is independence in our own thoughts about our own bodies. And I think sometimes we can get so lost in all of this information that we don't trust our bodies anymore. And it's one thing that I always did with my clients, I listened to them. I listened to what they were telling me about their bodies because no one knows your body better than yourself. Of course, don't go and be a Google doctor and self diagnose all your own issues.
24:34 Fearne Cotton? Never do that.
24:35 Speaker 02 Please go and see a professional. This isn't me kind of like taking out all of the power, but I want to give people the confidence in understanding what works for them. And a lot of the times when you work with gut health clients who are going through certain kind of digestive issues, you end up doing a trial and error system anyway where they recognise the foods that are triggering. You tend to kind of pull it all back and introduce slowly. And I can't tell that. You have to be able to tell that. And there's some people that I've worked with who just can't eat broccoli. They, cruciferous vegetables kill them. Like it's just, it's not a vibe. And now I can sit there and be like, yeah, but it's so good for you, all these sulphur containing compounds. But if you can't stomach it and you can't digest it, it's fine. Leave it. And there's so many other things that you can do.
25:19 Fearne Cotton? Absolutely. I think that's the thing is not feeling the pressure of everyone's told me I have to eat this. How do you feel having that awareness? I guess you could write it down, like have a little food diary, see how you go. And you know, if, if you can digest bread and pasta and it feels great, bloody well eat it. Bread's never caused, I'm very lucky. I love bread. It doesn't bother me at all.
25:38 Speaker 02 I function best off bread. So.
25:40 Fearne Cotton? I love it.
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27:44 Fearne Cotton? Much like myself, you had dysfunctional eating.
27:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:48 Fearne Cotton? Back when you were a teenager. I mean, mine was probably a little bit later. I was sort of nineteen onwards, maybe a little bit before. And that has clearly driven this incredible passion that you've got and obviously all of your qualifications since. I obviously didn't go down the qualification route, but it's certainly driven me down a route of loving cooking and touching food and understanding it and experimenting to really try and paste over all of the shit from the past. Talk us through what catalyzed that issue and you thinking about food in a dysfunctional way for the first time.
28:22 Speaker 02 So I came from a family who loved food. Food was our life. Every single birthday celebration, always over at our house. It was chaos, but we always cooked and we had this massive dining table that we always used to sit and pile around. And every single breakfast, lunch and dinner, we ate at the dining table. It was definitely like a moment for us. And my granny was a chef and my first job was actually in her restaurant kitchen. My favourite thing used to be when I used to help on Sunday roast and she used to give me a big Yorkshire at the end of shift.
28:51 Fearne Cotton? Oh, yes.
28:52 Speaker 02 Wrapped up in kitchenware and I used to eat it warm. Oh, it was so good. And I just grew up with a very normal relationship with food. No one in my family dieted. No one was doing a slim past or a weight watchers. So I was very protected in that sense. Then I get scouted to be a fashion model when I was about kind of seventeen years old. And I was young at the time. I've always been tiny. I didn't blossom or grow until I was a little bit older. So from the ages of like seventeen to kind of eighteen, I started to become a woman. And I remember having an amazing travelling period because I was finally be able to kind of a bit more financially independent. So I was able to go abroad and eat all the foods I wanted to eat and try. And America was definitely very good for that.
29:37 Speaker 02 And I came back and my modelling agency at the time took my Polaroids and then they took me into a little room at the back and they looked at these photos and they're like, we just think that you're going to work better if like we slim down your thighs. Like your thighs are just shooting a little bit big. And I look back and I honestly am so furious that they told little M that. Because I was just a beautiful, healthy, free young girl and I don't know what it was. I don't know why I reacted in that way, but it was like a switch went off in my brain. And I remember, I remember specifically going home.
30:12 Speaker 02 Turning around to my mum refusing to eat dinner with my family for the first time in what lasted probably about an intense period of six months of quite intense restrictive eating. And I still have the first Nike app run logged in my phone of that day and that evening when I came back. And I ran and I started not eating and I started intensely exercising with the pure focus of, oh, my body's a maths equation. I want to appease these people and and in the way that I'm gonna do that is to be able to lose weight. I'm gonna do the best job at this ever. So the more I burn and the less I eat, the better I'm gonna do at this.
30:52 Speaker 02 And it became such a OCD ritualistic habit that sometimes I think it's hard to explain to people that it's not about what I looked like or the weight anymore. It became this obsessive controlling outlet that was incredibly addictive. And eating disorders, we say eating disorders, this is a wild spectrum. There are so many different types of eating disorders. Not a single eating disorder looks the same from from person to person. And I feel like I'm speaking a lot about individualism on this podcast, but it's really important that we don't just like be like eating disorder, obesity, anorexia, like they're they're not just singular entities, they're they're very different.
31:32 Speaker 02 And my love for food always outweighed the the kind of addictive behaviours that I fell into. And I remember this one day that that I would just realise I couldn't do this anymore. I was sick and tired of like I weighed my spinach leaves on my fitness pal and tracked them. It was so it was too much. And I ended up seeing the most incredible therapist, did some really great CBT therapy, had more awareness, separated myself from the industry. And I was a bit of a science nerd at the time and I was gonna go to uni to do maybe human physiology or something. And I realised that I wanted to do nutrition because I knew nothing about nutrition.
32:15 Speaker 02 And everything that was available on the internet and everything that was available out there was nothing to do with the nutrition that I love, which is what you see on my Instagram feeds. It's what you see in my recipe book. It's what I make for my husband. It's when I go home and I cook with my mum and we sit there and we eat really nutritious, gorgeous food, but it's not health food in my mind. It's just food. And I just want everyone to to be able to to go into this year, to make that commitment to themselves, to eat better, but just eat the food.
32:45 Fearne Cotton? Why is this shit not taught in schools? It's like, I'm always frustrated, like, why? It's so important for everything.
32:50 Speaker 02 Bonkers.
32:50 Fearne Cotton? And we're not taught anything, even within the science arena. We're not taught about what food is doing to our bodies and how we can positively benefit from it, let alone cook. You know, when I was at school a thousand years ago, we still did home ec and my kids don't cook anything at school. That's not a thing. And I find that so bizarre. And and going back to that sort of individualistic look at um eating disorders. I think it's really important to bring therapy into the equation because each eating disorder for each person will have a root cause. There is no person that's got an eating disorder because they simply want to be thin, which I think is the hugest misconception that
33:31 Fearne Cotton? anyone from having anorexia to bulimia to whatever it is, or dysfunctional eating, is because they want to be thin. You know, much like you, it surpassed that greatly for me and I lost sight of any of that. It was just about control and secrecy and having something that was just for me because my life felt like chaos. And I actually didn't go to therapy until way later down the line. So I think, being that bit older than you, it wasn't a thing back then. And now it's talked about much more freely. And I mean, not that the access is much easier for people to get, but there are more resources out there and ways to get help. But I think. That's the thing to do. And I guess for people listening to this who have got someone in their life going through it.
34:17 Fearne Cotton? Obviously, it's human nature to think, I want to fix them. I want to help. And you're just like, please eat. Like, that's all you can think to say, or, you know, whatever it is, or stop being sick, or whatever it might be. That was in my case, obviously. Put my mum through absolute hell. And actually, what that person needs is emotional help to sort through whatever is the root cause of that. Issue. It's, it's so important. It's not, it's not about being thin. It's not about weight loss. There's, there's something amiss that desperate needs looking at.
34:46 Speaker 02 And that's why I had to remove myself from the situation.
34:49 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
34:49 Speaker 02 And that's, and that's something that was, I mean, at the time, like. That was a big financial thing to give up. Like, the modelling is a very lucrative career and, and, and it was so promising for me. And I knew that I was never going to do it forever, but. I just, I knew that if I wanted to really kind of honour myself and, and who I really am, I had to just remove myself from the situation. And. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions, um, but it was the best decision that I've ever made. And I mean, I, I feel like. Everything that I've ever done and been through in my life has led me to exactly where I've needed to be. And now I get messages every single day from my community.
35:31 Speaker 02 Telling me how much I've changed their whole life and their whole relationship with food. And they send me pictures of like. Their babies weaning in the high chair, eating my chicken pie and. Girls who have never cooked and are at university and like making my five a day lasagna for like all of their flatmates. And I, that is everything to me.
35:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, so brilliant. And I think when you've got. When you've, when you've got a backstory, when you've got something that's driving it in that way, when you understand the opposite end of the spectrum. The passion is relentless and almost effortless because you know you don't want other people to go through it. You know that there are. Alternatives and, um, it's a really beautiful thing. What was the turning point for you? Obviously, you removed yourself from the situation, but. To recover, to unpick those things that have become, not only habits, but like you say, ritualistic, things that are. Your brain's sort of rewired to see food differently, to see how your day runs differently, to sort of.
36:27 Fearne Cotton? Punish yourself and beat yourself up if you stray from this sort of strict, rigid set of rules that you've put in place. How did you start to do that?
36:34 Speaker 02 So the brain is actually very plastic and and when we're thinking about new learning behaviours, the more and more we do something and the more and more we reframe our wording and and and where we look at things, the kind of easier it gets to to set it in stone, the same way that we brush our teeth every single day and it becomes something that we don't think about. I always am so careful with language and it's the one thing that I'm always really, really careful across all of my social platforms. I will never, ever use language that it's like, oh, I love doing this class to burn off my sins. Or like, love, love doing this to kind of like, it's, it's not about that kind of use of language. Now I move and I exercise because it makes me feel good because I'm so grateful to be able to move my body.
37:16 Speaker 02 And and I eat well and if I have a lovely big Chinese takeaway on a Sunday night, I wake up in the Monday morning and I'll have a breakfast. It's like full of all the good nutrition. So I'm like, oh, isn't it so nice to be able to just enjoy the foods that I love? And also enjoy the foods that loves me um in that sense of my body. So I think the level of, it's, it takes work every single day to make sure that you're always using the right language and the right mindset to to make sure any sort of like old habits, old routines, old OCD doesn't trickle back in.
37:49 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's really tricky to unpick and I think anyone listening to this who's going through it, it it takes time. It's not, I mean, it took me years and years to, I mean, not only, well, for me it was bulimia, so not only to stop that. And I have little relapse later down the line that was a one off and I had to sort of, you know, find some level of acceptance with that and then again, start again and move on. But I think it's emotionally checking in with yourself, making sure you've got some self compassion, which can be really hard and give yourself a break. But know that it takes time and certainly I think support, you've got to have the right support.
38:25 Speaker 02 Massively and like, life is a bloody journey.
38:27 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
38:27 Speaker 02 And it's never linear, it's never gonna look the same. Yeah, it's an absolute fucking nightmare. I ride in the bloody waves. I'm like, I'm done. Like, we're to come see, but I think it's really important that, as you said, like, forgiveness and love and compassion and ease and understanding that nothing has to be perfect for it to be perfect for you. And every single person's journey and and and the way that they navigate through that is is theirs.
38:54 Speaker 02 The right people around me is one of the reasons why I think I was able to recover so quickly. I remember my mum, she had no idea or no concept of like what I was going through. But she was really good to to not just be like, Emily, why can't you just eat? She used to drive me to every single therapy session. She'd just sit outside in the car. She used to bring a little snack in the car and after I used to have therapy, we used to sit and we used to like, eat the the butter toast together or have the biscuit in the car together. And it was like those tiny steps and I I just remember every single one of those moments and yeah, my mum's such an incredible person.
39:27 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, good on your mum. That's so lovely. Cause I think it's hard for parents. You know, I look back and I think, oh god, I put Paul Lynn Cotton through so much hell. And you know, we've talked about it a little bit since, but for the parents, it's you feel so out of control and you know, there's nothing you can do in that moment. You can't talk sense to that person, you know, in the way that you believe would work and snap them out of something that is so entrenched in daily routine and self punishment and all the depths that you can go to. I think it's for parents, it's really hard.
40:00 Speaker 02 Really, really hard. And I've I've spoken, a lot of parents reach out to me actually. Um, and there's only so much I can give across.
40:08 Fearne Cotton? Of course, god baby, it's a lot, yeah.
40:11 Speaker 02 And it's it's just one of those things that you have to be able to just be there, get ready to catch, get ready to hold and support where needed and and go through that river and and it will pass and you have to believe it will pass and try and do every single thing that you can to remove yourself from the situations that you feel are driving it. And if there's anyone who's listening to this and they're having quite a difficult time with their food, it's like, as you said at the beginning, identify the cause. There's something there that's like, that's the driver. And if you can make tiny commitments every single day to try and get yourself away from that trigger, remove the triggers, remove the causes, then that's where it gets easier just kind of drift away from those those.
40:55 Speaker 02 Rigid habits and build new ones.
40:57 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and also I guess just it's not going to be linear, you know, my my journey was certainly quite bumpy getting out of it and. You know, there's a bit of progress and there's a few back steps and there's a bit more progress again and it's a to and fro situation, but. I think as long as you've got in mind that you want to feel healthy and vibrant, you want to feel happy, you want to enjoy your life, it's so important to try and stay on track and. Have good people around you that can, you know, be there and that you can lean on. Just going back to something you said a minute ago, so you know, obviously you do have this, you know, like I do in a way and sort of looking at mental health, slightly. A place of responsibility in terms of people do look to you for advice and, you know, I know, fuck all, I'm just sort of. Talking about my own life experience and having a great time interviewing people about theirs, but.
41:41 Fearne Cotton? I'm certainly passionate when it comes to talking about mental health and. Sometimes people will ask me advice and and it can feel overbearing and. Knowing what to say and also just the huge amount of people that might be coming to you for that sort of guidance, how do you you cope with that in terms of social media?
41:59 Speaker 02 So I I set strong boundaries now where I make sure that I can't reply to everything. I I accept that and I I try not to feel guilty for that. My audience are amazing, they are so amazing, I think we all connect through our mutual love of. Good food and also health and wellness, but health and wellness is rooted in making us feel healthy and well. And that's the one thing I think so much of people's misconceptions with like health and wellness is. Oh, it's it's about kind of changing every single thing that I am where it's no, no, it's meant to make you feel really good. If there's any kind of like singular conversation or someone reaches out and and it's incredibly personal, I will always make an effort to to respond to that.
42:42 Speaker 02 But right now where I am, I have the most gorgeous, wonderful relationship with my community, with my social media, with with everything, I love what I do. I if I just had to make recipes for the rest of my life, film them, post them and that's it. I'm going to be the happiest person, I want to be old and grey and still doing it in my kitchen, I will never get bored and sick of it.
43:03 Fearne Cotton? I feel the same, it's a good thing, we're very lucky. I mean, obviously your growth on social media was huge and quick, I mean, it was a lot.
43:14 Fearne Cotton? I've been doing this career for nearly three decades and I still find it incredibly difficult to deal with feedback. I don't think it's natural for anyone necessarily to hear strangers talk about their opinions of you. Yours has grown so, so quickly and obviously there's a whole backstory in you having your nutrition clinic and the qualifications, but I'm talking about the visibility element. It's been very quick. How, how do you remedy that? How do you deal with that? Because it's overwhelming.
43:42 Speaker 02 I am so, I have the most boring social life. I probably count my friends on, on one hand. My husband is my best friend. I do everything with him and I protect my space and my time. You won't find me at the parties, you won't find me at the events.
43:58 Fearne Cotton? Nor me.
43:59 Speaker 02 No, I'm, people are like, oh.
44:00 Fearne Cotton? By the way, they're all shit.
44:01 Speaker 02 I know, yeah.
44:02 Fearne Cotton? I know, they're really bad.
44:04 Speaker 02 So for me, if, if you describe my ideal evening, it's Friday night. I've made something delicious, maybe like a chicken pie or one of my favourite lasagnas. I'll sit there, probably would have had a bath, everything bath with all my oils, put a hair mask on.
44:19 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
44:20 Speaker 02 Fluffy pyjamas, slippers, movie, bed by nine.
44:24 Fearne Cotton? I'm, I'm coming over next Friday.
44:26 Speaker 02 Oh, honestly, like, that's talk dirty to me.
44:28 Fearne Cotton? It's the best.
44:29 Speaker 02 And now it's Christmas, it's like a couple of quality things as well.
44:32 Fearne Cotton? And you can actually start that at like four because it's dark.
44:34 Speaker 02 I know.
44:35 Fearne Cotton? I can have a bath at four.
44:36 Speaker 02 No, excuse.
44:37 Fearne Cotton? It's the night time.
44:38 Speaker 02 Sun goes down, all right, hand up for the day.
44:39 Fearne Cotton? Brass coming up, or let's get those comfy joggers on.
44:42 Speaker 02 But no, I think I've really realised and I went, when it grew so quickly at first and I got my first experience of trolling and I took it so personally, I took it so hard.
44:53 Fearne Cotton? It's hard not to.
44:54 Speaker 02 Really hard and it devastated me for a while and I would, I wouldn't be able to talk about it without crying. And now I, I kind of look at what I do, I'm like, babes or bro, I'm like, I make foods, I make healthy delicious recipes to make people happier. What's your problem? Like if you have a problem with me, it's like, I'm, I'm not here based on this, I'm here based on what I do. So if you don't like what I make, if you don't like my food, then quite frankly, you can just fuck off.
45:21 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, fuck right off.
45:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:23 Fearne Cotton? Too, right. I mean, as we all know, but you know, you would never send someone a message like that. I wouldn't send someone a message like that. People are not happy and they're lashing out in the easiest ways.
45:35 Speaker 02 I'm always jealous sometimes that people have that much time to co- work to commit to me. I'm like, imagine if I had that much time in my day that I could do like full like deep dives, make fake profiles.
45:46 Fearne Cotton? Oh, wow.
45:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, the whole hush bang, but I'm just like, yeah.
45:50 Fearne Cotton? It's the Wild West social media, it's quite.
45:52 Speaker 02 Funny thing.
45:53 Fearne Cotton? It is, but I think, you know, you're putting it to really great use and that's all we can do is create a positive space and hopefully do some good, put some good stuff out there, make people feel connected, make people feel better. So, looking at your January ahead, how are you going into it? Well, I don't want to use the word goals because that sort of pisses me off, but what are you, what, what's the feeling going into January for you?
46:17 Speaker 02 I really want to help manage my stress levels and anxiety levels more. I'm actually quite an anxious person. Um, I don't think I ever betray that. It's, there's certain kind of lanes I stay in when it comes to my content creation. But I struggle with overwhelm. I get overwhelmed very quickly because I, I am a bit obsessive and I work really hard and.
46:39 Fearne Cotton? Bit of perfectionism going on.
46:40 Speaker 02 A massive heavy weight of perfectionism.
46:42 Fearne Cotton? You always have anxiety with perfectionism.
46:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly, exactly. So sometimes it could be really crippling and there'll be days that I just cry and I'm just like, oh my god, I'm messed. Then I wake up the next day, I'm like, right, project this, do this and I, I'm, I'm obsessed with the growth. But I'm also a bit soft as well. So it's kind of a balance between achieving everything that I want to achieve in 2025, continue to offer value and hold responsibility in, in the space that I'm in to continue to, to give my wonderful audience what I feel like they would benefit from and what they need, as well as looking after myself. And making sure that I don't feel guilt for prioritising myself or being a bit selfishish in, in a way.
47:28 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Is it even selfish? You're just looking after yourself.
47:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, but you see what I did there? Selfish.
47:33 Fearne Cotton? Ish, a little bit ishy about the selfishness.
47:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
47:36 Fearne Cotton? I hear you, you know, it's a new thing. I'm trying to put myself first for the first time in years and it is wild, you, you know, it's, it's a strange, it's a strange thing, but we all need to do that more and take care of ourselves. And finally, Emily, where is your happy place?
47:54 Speaker 02 My happy place is crispy morning walk where there's still a bit of frost in the ground with those hand warmers in my pockets and a little cup of tea and I'm just with my husband chatting stupid things and there's not a stress in the world.
48:13 Fearne Cotton? Heaven, I love that one. On a crisp lovely morning.
48:16 Speaker 02 Can you imagine? And you smell it and it's like little Tweety Birds and...
48:19 Fearne Cotton? Gorgeous. I love it. Well, it's been so good talking to you and I really think this is an important listen for people starting out a brand new year feeling utterly perplexed about food and what they're doing and self-loathing. We don't need to be doing that this January. Just take care of yourself and it's been so good to hear all of your thoughts around it. So, thank you.
48:42 Speaker 02 Thank you so much for having me and everyone just go forward. You have permission to be able to eat good nutritious food that fills you with joy. Vitamin J.
48:52 Fearne Cotton? Enjoy it!
48:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, vitamin J is a forgotten vitamin. Vitamin joy always.
48:58 Fearne Cotton? Oh, Em, thanks so much for that chat. I really loved that and learned a lot. I'm gonna do that peanut butter with the chunks in. Hadn't realised that was a good idea. With the raspberries on. Why have I never put raspberries on my toast before? I've been missing out for 43 years for Christ's sake. Right, back next week. Ready to crack on with the brilliant 2025 on Happy Place. We cannot wait for you to be here with us. It's gonna be gorgeous. Until then, a massive thanks again to Emily, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you, look after yourselves lovelies.
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