Welcome to healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us today on the Body and Soul podcast. I hope you are feeling healthish. Of course, I am Felicity Harley, the host. We're talking about the complexities of weight and health today and the balance needed in weight loss approaches. My guest is the fabulous nutritionist Lindy Cohen, and she talks about the significance of sustainable healthy habits, the impact of sleep on health behaviors, and we also talk about how to save money while
still eating healthy. Lindy, Welcome back to healthy Ish.
How are you.
Oh, I'm actually very good today. I slept so well last night.
Oh, and I bet you woke up you know you did?
Good? Sleep are just so good, aren't they?
It's amazing.
I have two kids of a four year old, one and a half year old, so anytime I get a good sleep, I'm like, this is the lottery, This is the key to unlocking happiness and health and everything that comes with us.
So today is a good day, Today's going to be a great day.
Well, let's talk about something well, perhaps not great. Well that there are upsides to this, of course, I mean, as many of our listeners, no body and Soul recently conducted a survey called Health of the Nation, and because you are Australia's leading advocate into I'm calling it diet BS, we have to talk to you about some of the stats around well weight and weight loss. Fifty two percent
still worry about their weight. Fifty six percent of Australians describe themselves as overweight in some way, particularly women, they were sixty four percent compared to fifty five percent of males. What are your thoughts around all of this.
Well, firstly, we do know that women tend to report themselves as weighing more than they do and men tend to report themselves as weighing a little bit less than they do. But typically I think that these stats do reflect what we know at a whole of how we're going with overweight and obesity rates.
And I think I've got.
Two schools of thought here, one being that I think we're told that being overweight is always awful and it's a sign of poor health, and what we know from the research and the building research is this isn't always the case. What we do get is people who are in that overweight category, who exercise daily, who eat loads of veggies, who are doing lots of things that are really great for their health, and as a result, these
people can be categorized as healthy. And so what I'm saying is the BMI does not always nail it when it comes to a reflective view on how we look at health. And likewise you get people who are in the healthy weight category and yet are doing very unhealthy things. So I think it's not the beer and end all when it comes to assessing our health. But at the same token, I do know that there is a point where you get to you just got you know what, I'm feeling a little bit heavier than I want to be.
I've just come We're filming this in It's fab right the wall, just come off the back of a holiday season. I'm feeling a little bit heavier than I normally do. As a result, I'm feeling like a little bit more sluggish. I wouldn't mind losing a couple of kilograms. And this has nothing to do with aesthetics. This is simply I
want to feel really good in my body. And I think there is, you know, a bit of a polarity going on in the health world where there's one side that says you're never allowed to talk about weight loss, so you're never allowed to talk about your weight. And the other school thought that goes, you must pursue weight loss at the cost of your health, and who cares
what you have to sacrifice. I like to sit somewhere in between, in the middle where we go we can have balance, we can have moderation, and we can also find a weight that feels comfortable for us, whatever that is.
You're so right, because I you know, I get a bit prickly when I talk about weight loss because I know it can trigger some people. But on the flip side, you know, our stats show that the majority of us are over weight and obese.
Maybe you know.
I've been thinking, is it the terms that we use, the language that we use. I mean, the word obesity has so much shame around it, finger pointing. You know that you're not that it's your problem because you're like this when a lot of us know it's actually the built food.
Environment we live in.
Is it a matter of the language and perhaps coming up with a new definition of weight and weight loss?
Holly and I think beyond it as well.
It's what we're seeing from the stats of the health of the nation is that people are changing the way that they're eating and they're doing it for health reasons beyond just weight loss. So it is this idea of Okay, let's broaden our definition of what we know health to mean. We know it's not as simple as BMI. We know it's not as simple as categorizing someone as overweight or obese, and can we have better conversations around it as or
we're not being avoidant of it? And I would love a new vocab to go with it so that it doesn't feel as shaming and polarizing. I'll tell you what I grew up as you know what. I was fine years old when I first realized that I was a bit bigger than the other girls.
When I looked five years old, I.
Was looking in the mirror at ballet class, wearing a pink leotade, and they had these straight up and down bodies and my thighs touched and I just knew already that was wrong, that wasn't as good. I played with barbies. I got the message, but it wasn't until I was eleven that I started thinking, oh, you know, I really like to be thin. I was well within the healthy
weight range, but I wanted to be thin. So I went to a nutrition that she put me on a really rigorous meal plan, and instead of consistently losing weight, I gained weight. And so by the age of twenty one, I was morbidly OBEs I hated my body, I hated myself. I thought there was something very fundamentally wrong with me, that I had failed because I'd been given so many rules about how to eat and how much to eat,
and in fact, I was weighing out my food. No one was more obsessed with trying to lose weight than I was, and yet I was the heaviest I'd ever been. I went to my doctor I said I have a problem, and he looked me in the eye and he said, well, you want to try this new diet.
My wife is having success. And I wanted to yell at him.
I have tried how long with this? It's just so we know the era when so.
I'm twenty one at this point.
Okay, this is a decade after I first started dieting, and I was in twenty I was twenty eleven, right, Okay, so we're coming out of that stringent, hardcore diet era. And so my doctor was also kind of he wasn't immror to this diet chat. And that was the moment I think I realized, I've been obsessed with trying to lose weight, and I am the heaviest and themost unhealthy
I've ever been because I'm obsessed. What happens if I tried a different approach where I decented weight from my life, and over the course of four years, I lost twenty kilograms. And you know, this thing that I had chased my entire life ended up just being a natural side effect from adding in healthy habits that I could actually stick to. And I realized in a very liberating moment that actually it hadn't got to do with my will power. I didn't need to be so forceiful. Of course, I needed
to add in healthier habits. I needed to change the way I thought about food.
And it's almost like a.
Byproduct of having a healthy relationship with food, I found a weight that was comfy for me. Now, they'll tell you what. It's not my dream body. You know, my pinterest for that I had when I was twenty one years old. These girls are these like perfectly flat ads. I will never have that body, and now, especially more so after I've had kids, you know, she's just shaped differently, and I've come to accept that. But I do know what it's like to be at a weight that feels uncomfortable for you.
And I also know what.
It's like to feel like that's something that's out of reach for you and something that only other people can have. And I tell you what, I think one of the kind of key things to getting to that point when you find a happy weight for you is patience and realizing it's not a quick thing. For that twenty kilograms happened over four years. That's even doubt. That's one hundred grams a week. If I was pursuing weight loss like I had been prior, I would have absolutely given up.
It totally would have led me to overeat and fall off the band wagon, which was my old trick. But instead, because I wasn't actually weighing myself, I ended up coming back to a weight that felt very comfy for me.
So how I mean weight loss is one of the likely goals of a lot of listeners. You know, whether it's because you just want to feel better, it might be those few kilos, or it might be you know, a lot twenty kilos like you did. How do we approach this in a healthy way?
Like? How did you lose that weight in a healthy way?
Yeah?
And then again I once I had my kids, right, I gained weight to have kids, and I a year of postpartum, I looked in the mirror and I go, shoot, it's not about fitting into my old clothes or bouncing back.
But I don't have that energy. And then once again I thought, you know what, I wouldn't mind losing a bit of weight, and I did.
And the process to do this is is actually much simpler than most people think. The first thing I did is I go, what's a healthy habit that I can add into my life that I can stick to for the rest of my life? And I think this is the bit where people mess it up. You're going You're going to go, oh, you know, I can go heat over for three weeks, three months, I could lose I could intimate and.
Fast for the rest of the year. Cool. But even if you can't maintain.
That lifestyle for the rest of your life or at least for the next few years, any weight you do lose is probably going to be regained, and statistically, you'll regain more weight than your originally lost, which is what happened to me time and time again, is how I got to the point at twenty one being categorically morbidly abyes.
And what we want to do is go, I can stick to this for the rest of my life.
What that might look like because you might go, right, well, I want to add in more gentle movements. And I tell you what, twenty minute walk that ends up happening is far better than an hour at the gym that you never end up getting done. Right, So we're looking at done is better than perfect, and consistency is the name of the gain. So can I do this for the rest of my life? Or am I going to feel deprived? And what makes you feel deprived or restricted will shift as you evolve and you come out of
whatever relationship with food you might be in. And then we go, okay, so I can do it. Now, there's two things. There's got to be a balance between enjoyment and discover So I want you to go, how can I make this enjoyable or easier? Is another way to do it. So you go, oh, do you know what? I hate cooking food? It's just not my thing. Then you go, how do I lower the bar to entry. Maybe I'm the recipes are too complicated. Can I cook
simpler stuff? Can I cook twice? Cook once and then eat it twice so I have a double the recipe and I can freeze the other half. How do I make things easier and therefore more enjoyable, much more likely to stick to it? And then the other thing is the discomfort. So after I had kids, going all right, I want to lose a little bit of weight. The question I had to ask myself is which discomfort do
I want? Do I want the discomfort of getting waking up every morning and not having anything that fits me, feeling a bit blur in my body? Or do I want to sit with the discomfort of starting getting back into exercise again and that feeling of I don't really want to go, but you know, knowing I'm going to feel good afterwards. So it's a degree of just choosing which discomfort you want to roll with for a while.
And if you're someone like me who's been an emotional eater their entire life, I find a thing that is incredibly helpful is to break through that scarcity mindset. The scarcity mindset's going to tell you oh, you know, I'll just finish the packet now, so I can kind of like be good tomorrow and eat a house. It's perfectly clear of all treats and whatnot. And a really simple thing to remind yourself is anytime I want to eat
that food, I can. And I know that sounds like the exact opposite of what you hear anyone else say, but what it does is it helps your brain know that food is allowed. Food's not going to run out, it's not going to be taken away from you, and therefore that compulsion to just finish it how quickly goes away. In fact, sometimes if I imagine myself going, oh, I want a second, I want seconds of dessert, I say to myself,
you know what, you can always have more later. And I imagine myself taking a big piece of dessert, putting it into a taperway container and taking it home. And I'll do that if sometimes, and sometimes I won't. Sometimes, simply thinking it is enough to relax that part of my brain, that diet brain that goes, ah, we just got to finish it all.
And eat as much as we can.
Well we allow ourselves practice that, and I actually feel like it really helps helps you be consistent and with the enjoyment, the discomfort and the consistency, you're going to get there.
It might take a little bit longer than you once but you're going.
To get there. That part of your diet brain, it's almost you know, once you understand they're actually wired to eat more. We've been that's how we've evolved and survived as a species to have that part of our brain that I see food, I need to eat it because millions, for millions and millions of years, we never had food. So I think in some way it's surrendering to that, isn't it that This is of course what I'm going
to think. But what can I you know, can I let's take that, take that as you said, Let's take it home later and we can eat it later.
And that's okay. I mean, it's for me.
It's also understanding what's actually going on in our brains and that that's how we're wired and that's how we're working. And and yeah, I find that for me helps in some way to stop eating the whole block of chocolate.
Spot on.
There's there's a mental talk going on. But it's kind of interesting how it's contrary to this idea of I'm not lad anymore, only one more piece, and how that can kind of actually surge us to drive for more food. And I tell you what we talked about at the beginning of this chat. Sleep is fundamental to how you eat, to regulating your hormones, particularly around appetite and fullness. Let me explain it. If you do not get enough energy through rest, your body will search for energy through food.
So I know this is tricky. I'm going to be talking to parents and go I have a little kid. I just can't get the shut eye. For me. My goal this year is nailing sleep, prioritizing and getting to sleep earlier because of how effectively it can help you regulate your hormones and be a little.
Bit more able to do that to feel in control around food.
Yeah, it's the control. I mean, it's amazing the impact of a bad night's sleep on your hunger levels, isn't it When you're just like, oh, I just need to eat and you know that you don't need to eat because you've just finished lunch.
Yes it lunch, Yeah exactly.
Let's talk about one other that I know blew your mind, and it was around healthy eating being one of the biggest areas of cutbacks or compromise due to the cost of living.
Talk to us about this.
Gosh, isn't it a crazy one? So I think it cost of living, no joke. It's really impacting all of us. It is having a tremendous impact on our lives, on how we're living. And one of the things we can change is what we're eating at the grocery store. And I think what's happening is we're going, oh, we need to all just go budget. And what I don't think people realize is actually healthy eating can be done budget. In fact, it often can be cheaper. You just got to know how to do it in a way that's
that's smart and that makes your life easier. So one really simple thing is reducing food waste. So a you think it's a quarter of ossies, the food and your fridge is going to go to waste, and that is a quarter of your grocery bow That could be hundreds of dollars in a month, a.
Lot of money.
That's huge.
Kids in Harley household.
Spot on, And it's simply by eating the food in your fridge, And that could be a really tricky one, and maybe it means you shop a little bit more, or you get online delivery and it's twice a week as opposed to just once a week. That kind of thing can be done. But streamlining your life so that your kid's actually going to eat your meals, I mean easier than they're done. I have a little hack for you, and I'm we jump into this because I think this
saves you a lot of money. One of my pet peeves is when my kids don't eat a meal that I've put in front of them and I've spent so much time cooking and they say I'm not hungry, only for an hour later to tell me they want a
million snacks. So a trick I found really effective for any parent listening is as soon as they get home from school, that's when I would love you to feed them their most nutritious meal of the day, ideally their dinner, so that when they are most hungry, they're going to be most likely to eat that food and you're going to find far less waste, far less fighting over meal times.
And then after dinner, if you're going, oh, I'm still hungry, you can have a few of those snacks because those single served snacks that kids love to eat are incredibly costly. You're going to save lots of money by doing that. And then the other thing I think is that idea of cooking once and eating twice. So I find, especially if I'm a sleep deprived parent and I come home there's no food in my fridge, I will rate the
pantry for anything. So having a little bit of a meal prep option is really really handy for saving me money. It truly does, because I end up actually eating it and I don't eat that single serve kind of stuff and I need that for my lunch. So just kind of chopping up a whole bunch of veggies ahead of the week, they sit there together, and honestly, that's a lifesaver.
Actually, the snack thing is a really good point because I think it's such an easy thing for all of it. It's like, whether you know, for our kids or for ourselves, just reach the snack. But they actually can be quite expensive, and you might buy the little packs of popcorn where the bigger one might be better, and you just feed
it out over a couple of days. But we have this thing in our household when it's about four thirty in the afternoon, it's last court last night, like last call before dinner.
So it's almost like the bars clothing.
I'm like, right, last call for snag, no other snack's, kitchen's clothes until dinner.
That's the language really love.
So then my kids get into dinner and they're hungry because so many of this, and I have many times the kids have just snacked up until dinner and then they eat nothing. So now we have the last snack call.
I'm stealing that. The other thing I've stolen is my sister in law. She's a GP, she's got four kids, and she taught me this. She said, while you're cooking dinner, if you get home you haven't got a dinner prepped and your kids are going, oh, really antsy for something, you quietly chop up some veggies.
And you just put it in front of you.
I like that one.
You just let them quietly graze. They don't even know what's happening, and they eat it and then they're filled up on veggies before they even know it.
It's a hack. It's great.
We'll be back after this short break with more from Lindy. What are some other ways that we can save well, what should we how can we save money? And then where should we spend money when it comes to health.
Yeah, I reckon there's a lot of people spending a lot of money on what I think is honestly wellness wankery. It's the kind of superfood supplement where told that we need that's like one hundred dollars per kilogram, and you know what, it's just not key to being healthy. We know when we look at the research consistently, we see eat lots of fresh produce can be frozen, to veggies, fruits, whole grains, a mix of things, and I think, you know, sometimes we waste a huge amount of our budget on
those really top item things. Now, if you're saying to me, I'm pretty, I'm super healthy. Actually I've got everything sorted, I'm cooking, I'm eating all the produce. And you want to level up, and you want to go on add a little bit more, and you got the money to spend on those like fun fancy supplements, go for it. But I think sometimes we're missing the key building parts of a healthy diet and we're going straight for those shortcuts, and they're costing us a lot of money. We don't
feel good and we're not winning the gates. That's what I would personally, I would save my money on that stuff. Most of my grocery bill goes to produce. In fact, I've started getting a veggie box, which is a rescued food so it's fifty dollars for a medium box. All my produce gets delivered. You know, it's seasonal, which means it's healthier. It gets me out of my food rut because I'm getting challenged to cook with foods I don't normally cook with and I'm saving a ton of money
by doing this thing. But where I do spend my money is I do spend my money on my gym membership because it's the kind of gym where if I do not turn up, they're going to charge me. And you know what, it just really helps me be consistent. I'm turning up, I'm getting it done. And so sometimes you can kind of use that fear of losing your money to your benefit to help you be a little bit more consistent. Yeah.
I like that.
And you're focusing something on something away from food that's going to still help your health.
Yeah, give you the energy.
It truly does help as well, it's amazing how exercise really helps to regulate your hunger as well. And I think one of the things I see is a super common issue. The most common issue is people aren't eating enough during the day, and they're coming home at night and they're ravenous and they're super hungry, and then you rate the pantry and you eat everything. So you need to give yourself commit to eat a little bit more during the day, and perhaps those snacks you're giving yourself.
I remember when I was growing up, for you know, twenty eleven, the snacks that you're allowed, it's one hundred calories snacks, and I'm so hungry, and give me more. I find I like to think of it this way. If you're adding in two hundred calories helps you avoid one thousand calorie binge, you're going to save calories, you're going to save money and headspace, and it's just a smarter way to do it.
Now.
The other way we can also well save money and help our health is by cutting back on booze. And you've joined up with the Lovely mas Compton, who have had on the podcast a few times to help people cut back on the booze. Tell Us about this new venture of yours.
Yeah, well, I've realized that, you know, I felt pregnant and I realized, oh my goodness, my anxiety has disappeared. I thought it was hormones. I you know, felt pregnant the second time, and that's when I thought, you know what, I think this has actually got to do with the fact that I've been drinking alcohol consistently throughout my adult life, and I have never gone through a significant period of time where I've just experimented with drinking less, with not
drinking and seeing how it made me feel. I was a default drinker, the kind of person you go, you want a glass rose. I wouldn't take a pause, I wouldn't take a breath. Absolutely, I want a glass of rose. And I just found that I was default drinking consistently. And then when I stopped drinking alcohol and then I became a mindful drink, I realized my anxiety disappeared. I
was sleeping so much better. I was saving so much money, you know, because there's the wine when you drink when you're out so expensive.
You have to get an uber there I'm back. Oh my goodness.
So it's the easiest way to save money and feel better. And I think this is what we've been told around drinking less, is that you have to cut it out completely. But I kind of think that having a healthier relationship with alcohol can mean we can learn how to if you want not drink, or become a mindful drinker, and learn how to unwind without booze, learn how to socialize without booze, and realize you don't have to be boring
or be bored when you're not drinking. And so boos bra is an audio guide that teaches you how to have a healthier relationship with alcohol so that you don't feel like you're making bad decisions, so you don't regret the things you said when you had too much to drink. So you wake up on Sunday mornings and you go, oh, I feel so good. So if you've never experimented with it, I do say I think everyone should give it a go. I'm kind of at the point where I'm going, oh,
I feel so good not drinking. I can't imagine integrating it. And I tell you what, I'm actually a party girl.
So are you drinking now? No?
Listen.
If it's a special thing and someone goes, oh, do you want a glass of wine, like I had my birthday dinner the other night.
I think I had a glass of wine, Thank you very much.
Was divine and I had a glass of wine and it wasn't a big deal. But then you know, I probably won't drink again for a while. It's there are no rules.
It's fluid.
I'm in control, and so it feels like a choice. And if you feel like alcohol doesn't feel like a choice anymore, it's just a default, then I reckon Booze Break is a really good idea. And I think we've got a discount to get fifty dollars off Booze Break for any listeners.
I think in the show notes we can leave it just gouged y.
Yes, I will leave it a link to that in the show notes. But you're right, actually this is not a plug for WoT. But I wear a WOOT band and when I was in overseas recently in Canada, I drank a lot more than I normally, do you know, because.
We're going out for dinner a lot, and I'm with you.
I think a drink here and there is quite good, especially in social occasions, you know, healthy and a healthy approach I mean I only have one or two because also connection with people is you know, and it is around alcohol. I get that, and I get also why people don't drink. But anyway, I had a few more drinks in Canada than I would normally because I was on holidays, and it's amazing how much it affected my sleep. So the wort band tracks obviously how well you sleep
and how will you bounce back? And it just read havoc on my sleep over there, So I think we probably, yeah, I probably didn't appreciate how much alcohol does. Yeah, it just sets you up. You're just getting that sluggish mindset for the next day and the next day.
Yeah, you never feel your freshest.
And I think we just got into this habit of oh, I've had really stross day, come home, open a glass of wine, open a bottle of wine, and then you know, maybe it's one or two. There's so many of us who just kind of like drinking to deal with life a little bit. And the tricky thing to realize is
it's making life so much harder. And in a way we think of it as a coping strategy, but what if it's the thing that it's making you neique to cope, and you've got to get out of this funk and this feeling of I've just got to keep catching up. I tell you what, I've never been more on top of my life. I am a game. I don't forget things anymore. I used to be a little bit like, I don't know, like I was dropping balls anymore. And
I'm like, how did I not try this sooner? I don't want to be preachy about it, but I think it's just a fun thing to try. I don't mind if anyone else drinks. I'm still a party girl. That's the thing you got to know about me. Like I love, I love to go dancing, I love a rave. I still do these things, and I've learned how to do it without drinking.
And that's the thing. You don't have to give up with your social life, please don't.
Yeah exactly, that's still important for your mental health as well. But you give up drinking here and there and you'll save money too. Lindy, it was lovely to have you back on healthy. Thank you for joining us today. And well did we say Happy New Year in February? I don't know, have a great year, have a great one. Guys, get let's sleep everyone.
Thank you about amen.
I hope you can walk away with some actionable tips today on not only well how to lose weight the healthy waif that's your goal, but also how to save money. Actually, Lindy did say to me cook once, eat twice. She said that a while ago, and I thought that was a fabulous tip and I just wanted to yeah, share that one and hopefully inspire you're cooking for this week now. If you did like this chat, share with a friend, leave a review, or let me know via DM at
Felicity Harley. Now, the outherly exciting thing we have well as well as the fifty bucks off booze broke that Lindy talked about, is the Health of the Nation Challenge. Now all of you can receive a free month subscription to the kickapp. You know Stephan Laura right if you don't look them up, they are amazing and we are offering for you to take part in a four week challenge. It's very exciting. You need to get involved. I will
leave a link to that in the show notes. Anyway, thanks again for listening or of our print edition which is out and you're like cool Sunday Paper for US and socials. Of course, Jump online, bodyansoul dot com. Thanks again for listening, and oh you know it.
Stay healthy is