E095: Nutrition for Work

now on to this episode. Hello. This is James, and this is Jane, and here we are again with another episode of a world of a world of work podcast. What

are we speaking about today?

Jane, well, today we are talking with our lovely guest, Laura, all about nutrition and its relationship with work.

Wow. I'm really looking forward to this. I know that, you know, nutrition plays a big role in my ability to function and how I feel and all that stuff, and I'm looking forward to learning about what that means for the workplace and what lessons there are from

that? Yeah, it's funny. I mean, obviously I spent a couple of decades working in sport, and I worked particularly through the period of elite sport, beginning to really recognize the importance of nutrition and nutritionists being employed by the organizations I worked in, and because we shared the same canteen and things like that. We kind of learned quite a lot by sort of being alongside the athletes in their journey. And it just it fascinates me that it's now completely accepted that to be a performance athlete, you really need to balance your nutrition and the times and the places and what you eat and how you eat, and how much you eat of what, in order to perform brilliantly. And yet it feels like we're really only beginning to grasp that in other work fields.

Yeah, just on that. Interestingly, in the last place where I was fully employed, the top 200 got nutritionists in the organization to support them with all of that kind of stuff, because that was seen as a as a competitive advantage in the workplace as well, which is interesting. So it's clearly moving into that place. So

it's really funny. You say that because my first brain point, okay, absolutely brilliant. Sorry, my first brain point, you know, my first thought in my brain is okay, of course, that's a brilliant perk. But what does top 200 mean? Well, we could have a whole different conversation

about that. We could, but yeah, I actually, I, you know what? I gotta be honest. I think looking back on the places I've worked, so where I worked at that particular place, we we used to get discount, like it was, it was a subsidized canteen, and it was, it was designed for the athletes, but we were able to access it too. And I would say my my eating was probably both at its healthiest and also at its most considered, if you get what I mean, like, because it was labeled, and it was labeled appropriately, like, you know, energy boost or post post match meal. And so genuinely, you would play sport at lunchtime, and then you would go and eat like what proper professional athletes was. And it was brilliant. It's really good, okay, well, let's

get into this conversation and see what actually happened with nutrition and what it means for us in the workplace. You okay, so we are

in the main body of today's podcast, which is all about nutrition and how nutrition supports us in the workplace and in our own lives. And we've got a great guest. We're speaking to Laura today. Laura, before we actually get into the conversation, could you introduce yourself and say a little bit about yourself and your background to your

audience, please? Sure. Yeah. So hi, James and Jane, thanks for having me on today. I am a Registered nutritionist based in Edinburgh. So what that means is, basically, I'm a Registered nutritionist with the Association for nutrition, which is the independent regulator for registered nutritionists. I studied nutrition up at Aberdeen University, where I did my undergrad Master's and PhD in public health nutrition, and I've worked in a variety of roles since then, as a nutritionist. I did an internship at who looking at obesity policies across Europe. I've worked with kind of retailers, supermarkets, on their meal campaigns and kind of promotions. I've done reviews of evidence on various things like red meat and looking at diet around pregnancy. And then recently, more recently, I worked at the Scottish Food Innovation Center, whereas helping food companies develop new products and improve the nutritional content of their products, and then four years ago now, I set up my own business offering nutrition writing and workplace wellness and individual nutrition advice. So I'm i. I'm really passionate about ensuring the public can access evidence based nutrition, because there's so much mixed messages out there on nutrition. So I actually volunteer as a rep for the Association for nutrition in Scotland, and I help set up a regular Twitter chat where registered nutritionists and other nutritionists and health professionals can discuss and share information on different nutrition topics. So yeah, really passionate about getting the right messages on nutrition out there. That's

excellent. And there are lots of words popping up there that we like evidence based things there. We like the Twitter chat. We think it's really pleasing to hear some of the work that that you involved in, and what a time to be in the public health space as well. I mean, that's, that's really interesting. Before we sort of get into some details, I'm going to ask a really basic question just to start the conversation, going, what is nutrition? I mean, what are we speaking about when we're speaking about nutrition? Yeah,

well, great question, and it's, it's, it covers quite a wide range of things. So I guess essentially, nutrition is a science, and it's the science that looks at nutrients and other substances in foods in relation to how they impact the human body. So for example, what effect they have on growth, on health and disease, as well as how we actually use those nutrients, how they are absorbed and metabolized and digested. But of course, we don't actually eat nutrients. We eat foods, so nutrition also considers the foods and different combinations of foods or diets and dietary patterns, and also how we're influenced in our food choice. So how the environment might affect what we what foods we choose, and the availability and affordability of foods, and even marketing and the influence of what our friends eat as well, can all influence our food choice and dietary patterns. So it nutrition actually covers quite a wide range of things and and there's actually five different specialisms in when you're an association for nutrition, Registered nutritionist, you can specialize in in public health nutrition, which is what I do, or in sports and exercise, or Nutrition Sciences, or food science, or even animal nutrition, which is really quite a fascinating area that I know nothing about, to be honest. But yeah, that's interesting.

I did listen to someone the other day speaking about the advertisement of Percy pigs, claiming, you know, the juice content in Percy pigs and all that stuff. It's interesting how, how influenceable we are as individuals when it comes to nutrition, particularly in those moments when we are maybe tired or hungry or, you know, not at our best, those little things might nudge us towards decisions that we secretly know aren't good, right? We can justify a lot to ourselves when, we do consume things, right? When, when we ingest different food products or drinks, and then we take on these different nutrients. What impacts does that have on us as individuals? What, you know, what are the consequences of our choices when it comes to consumption like that?

Yeah, well, there's, there's lots of different impacts, what we eat can have both physically and mentally, and some of these impacts you'll probably notice, and other impacts can go very unnoticed. So I'm sure you all know of what you feel like if you have a big slice of chocolate cake or a bag of toffee or something, you'll probably feel quite energized straight afterwards and have that spike in blood sugar, and then that will very quickly get used up, and your blood sugar will plummet, and your energy levels will plummet, and you'll feel quite lethargic and probably a little bit ill, maybe, and you'll want that next hit of sugar so you'll start craving more sugary foods. So I mean, that's really noticeable. And likewise, hydration, if we're dehydrated, that can hugely impact our cognitive function and our alertness and productivity. So they're some of the more noticeable impacts. But also, if you add a lot of salt to your food, for example, or eat quite a lot of smoked fish or bacon or ham a lot of the time, these really salty foods, your blood pressure could increase. And there's no real signs of that that you might notice unless you get it measured. So the first sign might actually be having a heart attack. So it's, it's really important to, I think, think about the impact of what you're eating, what impacts are on your overall health? Yeah, would you say that it's

got, you know, a fundamentally huge impact on our, I guess, life expectancy, as well as our quality of lived experience, our nutrition. I mean, where do you think. It sits on the scale of things that we can control that influence our lived experience. I

guess, I think it does have a really big influence. And of course, not every meal needs to be nutritionally balanced and not every day needs to be the perfect day. There's no such thing as the perfect nutritionally balanced day, to be honest, not even nutritionists achieve that, but it's over time. It's kind of like the 8020 rule, as long as you kind of aim to eat as healthy as possible. I think it can have an impact on Yeah, your quality of life and your longevity, essentially. So it is, yeah, hugely important, and also for your your mood as well. So it can affect you day to day. What you eat,

yeah, and you mentioned your sort of cognitive function there as well. I mean, do you think there's a strong link between nutrition and hydration and cognitive function?

Yeah, absolutely. So we know that if we're even slightly dehydrated, then that can impact our alertness and cognitive function. So if we're our first sensation only kind of kicks in when we're about two or 3% dehydrated, which doesn't sound a lot, but actually that's at the stage where you might have to read a sentence twice to kind of take it in, or you might have to it takes you a bit longer to kind of compute things or to to write an email, maybe. So it can be really impactful on your productivity. And yeah, time it takes to do certain tasks, which for sports people can can really have an impact. It can mean like winning or losing a race, essentially, where there's margins are at play. I guess that makes a lot of sense.

I've read and listened to some interesting conversations about, I guess, the state of public health in the UK, and some things around the role of nutrition in that. To some extent, given you've got a bit of a background in public health and that side of things, what's your view roughly on the current state of, I guess, health and nutrition in the UK and and how are we doing here? I mean, are we a healthy nation? Are we getting healthier? Are we deteriorating? What are some of the big challenges we face in that space, from a health and nutrition perspective. So

I think, well, the data shows that we're not really improving our diet too much, where we're having too much sugar and fatty foods and salt and not enough of the fruit and vegetables, essentially, and fiber and oily fish, so we've kind of got the balance a little bit off. But there's so many different factors that impact what we eat, whether it's the environment we live in or advertising and how food's marketed. There's there's all these factors kind of working against our aim of, kind of trying to eat healthily a lot of the time, so it is difficult the environment that we live in. So yeah, I mean, about two thirds of adults are above a healthy weight. There's one in five adults are considered to be inactive, so they're doing less than 30 minutes of activity a week, and yeah, way too much sugar and fruit and veg even. I mean, I'm sure you've heard of the five a day, fruit and veg message, but fewer than three in 10 adults are actually achieving the five a day on average, and fiber is another one which is not a very sexy nutrient to talk about, to be honest, but fiber intakes are well below the recommended 30 grams of fiber a day that we should be eating. It's about 18 grams on average, and only 4% of women and 9% of men actually meet the 30 gram fiber recommendation, which is not a lot, really. That's not much, is it? No, that's really there.

You mentioned there about five a day. And you've also when you talking about some of the work you do, you were talking about public health policy, and I'm really interested, because I know that in different countries, they have different numbers, so some have lower or higher than five a day, and I understand that's something to do with trying to balance what's achievable sort of behavior for your population is that, is that right? Is that something familiar with and how do you how do you go about as a nutritionist, thinking about, Okay, well, I know what the ideal is versus I know what's actually most likely to make meaningful change.

Yeah. Well, the five a day was kind of based on who kind of data or evidence, and it was considered quite an achievable. Target other countries You're right. Have different messages. So I think in other countries, like Australia, it's seven a day. The recent eat Lancet report, which looks at food sustainability and sustainable diets, recommends more like 11 portions a day that we should be aiming for. So it's five a day is should be quite an achievable target, but when we're not even achieving that, it's difficult to set it higher. So there's definitely a need to focus more on, I think the public health messages should be more about what to add to your diet, rather than don't eat this or cut down on that, because that's quite negative messages. So positive messages like have more fruit and veg, have more whole grains and more fibrous foods should be kind of promoted more. I think,

yeah, that makes total sense. It was much easier to hear something little that you can add rather than take something away and feel like you're being robbed, even, even when you're just trying to eat a bit healthier. Yeah, exactly you mentioned, also, sorry. You mentioned also, like you said, not even, I think you said even nutritionists don't, can't do like a perfect day, every day. So at very high level, what makes like a basically good diet for us?

Well, yeah, we're all unique. First of all, so there's no one diet that suits everyone. One diet that does seem to consistently come up as being really healthy is the Mediterranean style of diet, which is basically more plant based foods, so plenty fruits and vegetables, pulses, beans, lentils, cereals, whole grains and some fish and unsaturated fats, such as the olive oil, or, I guess our equivalent would be the oil seed, rape, rapeseed oil, and also some dairy and lean meat. So it's a balanced diet. I think this, there's two key words to look out for or to consider. We always, nutritionists always talk about a healthy, varied diet, or a healthy balanced diet, and it's the variety is really key. So having a wide variety of foods in your diet can help ensure that you get all the nutrients that your body needs to function well and feel well. And also, if you have variety, kind of stimulates your taste buds and you're meant to enjoy food. So yeah, having lots of variety in your diet is key. And if you have lots of variety that also encourages a variety of your gut microbes, which we know now that our gut microbiome is so important for overall health. And the other key word is balanced. So a healthy, balanced diet, when kind of this COVID 19 started, there's lots of people talking about how to boost their immune system, which is not something you want to do. You want to support your immune system, but not kind of override it or boost it too much, because everything generally works better in balance. And our body is consistently working to balance our blood sugar, our salt levels, our fluid levels, so any extremes are best avoided. So it's balance is key, and variety, I would say

that makes total sense. And just one more on this kind of area for me, because you mentioned that we're all different, and I different, and I certainly find that the person I share a house with, we're at our best and healthiest, eating quite massively different diets. But there's definitely variation, I think, when we feel our at our best and like we're eating a really healthy, balanced diet, and kind of particularly around like the amount, the amount of dairy, wheat and meat we eat, for example, and what's the best way that someone can start to get familiar with with their differences, and what's working for them? Are there things that you suggest people do to start to get familiar with the diet that might best suit them?

Yeah, I think it's Yeah, everyone is different, and what your best friend or your flatmate eats might not necessarily suit you, because everyone's different in terms of genetics and, yeah, different age and activity and whatnot. So I think something that's good to do is bit of mindful eating and just getting more in tune with what foods make you feel better, or how foods are making you feel. And a lot of the time, we kind of eat on the run, or don't really notice what we're eating. We make I think I read somewhere that we make about 200 dietary choices each day, but we're only conscious of about 20 of those choices. So I. One of the things is kind of just even setting your alarm on your phone for 60 seconds when you sit down to eat, and just having no distractions and focusing on what you're eating and Do you are you liking, the flavors, the textures smell, and just fully focus on how that food is making you feel as well, and whether you're satisfied or feeling full or still hungry, so just getting more in tune with with food,

yeah, that's interesting. And just as a little side aside reflection here, while we've been listing all those possible things to eat, I've gotten quite hungry. I didn't really expect that as a byproduct of this, but I'm like fruits and vegetables and fish and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I'm sure we'll manage that. I got a big bowl of fruit next to me, so maybe I'll tuck into that if we, if we kind of move a conversation on and think about nutrition and workplace, we know that some of the big challenges that people face in work at the minute are to do with stress and mental health and anxiety and things like that. What role does nutrition play in our relationships and our levels, sorry, our relationships with stress and mental health and our levels of stress and mental health? Well being? Yeah,

I think it can play quite a big role, one because stress impacts, or can impact, what your dietary choices are and what you might be craving. And the other way around is that what you eat can help you manage stress a little bit better, sometimes, not all the time. But so it's a two way relationship. So yeah, in times of stress, our bodies have an increased need for nutrients, but due to the stress, our stress hormones being released means that we often crave the sugary types of foods, if you like. So it can be kind of counter productive. So yeah, there's, there's certain nutrients to kind of look out for when you are stressed, and making sure that you get enough of some more kind of the whole grains, fruits and veg, and making sure you get enough protein as well. Should help you manage stress a little bit better. Yeah, I

know that when I'm stressed, I want to drink more coffee, eat more chocolate, all that kind of stuff. That's where I go when I'm stressed. But it sounds like that's probably the worst thing to

do. It's not the best. Yeah, because coffee generally won't do much for your stress levels, but yeah, something to be aware of and kind of work around and find the best strategy for you.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Another big fact that we need to deal with at work is the sort of energy levels that we have. And I know that these sort of come in and out over the, you know, the day, right? I mean, so, you know, you have different peaks and trough and troughs in your energy over the course of the day. How does our nutrition level relate to that? So, like, you know, do the types of things that we eat give us levels of energy that are sustained for higher or should we more frequently? Or what's our best way to balance our energy in the workplace?

Yeah, so our body's preferred source of energy, our body and brain's preferred source of energy is from carbohydrates. So we need carbohydrates to provide energy, but obviously there's different types of carbohydrates, from your simple sugars or your cakes and biscuits, right through to more complex carbohydrates from vegetables or whole grain foods or oat cakes, that type of thing. So ideally, what you want is to not kind of spike your blood sugar too much from eating all these refined sugars, which anything goes up, has to come down. And if it goes up quick, it will plummet, and then you'll start craving more quick fixes to get it back up again, which is more sugary foods. So ideally you want to have slower release carbohydrates, which tends to be the whole grains and the kind of vegetables and more complex carbohydrates. So interestingly, everyone naturally feels a little bit tired after lunch about kind of two or three o'clock. Probably, yeah, for sure, experience the afternoon slump, which is completely normal. It's just our circadian rhythm that we are naturally on, but there are ways to kind of combat that slightly about what you eat for lunch, making sure it's got a protein food in it and lots of kind of vegetables in it as well will help prevent that. At afternoon slump. So yeah, there's, there's healthier ways to get kind of carbohydrates. A lot of people kind of skip the carbohydrates or exclude them, even, which is not a great idea, because if you exclude the carbohydrates, one of the side effects is because you're not getting that energy, is feeling really cranky and maybe a little bit short tempered, so it's not the kind of thing you want in an office environment.

Yeah, that definitely happens for me. If I, if I don't eat enough carbs, I'm just not a nice person for anybody, really, especially not for myself. So it sounds like there's some stuff that we can do in terms of eating that more slow releasing energy, food that'll help us balance over the course of a day, and maybe eating more sensibly at lunchtime would help us through things like an afternoon. Where do you stand and what are your thoughts on things like our ability to control our diet in the office.

So I know a lot of us aren't in workplaces at the minute, but you know, quite often there are biscuits in meetings, or people bring in donuts or cakes, or we've just got this sort of shared eating space that makes it a bit hard to influence what we consume in workplace. Do you have thoughts on that, and things we could maybe do to change that if we need to.

Yeah, it can be so difficult when you know staff members bring in a cake or or you have somebody's birthday in the office, and you all have to celebrate, and there's always cake or donuts or these sweet treats to tempt you. I think it's a good idea to, if you do work in an office situation, to have a conversation or start a conversation, to see what the views are of the staff, to see if they actually like having this cake around in the staff room, on view at all times. Because there's an interesting recent study done, I think it was the University of Chester, where they looked at over 1000 UK office workers, and they actually found that the vast majority wanted less cake in the office. And the most popular frequency for most respondents was once a month, maximum.

Yeah, I'd be on that side of things. And then when I was in there and there was, like, something every day, right? Like, I just don't want to have to have to say no to people all the time, I guess is what it comes down

to. Yeah. I mean, there's always a birthday kind of celebration, but some of the time you could celebrate everyone's birthday on one day of the month and just have it once a month type of celebration. So I think it's a good idea to do even an anonymous survey with staff members to get their views and on what kind of refreshments that they want, even in staff meetings, I know I get frustrated going to the business network and meeting some of the time, and the offerings of food is not always the healthiest, but still, I always seem to end up with a hand reaching out and getting the pastry when I don't really want it, but it's just there. But it's frustrating sometimes to see I just wish that networking meetings would be a lot healthier offerings.

It's so funny, isn't it, because I was telling James, before we did the podcast to talk to you that I am reduced my sugar quite a lot a while back, and yet still brought cakes for big celebration, office for meetings for other people. And I'm baffled. I couldn't tell you why I did that, but I know that it was just so hard wired as a routine. So it's it can be really hard to change, right? And I guess there's actually probably quite a lot of people out there who'd like to improve their nutrition or their diet and their related health. Why do you think it is so hard, and are there any general tips that can help people stick to improvements they make?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It is really difficult to make these changes because we form these habits over years, potentially. So what I would say is it's it's good to focus on just one or two small changes at a time, because any change that you make in what you eat requires a conscious effort, which will take a lot of energy in the beginning, until you eventually get used to it and it forms habits, which means that it's an unconscious kind of non effort. So a lot of these kind of fad diets, or quite extreme diets, require a lot of changes all at once, and it's just too much to do, and they're not sustainable. So I always say to my clients, just focus on one or two and work with them to decide what it is they're going to focus on, and just make small changes, and it will gradually build up.

That's really helpful, and it's hard sometimes because you just. Decide you're going to do something about it, and you want to fix everything. But sometimes fixing one or two things is a really great starting point to sort of set you on the road to success. I guess you mentioned earlier briefly, like a couple of sort of the I don't, I really don't want to use the word trends, but more common specific diets. One of those recently, particularly in the UK, has been a vegan diet, which seems to be, well, certainly from what I see on the high street, catered for a lot more than it used to be. And seems, I seem to know more people who have it, anecdotally, what's a vegan diet? Is it? Is it a healthy thing? Should we? Should we all just be eating more veg anyway?

Yeah. Well, like any diet, vegan diet can be really healthy or it can actually be really unhealthy. So I think any diet that is restrictive in terms of cutting out food groups increases the risk of nutrient deficiencies. And with a vegan diet, you are cutting out all meat, fish, eggs, dairy, which are really these are foods that are nutrient dense and contribute to a huge range of nutrients that the body can absorb really easily. So I think it's definitely possible to have a healthy, balanced vegan diet that provides all the nutrients that you need, but it does require good awareness of key nutrients that may be more difficult to obtain in a vegan diet, but yeah, it definitely can be healthy. And I think we definitely need to eat more fruit and vegetables and plant based foods, so pulses and grains and lentils. So yeah, I think a vegan diet is not necessarily for everyone. There are some people who are just not genetically suited to a vegan diet. So it's important to find the right diet for you, and what you eat doesn't have to be labeled, I don't think, but definitely more plant based foods we should be kind of focusing on for healthier eating.

That's really helpful. Thank you. The other one, I think, is we've got a nutritionist in the house. The other thing I'm really interested in is I'm trying to make the best choices I can as often as possible, which is kind of my approach to it, because I know it's like you said, it's so just, it's a hardness, constant state. But I I'm constant. I'm often sort of faced in the supermarket between the choice between organic or things that are not labeled organic. And I'm, if I'm really brutally honest, I'm not 100% sure I understand if, if, if it matters, and why it might, why it might matter, and whether it's healthier for me. Is that something that you could share your thoughts on?

Yeah, sure. So organic is basically food that's grown or produced without the use of artificial chemicals, hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified there, there are some studies that have found higher levels of vitamins and minerals in organic crops, which sounds great. However, there's also studies that found the opposite to that, lower levels of vitamins and minerals in organic crops. So looking at it from a nutritional point of view, there's not actually any significant or notable nutritional benefits from eating organic over non organic foods. Organic obviously is more expensive, and not everyone can afford it, so you shouldn't feel bad if you can't afford it. So yeah, if you want to buy organic, I would say, go for it. But I think generally, just you know, we should be eating more fruits and vegetables full stop, whether it's organic or not. So, yeah, I think something to look out for is if a company is as B Corp certified, which is quite a new way of of labeling foods. So we're getting some foods products are labeled with a carbon footprint, but that doesn't consider the whole process. So B Corp certified companies are companies that look at the biodiversity, the water loss, the greenhouse gas emissions. And I think that might be something that will become even more important in the future.

You know, we love that. Shout out. Well, one of the people we had a conversation with a little while ago, this guy called James Perry, who's one of the founders of Cook who do, who are B Corp certified into frozen food around the UK, and have hundreds of shops doing that. So very much. On, on the wagon with a beacon. That's good. Um, on the similar thing to what Jane was asking about that. I've got a couple or one, one more sort of question I want to cover, which is diet foods, right? So, like, what's the story with diet food? So there's, like, you know, reduced that this diet, that artificial. Really nervous. What? What is that all about? What does that actually do? And how does it actually benefit us? Or does it,

well, diet foods, I think it's more of like a marketing strategy. To be honest. You don't have to choose diet foods as such. You can have a healthy, balanced diet without going specifically for foods marketed as diet foods. But yeah, I mean, we need, as I say, the right balance of proteins and fats and carbohydrates and nutrients and the right amounts as well. So yeah, there's, there's, I think you can do it kind of naturally without, yeah, picking these, these diet foods, cool, cool. All right. Well, that's good to know.

So I think that kind of brings us to the end of our time, and I think we've covered a lot of things we're going to speak about. So just before we go, I just want to check in. Is there anything people can do to learn more about you and about the work that you do and your project? Yeah, sure. I've

got a website which is just laurawinness.com which has got all my contact details on there. And, yeah, you can always find me on social media, at the usual places. So Facebook, Instagram, Twitter chat. By the way, you said you do a regular Twitter chat. When do you do that? Yeah, it

has been monthly for a while. We've had a break over the summer, and we'll be starting up again, doing it kind of BI monthly now, I think alternating it with Zoom, networking calls for nutritionists, so we're trying something new.

Okay, well, good, all right, that's it. So just thank you very much for your time. It's been a pleasure chatting to

you. Thank you very much, and it's been my first ever podcast experience. So thanks for making it such an enjoyable experience, an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thanks so much, Laura.

Okay, so you were back in the room with us. That was our conversation with Laura about nutrition. I thought we covered some really interesting stuff there. And the impact of nutrition on us as working beings is pretty powerful. I thought there was some interesting stuff in there. Jane, are there any areas that you want to reflect on we touched on, or any sort of personal reflections on nutrition that you'd like to share? Yeah,

I think, I think it's a really interesting one, because, like you mentioned at the beginning, it's definitely becoming more of a thing in workplaces. And I guess there's, there's a couple of things I want to mention and just get your thoughts on really so I used to work in a in an office, and now I work from home, and what I've really noticed is how what I eat and what I need to eat, or what I find, you know, most helpful to eat, has changed since I worked from home. And one of the things, yeah, and one of the things that's really struck me is that I ate my meals when I worked in, when I commuted. I ate my meals based entirely on, like, what when I could eat. So I had to have my breakfast before eight o'clock because I had to leave the house before eight o'clock to get to work on time. And I couldn't have my dinner until after seven o'clock because I didn't get home till after, right. Yeah. And it struck me that for about a year after I worked from home, I stuck to that no reason whatsoever. Yeah. Okay. And now my, my eating times would bear no resemblance, I think, to that. So I now have I get up with, with my partner when she goes to work, and I'll have a small coffee and maybe a piece of fruit, but then I will have a proper breakfast, like a proper breakfast, about half 10, which is almost like a brunch. Yeah, it is. It's quite that. And it will be, it will be a proper meal. It'll be probably my bigger meal until dinner, and then I won't have lunch, but I will have, like, an early afternoon sort of substantial snack. I would describe it as. So I might have, like a poached egg on toast or something like that. Okay, and it strikes me how much of the sort of, the way that we feed ourselves, and how at the times and the types of so I quite often have a massive salad for breakfast, and I know that that's not considered normal, but when you're how strange, but it is quite strange, isn't it? But without doubt, it makes me feel great for the day. I don't feel like I'm way down. I don't, you know, I feel like I've straight away, bang out the gates. I've eaten the things that my body needs. And you just couldn't do that. If you commuted, you couldn't do that because, you know, it, or at least it would be very hard to do that, because the energy of, like, physically going to work. Yeah, I was gonna say your energy use is different, isn't it? Yeah,

I'd be super hungry. So, yeah, it just struck me that working from home really changes how you think about food.

Yeah. I mean, I've noticed that I'm certainly eating a bit earlier in the evenings. And like you, my breakfast has shifted outwards. But I eat my breakfast now at about 915 but I tend to get up about six. So that's, you know, three hours into a day I'll have my breakfast. It sounds like you've kind of found your rhythm, or found your your sort of needs. Well, you see, I

don't know, it's interesting, isn't it? It's, don't know whether it's I found my rhythm, but like you say, you need different energy at different times when you're working from home, because you don't have a sort of big, burly commute into central London. So you don't need that energy to sort of be on top of that. And because quite often, first thing in the morning I don't see anyone, I work on something that's sort of sort of thinky, if you like, then I don't need the same kind of energy to be perky and peppy and all of that sort of thing. So I don't know if it's so much that I found what works for me, or if the way that the nutrition you need obviously changes depending on what you're doing with your day, yeah,

yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's um, it's yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Um, I had a couple bits to reflect on as well that popped up in my mind over that conversation, and a few things stuck out to me. One was around the points raised around hydration and the fact that our sort of cognitive function falls off as we become marginally dehydrated, even before we feel thirsty. I thought that was really interesting. And then another sort of personal reflection for me is about my use of sugar, and I know that I draw on sugar and I'll do things like I'll have a can of Coke or I'll eat chocolate when I'm going into something where I feel I need that sort of that rush of energy to sustain me or to spike me through something. So that's a bit of a reflection. But I also know that I crash after that, and my sort of brain functioning does decline. I'm more lethargic, I can be grumpy and all that stuff that any parent will know he's got children, but have eaten too much. And then the other little, slight reflection on sugars and stuff is, when I go through periods of not eating sugars, what I'll do is I'll then eat a piece of fruit and be like, Mmm, pudding. Fruit tastes like pudding, you know, because you're what you're used to changes in terms of sugar. So I think it is clearly possible to shift away from that sort of dependence on sugar in your coffee and, you know, colas and chocolates and all that stuff, and get the same sort of taste hit of sugar from from natural sugars.

So I think I've mentioned before, I gave up sugar. I've done it a couple of times. Now, I've done it three times, I think, and without question, aside from the what can only be described as incredibly moody period of a couple of days in food tastes completely different. So when I've given up sugar, and when I give up sugar, I give up fruit for a very short period as well. So I really, I'm trying to really, when I do it, what I'm trying to do is get rid of my sweet tooth. That's the easiest way to describe it. It's not really. And then I'm sort of start including some of the less sweet fruits back in and what's extraordinary is it's amazing how you can taste sugar and everything when you come back. So I can't eat ketchup when I've given up sugar for a while because it's just sickly sweet to me. I can't suddenly chocolate, any kind of chocolate under About 85% is really unpleasant. Grapes and melon, which are two of my favorite things, way too sweet. If I've given up sugar from it in the last couple of weeks, they're just, they're just way, way too sweet to them much more happy eating, like, I don't know, some maybe not too sweet berries, I'm much more comfortable that, but as soon as I start eating grapes now, and I think the other thing that's interesting is, for those of us who are a certain age, we've noticed that fruit has got lots sweeter, and that's to do with the way that crops have been managed over the years. But it it's definitely for those of us over a certain age, we've really noticed it. And I certainly, from my experience, you can do it. You absolutely can do it. Maintaining it is really tough, because all it takes is, I don't know, I had like, a square of my partner's chocolate yesterday, which was like a dairy milk, and it wasn't that nice like to me, because it was very sweet. But at the same time, within about 20 minutes, I was in the cupboard looking to see what else we had, of course. Yeah, interesting. Okay, any other thoughts from

you? No, I just, I guess, I guess the whole episode just made me think a little bit more again, which I haven't done in a while, about what I do eat and don't eat, and what when I drink coffee and when I don't, and like you say about sort of getting the hit, I think you described it as like, when you need that kick for an episode of, how much of that I wonder has become habitual for me, certainly with caffeine versus versus how much a big pint of water would give me the same kick, actually, in truth. Yeah.

Well, interesting. All right. Well, let us leave it there. That was our conversation, all about nutrition. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be back in another week. So it's goodbye from me and goodbye from me. Hi.