# Why Diets Don’t Work (Even When You Follow Them Perfectly) | Sarah Ann Macklin

An episode of [Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1508380100), 6 May 2026, 32 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1033d1554/podcast/play/119556189/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-6%2F423584675-44100-2-2ad4aa2e0bea6.mp3

Exciting news - pre-order my debut book https://linktr.ee/HealthySBTH?utm_source=linktree_profile_share You are doing everything right. You are eating well, you are exercising, you are optimizing. And somehow, you still aren't feeling as well as you hoped. That was me at 21, before my body finally found a way to make me listen. This week on Live Well Be Well, I want to talk to you about something I've been sitting with for the last ten years, something I've seen quietly transform the lives of my clients, something that changed the entire direction of my own life, and something I've spent the last year pouring into my new book, Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard.This episode is a deeply personal one. I trace the thread from my own health collapse at 21 all the way to the $8.5 trillion wellness industry that, despite its size, is leaving most of us feeling worse, not better. We talk about the try-slip-shame-restart cycle so many of us are trapped in, and why we keep mistaking self-criticism for self-improvement. I also dig into two landmark studies that stopped me in my tracks while writing this book: Ellen Langer's hotel maid experiment, which showed that perception alone changed women's weight and blood pressure without a single lifestyle change, and Alia Crum's milkshake study, which revealed that our thoughts directly alter our hunger hormones.The science is clear. Our bodies are listening to everything we think about ourselves. Love, Sarah Ann 💛 *** This episode is sponsored by: DIOME: Rest deeper. Stay grounded. Rested is available now and Grounded lands later this month. 👉 Get 20% off with code SARAH20 at DIOME.CO NOWATCH: The compassionate health tracker Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://nowatch.com/ *** The Great British Veg Out How to support your gut, energy, and hormones by eating more — not less. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/p/the-great-british-veg-out Reset Your Health If your body feels off after stress, travel, or burnout — this is where to start. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/s/reset-your-health-in-30-days 👉 Practical beats perfect. Here’s a free 5-recipe PDF I use to support energy and stress during busy weeks. https://open.substack.com/pub/sarahmacklin/p/download-your-free-5-recipes-to-relieve 👉 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week. https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** Let’s be friends! 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/ 📹 Subscribe:http://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah 🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast 💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** If You Enjoyed This Episode, You Might Also Like: Ellen Langer: The Mind Can Slow Down an Aging Bodyhttps://youtu.be/VGpNMy1VxsY *** Sign up to Sarah’s Compassionate Cure newsletter: Science Simplified, Health Humanised. Join thousands in exploring actionable insights that prioritise compassion, clarity, and real-life impact. https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** Highlights 00:00:00 Intro 00:00:25 Sarah's Health Collapse at 21 00:00:53 The $8.5 Trillion Wellness Industry Problem 00:01:17 Comparison Culture and the Shame Spiral 00:02:22 The Try, Slip, Shame, Restart Cycle 00:03:07 The Pizza Moment and Self-Compassion 00:04:39 Self-Criticism Lives in Your Body 00:08:22 Ellen Langer's Hotel Maid Study Explained 00:10:48 How Your Thoughts Change Hunger Hormones 00:12:22 What Self-Compassion Does to Your Body 00:14:31 The Selfie Test: Your Self-Compassion Score 00:18:34 The Mirror Practice and Leaning In 00:19:24 MAP: Mindfulness, Appreciation, Presence Before Meals 00:21:00 The Self-Compassionate Intention Before Eating 00:23:27 Why Wellness Solutions Aren't Making Us Healthier 00:24:41 The History of Dieting Since 1863 00:26:20 The Story You Tell Yourself

## Transcript

[0:00] I'm going to talk to you about something that's been on my mind
[0:02] for the last 10 years. Now I want to pose this question
[0:06] to you and see how you feel. You're doing everything right.
[0:10] You're eating well, you're exercising, you're optimising.
[0:15] Somehow you aren't feeling as well as you hoped.
[0:18] Well this for me was what happened at the age of 21 and I
[0:22] ended up in hospital barely conscious.
[0:25] Multiple birth cysts, urosepsis, E coli poisoning, the list goes
[0:30] on and the doctors had a diagnosis but the real one was
[0:35] shorter. For the last two years I have
[0:37] kept a secret from you and it's this.
[0:39] It's my new book, Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard, and I
[0:43] think it is a problem that we are all feeling.
[0:46] And I was feeling it so much that I wrote a book on it.
[0:49] Now if you've been a guest of this podcast for a while, you
[0:51] know that I am all about kindness, self compassion.
[0:55] But when I dug into the research of this, my mind exploded.
[0:59] The connection between the mind and body is so integral, but we
[1:03] completely miss out on all the conversations on health, on how
[1:07] we speak to ourselves. And that is such a driving
[1:09] factor on how our food responds to what we eat, to the choices
[1:13] that we make. And we are so overwhelmed right
[1:16] now in the $8.5 trillion industry that is the Wellness
[1:19] industry, which is predicted to be by 2027.
[1:23] So if you need a helping hand, if you want a new way to live
[1:27] and be well and buy my new book Healthy shouldn't be this hard
[1:31] out on May the 28th. But you can pre-order it now.
[1:35] I'll pop the link below in the show notes.
[1:37] And I would love if you could support me on this.
[1:41] And I honestly think it will support you too.
[1:43] I trained myself to ignore every signal my body ever sent and it
[1:48] finally found a way to make me listen.
[1:51] Fast forward 15 years. The wireless industry today is
[1:55] predicted to be worth $8.5 trillion / 60% of us are taking
[2:01] supplements and we're getting sicker. 96% of adults don't hit
[2:06] their daily fibre intake and over 80% don't eat 5 fruits and
[2:12] vegetables a day. I think about this and I think
[2:14] it's not a knowledge problem. We all know what to eat.
[2:17] You guys who listen to this show, you're smart, you know how
[2:21] to eat well. So what is it?
[2:23] We've all been there. Maybe you're scrolling in the
[2:26] morning and before you go to bed you see that person.
[2:29] You see their flat stomach, you see their morning routine, you
[2:32] see their productivity. And something inside of you
[2:36] shifts. And it's not envy, it's not
[2:38] quite admiration. That feeling, it sits somewhere
[2:42] in between the one that says, why can't I just get it
[2:47] together? And suddenly you're Googling
[2:50] when you're on Clawed or on ChatGPT.
[2:52] What's the supplement that they mentioned?
[2:54] What's the program? What's the plan?
[2:56] What's the thing that's finally going to make this stick?
[3:01] Because this time it's going to be different.
[3:04] This time you found the answer. And for a few days, maybe even a
[3:10] few weeks, it works. You feel in control, You feel
[3:14] like you're finally making it happen.
[3:16] And then life happens and you miss a day and then you eat the
[3:20] wrong thing that you said that you wouldn't.
[3:22] And then your sleep doesn't go to plan and you miss the
[3:25] workout. And then this is what happens.
[3:28] That internal voice starts, it says you're weak, you always do
[3:33] this. Why can't you just be
[3:34] consistent? Because isn't consistency the
[3:37] biggest thing that we hear about productivity?
[3:40] And so you start again, this time harder, this time more
[3:43] restrictive, more discipline. And so that cycle continues, the
[3:47] try slip, shame, restart. And I know that like I'm not the
[3:50] only one that fills this. We're not failing because we
[3:53] lack information and we're not failing because we lack
[3:57] willpower. We're exhausted at being at war
[4:01] within ourselves. But it's funny because nobody in
[4:04] the industry is talking about that.
[4:06] Now I want to talk about one of the most engaged reels I ever
[4:09] posted. And this happened after a really
[4:12] long day in clinic. This was about 3 1/2 years ago
[4:16] and I got home and I was exhausted and I ordered a pizza,
[4:19] something that I tell myself I shouldn't do.
[4:22] Yes you know I'm a nutritionist and I still eat pizza.
[4:25] But as I stood there waiting for that doorbell to ring, a really
[4:29] familiar wave of guilt washed over me and I questioned myself.
[4:33] Why am I stuck in this cycle? Even years of studying nutrition
[4:37] and and knowing all the things I know, why am I still in this
[4:40] cycle? Because The funny thing is,
[4:42] health is not simple maths. It's not just calories in
[4:46] carries out, although a lot of people would argue that it's not
[4:49] just more steps or more protein or more discipline.
[4:52] Health also lives in your thoughts, your emotional
[4:56] landscape, the way that you speak to yourself at 11:00 PM
[5:00] when you've eaten something you told yourself that you wouldn't.
[5:03] Every thought you have is a whole body experience.
[5:07] Every emotion you feel literally changes your Physiology.
[5:12] And the more we obsess over getting it right, the further
[5:16] that we drift away from what truly makes us live well and be
[5:20] well. So in that moment, I picked up
[5:23] my phone and I recorded a very long reel about self compassion.
[5:28] But what I wasn't quite prepared for on that day was how many of
[5:33] you flooded in? How many DMS, comments, messages
[5:36] that I got that Instagram reel opened up my eyes to just how
[5:41] universal this struggle really is.
[5:43] Like the way that we handle stress, the stories that you
[5:46] tell yourself, the criticism that that you carry, none of it
[5:50] stays in your head. It moves through your body and
[5:53] it lives in your hormones, in your gut, in your immune system
[5:56] and your mind and your body. They're not 2 separate systems.
[6:00] They run parallel to each other. They're more like inseparable
[6:03] best friends I talk about, and most of us haven't really ever
[6:09] been taught that. So we keep trying to like, fix
[6:12] the body while ignoring everything the mind is doing.
[6:16] And so we track our sleep whilst we lie awake criticizing
[6:20] ourselves. We eat that salad with sight of
[6:25] shame. We do that workout fueled by
[6:29] self loathing. And we wonder why it never feels
[6:33] enough when we actually break it down like that.
[6:35] It kind of sounds a bit obvious. So if you truly want to change
[6:40] your health, not just for 30 days or for the holidays, but
[6:45] for like truly the long term. And it might surprise you that I
[6:48] say this as a nutritionist, but the place to start isn't with
[6:51] your play. It's actually the relationship
[6:53] that you have with you. At the heart of that, it means
[6:56] something that most of us haven't visited in years.
[7:00] Self compassion, and I know what you're thinking because I
[7:05] thought it too self compassion. It sounds, sounds a bit much,
[7:10] doesn't it? It's a bit sickly.
[7:11] It's a bit of the whole self help.
[7:13] It's a bit weird. And I felt the same way.
[7:18] And I actually spoke to Oliver Berkman about this on my
[7:21] podcast. And the first time I mentioned
[7:23] this was two years ago to him and he said something that
[7:26] really stuck with me. When you feel the cringe, lean
[7:32] in to the cringe, because that is the resistance, and that's
[7:36] exactly where the work is. And it made me ask, why do we
[7:41] find it so strange and weird to be kind to ourselves?
[7:46] But we'd never speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves.
[7:49] Not even close. But somewhere along the way, and
[7:53] somehow we've been taught that being hard on ourselves is the
[7:57] way that, you know, keeps us sharp, keeps us motivated.
[8:00] It keeps us from getting lazy. And I understand that and to a
[8:03] point, it definitely does. But here's what I know from my
[8:08] own body and from most clients that walked through my door and
[8:13] and sat across me, they kind of came a bit of a mirror is that
[8:17] chronic self criticism is exhausting.
[8:21] It isn't productive and it isn't growth.
[8:25] It's actually just depleting. It's draining.
[8:28] It's that kind of tired that like sleep doesn't fix.
[8:32] And in my opinion, we've confused self criticism with
[8:35] self improvement. But they're not the same thing.
[8:38] Because as someone far wiser than me once put up, the stress
[8:43] of trying to be perfect will kill you more quickly than your
[8:48] imperfections ever will. And that to me, that like whole
[8:53] analogy I find so important. And so when I started writing my
[8:57] new book, Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard, I wanted to know
[9:01] like, what's the science like? You know, for me, self
[9:04] compassion has always felt quite Boo Boo.
[9:09] And I'm wanting to look at the research, wanting to look at the
[9:12] science. And so I remember asking this
[9:15] amazing Harvard professor called Doctor Ellen Langer on to my
[9:19] podcast, and I was already deep into writing Healthy Shouldn't
[9:22] Be This Hard, my book. And honestly, there were some
[9:24] moments when I was writing that that I questioned myself,
[9:28] wondering if what I was going to say was actually going to land.
[9:32] It kind of felt a little bit out there and whether the Wellness
[9:36] landscape or the health landscape was actually ready to
[9:39] hear that the missing ingredient wasn't another protocol.
[9:42] And then in this conversation with Ellen, she told me about
[9:44] this study. She said that she worked with
[9:46] hotel maids. So women who were on their feet
[9:49] all day, they're lifting, they're vending, they're
[9:51] cleaning beds, they're physically active every single
[9:54] hour of their shift. But when she asked them how
[9:58] often did they exercise, most of them replied with, well, hardly
[10:02] ever, because I don't have any time to exercise.
[10:06] And they didn't see that what they were doing was like,
[10:08] valuable movement that was actually exercise.
[10:11] So their bodies, in a sense, weren't fully registering it
[10:15] either. And then Ellen divided these
[10:17] into two groups. One group was told in detail
[10:21] exactly how much physical activity they were doing, how
[10:24] many calories they were burning, how their work counted as real,
[10:28] meaningful exercise. And the other group were told
[10:32] nothing. Then four weeks later, the group
[10:34] who had simply been told that their movement mattered had lost
[10:38] weight. Their blood pressure had dropped
[10:40] by 10%, their waist to hip ratio had improved, but nothing else
[10:45] had changed. Not their diet, not their
[10:48] workload, not their hours. It was just their perception of
[10:52] themselves, of their movement. And that, to me, shows just how
[10:56] powerful our mind can be, Just the story they were telling
[11:00] about what their body was doing and whether it counted.
[11:04] So nothing changed apart from the perception and the story
[11:08] that they told themselves. And I remember thinking, in this
[11:10] moment, this is exactly what I've been trying to verbalize.
[11:14] This is exactly what I've been trying to say.
[11:15] This is how I think a lot of us can miss these health
[11:18] conversations, like our bodies are listening to what we're
[11:22] thinking about ourselves. And if that's true for movement
[11:27] on the perception of how we exercise, imagine what your
[11:30] internal narrative is doing to everything else.
[11:32] Then I was found out a very similar study from an amazing
[11:36] woman called Leah Crumb, and she always looks at the perception
[11:40] of stress and how our mind interprets information and how
[11:44] we perceive situations. So she took two groups and she
[11:48] gave them two identical milkshakes.
[11:50] They both had 380 calories in each.
[11:53] One group was told that the milkshake was rich and indulgent
[11:58] and it was a treat, and the other group was told that it was
[12:01] a sensible low calorie. Like the responsible choice that
[12:05] most of us will probably sway to, especially if I listen to
[12:07] this podcast. The calories however, were
[12:10] actually exactly the same. But they didn't know that the
[12:13] hormonal response of both of these groups were totally
[12:16] different. The people who believed they
[12:18] were drinking something indulgent felt fuller and the
[12:21] hunger hormone dropped. And the people who thought that
[12:24] they were being more balanced, do I want to say kind of more
[12:29] healthy. They stayed hungry.
[12:31] But both of these drinks had exactly the same calories, but
[12:35] people's bodies and the hunger hormones responded totally
[12:39] differently. So it shows that our hunger
[12:41] pathways aren't just activated by food, they're also massively
[12:46] susceptible to our thoughts. Which means if you eat a salad,
[12:49] telling yourself that it's boring and unsatisfying, your
[12:53] body will probably believe you. But if you eat the thing that
[12:55] you love slowly, without that side of guilt, which a lot of us
[13:00] can feel, that was me with the pizza.
[13:02] And your body might just handle it better than you think.
[13:06] And that is such a missing part of this like optimized
[13:10] conversation that we all live in.
[13:12] Like why aren't we optimizing our thoughts?
[13:14] What does self compassion actually do?
[13:16] The way I like to think about it is when we offer ourself
[13:19] kindness instead of criticism, it triggers real physiological
[13:24] change. Oxytocin is released, the same
[13:27] bonding hormone activated in supportive human connection
[13:31] instead of being locked in a stress response, high cortisol
[13:35] body in fight or flight digest and compromise hunger signals
[13:39] distorted. We actually createspace for our
[13:44] bodies to relax, to restore, to function as they were designed
[13:48] to. And from from that place we
[13:51] actually can make better choices.
[13:54] Not because we're like forced into doing it, which is what
[13:57] self criticism can do, and not because we were disciplined
[14:01] enough, but ironically because he felt safe enough.
[14:05] And so self compassion, although it can sometimes be distorted as
[14:10] a soft option, it's the most evidence based thing I believe I
[14:15] can tell you to actually do for your health.
[14:19] And the wireless industry will not tell you this.
[14:22] It needs you to believe that you are one program away, 1
[14:26] supplement away 1 January away from being well.
[14:31] But you have to remember, which I have to remember, you are not
[14:35] a protocol to be optimized. You're a person and you've
[14:40] always deserved to be treated like 1.
[14:42] So healthy really shouldn't be this hard.
[14:46] And it doesn't have to be because the place to start is
[14:49] with yourself. It felt best to leave you with a
[14:53] quote and a tool or two that that you can take with you.
[14:56] And this this one quote was from Carl Rogers and it really
[15:00] captured so much about like what I was trying to write about in
[15:04] this book that by the way, let's plug it 28th of May.
[15:08] It's coming out pre-order. But I remember seeing this quote
[15:13] and it and it really stuck with me.
[15:14] The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am,
[15:19] then I can change. I feel like there's so much
[15:22] power in that. It's so easy to disconnect from
[15:27] actually how we see ourselves, but sometimes that's like the
[15:32] most vulnerable, motivating thing that we can do.
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[15:37] sleep to spare and a cold plunge in their garden.
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[16:33] and I found myself in conversations with the founders
[16:36] of no watch. You've probably seen me wear
[16:38] something on my wrist, and lots of you have messaged me asking
[16:41] me what this is. It looks like a classic watch,
[16:44] but it's actually quietly tracking something much more
[16:47] meaningful, your autonomic nervous system.
[16:50] This is the system that governs everything from how you respond,
[16:53] from excitement to anxiety, calm to overwhelm.
[16:56] Most wearables just give you a score, but if you're anything
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[17:17] It gives you minute by minute timeline of your stress
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[17:39] you can also get 15% off. And you want to understand your
[17:42] body not just through performance, but through
[17:44] self-awareness. And this is where I'd begin.
[17:50] I'm going to start off with something where you can test
[17:53] yourself compassion levels. It's a little bit of an insight
[17:56] from my book. So amazing researchers like
[17:59] Doctor Kirsten Neff, they've all completed the self compassionate
[18:03] scores and things that you can go on and rate yourself
[18:07] compassion on a scale. But very often we can lie about
[18:11] what we really feel about ourselves.
[18:13] We're not that honest about how we feel about ourselves.
[18:17] And also it can feel sometimes quite confronting.
[18:19] So I wanted to come up with a new way of testing how we see
[18:24] ourselves. And I think probably every one
[18:28] of you guys has a phone that is listening to Liffa Be Well.
[18:31] And so this felt like the most maybe new era way of testing it.
[18:35] So I came up with something called the selfie test.
[18:37] And I did this because how many times have you taken a picture
[18:42] of yourself? Well, someone's taken a picture
[18:43] of you and you've looked at it and you've got, oh, I hate that
[18:47] picture. We all have done it.
[18:49] I'm sure. If you haven't, then like tell
[18:51] me what your tool is for that because I think we all see
[18:54] ourselves in not the best light. I know I especially do and
[18:59] normally will be like there's another picture I need to take.
[19:00] There's another picture I need to take.
[19:03] And actually that is yourself compassion score.
[19:05] So I want you to do this. Like if you're driving, don't do
[19:08] this, but do this next time you go to take a picture.
[19:12] So the first thing I want you to do is take a selfie.
[19:14] And I just want you to take 1. So it's not 10 to 15 pictures
[19:18] for you to get the one that you really love.
[19:20] I want you to just take one. I want you to look at it, and I
[19:23] want you to write down exactly what you think and feel.
[19:27] And the most critical component of this is that you need to be
[19:30] honest because I already know what most of you might write.
[19:35] The angle, the skin, the bags under my eyes, like all of these
[19:40] like negative connotations of how we might see ourselves.
[19:43] You might also write, I look pretty good today, like think
[19:48] I'm doing all right. You're looking pretty trim.
[19:51] Maybe you might write some like really positive things.
[19:54] And this is the most important, like just write down exactly
[19:58] what comes to your mind when you look at that picture.
[20:00] And now what I want you to do is imagine that that picture that
[20:05] you just took is of someone you love, maybe like your best
[20:08] friend, maybe your partner, but someone that you love.
[20:11] And then I want you to look and think, what do I now see from
[20:14] that picture? Because of course, you may not
[20:18] see the same things that you'd see.
[20:20] When you look at yourself, because you're not constantly
[20:23] scanning for all of the floors, the things that aren't perfect
[20:27] in that picture. And that's like such an
[20:29] interesting comparison to see. Why are we so willing to extend
[20:35] grace and acceptance and like the positives to people that we
[20:39] love but not ourselves? We've all been trained by an
[20:43] industry, by a lifetime of before and after images, by
[20:47] every mirror place at the entrance of a gym.
[20:49] I don't know why they do that. To see ourselves as a problem to
[20:54] be fixed or optimized. And the thing that's really
[20:58] helpful about that exercise is it's not just in that moment
[21:01] that we see that it, we're having that like in a dialogue
[21:05] run when not to someone looking at pictures, but when we're
[21:07] eating, when we're getting dressed, when we walk into a
[21:10] room and people are looking at us.
[21:12] When you're lying awake at 2:00 AM and replaying the day, the
[21:16] gap between what you wrote about yourself and what you have said
[21:20] about your friend, that's the work to do.
[21:23] I believe the understanding of that internal mechanism is so
[21:28] important, but most of us are like pretty unconscious about
[21:31] it. So to help with that work, I'm
[21:33] going to make you do something that feels really unbearable.
[21:36] But I think it's really important you look in the
[21:39] mirror, in your own eyes and you say 3 things out loud about
[21:42] yourself. And if that feels unbearable,
[21:46] then good. That is your cringe.
[21:48] Lean into the cringe. That's exactly where you need to
[21:51] go. And I don't know, you'll hear a
[21:54] lot of people in the optimization culture and the
[21:57] productivity culture talk about going into the
[22:00] uncomfortableness. This is the uncomfortableness
[22:03] that you need to step into with yourself because I'm pretty sure
[22:09] that you could say 3 good things to your best friend.
[22:13] So that's the first one. The second one to lead on from
[22:15] this is something that I call Matt now Robin Shawarma, who's
[22:19] been on the podcast, builds his mornings around meditation,
[22:24] visualization, and prayer. And it's nothing to do with
[22:27] religion. It's all to do with intention
[22:30] and also just having that time for yourself.
[22:33] And I wanted to create something quite similar, but surrounding
[22:36] meals and surrounding your nutrition because presence is
[22:40] sadly what is missing. And most of us see.
[22:43] And I felt that even more recently, like when I went to
[22:46] Japan, the amount of time and precision that they take around
[22:49] food and around meals and creating the space and presence
[22:54] is so beautiful. And so I feel like it connected
[22:58] more to this than ever before, which is why I wanted to share
[23:00] it with you. What does MAP stand for?
[23:02] So MAP stands for mindfulness, appreciation, and presence.
[23:06] Before your next meal, put down your phone.
[23:10] Take 1 deep slow breath and 1st just like notice how you feel in
[23:14] your body. So your shoulders high, is your
[23:17] stomach clenched? Do you have a headache?
[23:20] All of these things that try and acknowledge what's in your body
[23:23] and then acknowledge everything that went into the food that's
[23:26] in front of you. So from the soil to the people
[23:29] that harvested it to the time, all of that is appreciation.
[23:33] Like we don't tend to think about that.
[23:36] And then just for 10 seconds just be there.
[23:39] Like be in that moment, be present, because so often we're
[23:44] mindless when we're eating. Then you take your first bite.
[23:48] And then the thing I love about this afterwards is that you can
[23:53] turn some of the gratitude inwards.
[23:55] And then aftermath, once you kind of scented yourself just
[24:00] before you eat and it feels like a lot, but it's not, it's so
[24:03] small. It's going to take you like 20
[24:05] seconds to do it. It's something that I love,
[24:09] which is again, this is not religious, but it's called a
[24:13] self compassionate prayer. And this is just like one or two
[24:16] lines that you silently say to yourself before you eat.
[24:19] Now I find this really interesting because I didn't
[24:21] grow up religious saying grace around the table, but we know
[24:25] how much gratitude impacts our well-being.
[24:29] You might have heard things like the gratitude journal or Tim
[24:32] Ferriss talks about that a lot or saying something like 3
[24:36] grateful things a day to help set yourself in a positive
[24:39] intention. But like we never direct it
[24:42] towards health which is interesting.
[24:44] And as we know how much our thoughts influence our digestion
[24:48] and our metabolism and how we think before we eat.
[24:50] Like how powerful could a self compassion prayer of saying
[24:54] something grateful and intentional towards yourself
[24:59] affect how you metabolize that food?
[25:03] Interesting thought. And so you can just say one or
[25:05] two lines before you eat on a self compassionate prayer on a
[25:10] self compassionate intention. If the prayer sounds too much
[25:14] about you, like you made it to the end of the day.
[25:17] And like that's great because sometimes they have really hard
[25:20] days. Like allow yourself to
[25:22] acknowledge like something that's very compassionate about
[25:25] what you did today or how you acted or how you feel because we
[25:29] never really get to hear the positives.
[25:32] And there's so much interesting research that shows that you
[25:36] need between 3:00 and 5:00 positive comments to balance a
[25:41] negative comment. And because we have so many
[25:43] negative comments running all through the day, this is your
[25:46] time to try and like direct a +1.
[25:49] And these moments I think are more critical than a lot of us
[25:53] realize. So map your meals with a self
[25:57] compassionate prayer or a self compassionate intention is a
[26:00] really positive way, and I talk about this a lot in the book
[26:04] that you can start putting these techniques and tools in to start
[26:08] creating a more self compassionate landscape with
[26:11] your health and yourself. So this is something that I find
[26:14] really interesting when we look at something I call the Wellness
[26:17] disconnect. And I say that because I think
[26:21] the well-being industry and the Wellness industry has kind of
[26:24] blown up so much in the last 10 years.
[26:27] And ultimately we've always wanted to live longer, to live
[26:30] happier, to live Weller. But it kind of, it's become a
[26:35] little bit confused along the way, shall I say.
[26:38] And the reason why I'm saying that is because now we're sold
[26:41] these like endless solutions, but we aren't feeling better.
[26:45] And the stats show that. And as I said at the beginning,
[26:47] you know, $8.5 trillion Wellness industry, the reflections of the
[26:52] stats aren't showing that we're, we're getting healthier.
[26:55] We're just not dying from infectious diseases when that's
[26:57] down due to medicine, not to the lifestyles that we're leading.
[27:01] And I was thinking about this and I want to read a little bit
[27:04] from the book for you guys about diets and about dieting and
[27:09] about why diets fail. And it made me wonder, is this
[27:11] constant in a criticism, a modern affliction?
[27:14] So I let you down a rabbit hole and here we go.
[27:17] So I read the sub Stack by a guy called Michael Easter and he was
[27:23] looking at the history of dieting, and in there they
[27:29] traced the diet culture back to 1863, when a man named William
[27:35] Banting published what's widely considered to be the first
[27:39] popular diet book. After writing a list of foods
[27:42] that he could and couldn't eat to manage his weight, he turned
[27:46] it into a pamphlet called Letter of Corpulence, addressed to the
[27:50] public, essentially a low carb manifesto, and it was an instant
[27:54] hit. And just like that, the modern
[27:57] diet industry was born. Better analyzed more than 400
[28:01] diet books and discovered that what made the diet book so
[28:04] successful wasn't the food, but the stories that those rules
[28:08] were wrapped in. Now think about how you think
[28:11] about your diet and your health regime.
[28:14] What story is it that you tell yourself?
[28:17] Because I find that part so fascinating that actually a lot
[28:22] of the things that we connect to within health is also very much
[28:26] related to our identity. So for instance, the identity
[28:31] that I'm eating at pizza every night is not the identity that
[28:34] I've always portrayed. And I find this really
[28:36] interesting because when we look at different diets, maybe I'll
[28:40] just explain a few to you. So plant based vegan diets, this
[28:44] is the story of ethics and enlightenment.
[28:46] It's not just about health. It's also potentially about a
[28:50] moral high ground. Then think about
[28:53] anti-inflammatory diets. These tap into the story of
[28:55] ageing and this promises protection for longevity and
[28:59] prevention. Then you've got biohacking.
[29:02] These tap into the story of personal optimization through
[29:06] science. Then you've got the cleanse and
[29:08] the detox diets. OK, these speak to purity in a
[29:12] toxic world, offering control in a culture of overwhelm, of
[29:16] population stress and overstimulation.
[29:19] And these are just a few that I put together as like story ideas
[29:23] and how identity can come through health.
[29:26] So let me ask you now, what story do you tell yourself?
[29:31] What inner narrative is running in your brain?
[29:33] These two questions are some of the pinnacle questions to ask
[29:37] yourself and why healthy shouldn't be this hard.
[29:39] That's a really interesting analogy to think about.
[29:41] What is the story that you tell yourself and what is the
[29:45] internal story that you're telling yourself everyday?
[29:47] Stories are the baseline for so much emotional response in how
[29:52] we think and feel, but we very rarely think about the story
[29:56] that we're telling ourselves and how we see ourselves.
[29:59] And truly, I believe healthy shouldn't be this hard.
[30:03] You know, you can connect to all of these things on the to do
[30:06] lists and the things that are going to make us live longer and
[30:08] feel better. But if you don't start with
[30:11] yourself, with the story you're telling yourself, with how you
[30:14] see yourself, with how you treat yourself, none of those things
[30:17] matter. And that is what happened at 21
[30:19] to me. And it's taken me on a 15 year
[30:22] crazy long journey of doing this show, of retraining, of changing
[30:29] my entire career around this. Because ultimately, healthy
[30:35] shouldn't be this hard. If you want to hear more, as
[30:38] always please comment, please subscribe, tell me your
[30:42] thoughts, tell me, tell me in the comments what below.
[30:44] What are you thinking, what are you feeling, What story do you
[30:47] tell yourself? Is this something you resonate
[30:49] with? Do you not?
[30:50] You don't always have to agree but I think sometimes this is
[30:54] just a much needed pause for so many of us.
[30:58] Anyway. I talk about this is like a mock
[31:00] up of it. I talk about this so much in my
[31:02] book that is about to come out on May the 28th and it would
[31:06] mean the absolute world to me to pre-order.
[31:09] Lots of you have mentioned to me in my newsletters or on
[31:12] Instagram when I said what should I speak about?
[31:14] A lot of you have wanted to know more about like my own journey
[31:17] and changing career and all of these things and that is all in
[31:21] this book that's about to come out.
[31:23] I am excited and terrified at the same time.
[31:26] You can hold both truths and that's how I feel.
[31:29] But I would love you to pre-order it.
[31:30] I'd love you to read it. I'd love to have a conversation
[31:33] with you guys. The thing I love the most about
[31:35] my job as this show and the interaction from you guys, this
[31:38] community, you're all awesome. Your comments, I read them all
[31:42] and let me know. Let me know if you have felt
[31:44] this too, if you connect to it, and if you really have kind of
[31:49] understood the importance of how you speak to yourself because
[31:53] got to have your own back at the end of the day.
[31:55] Big love to you all. Thanks for the listening.
[31:58] Thanks for getting this far into the solo episode.
[32:00] I appreciate it and look forward to hearing your guys comments.

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