The Secret to Happiness is BALANCE

What if the simplest path to a happier life is the one right down the middle? We grew up with a Spanish saying neither too much nor too little and today we unpack how that mantra can guide what you eat, how you train, what you watch, and even how you love. No perfection traps, no shame spirals just a practical way to avoid extremes and build a life you can sustain.

We start with food and the tiny habits that quietly steer your day: the quick candy bar on your commute, the fear of a spoonful of sugar, the way one mindful swap changes the course for weeks. From there we move into fitness and show how consistency beats fanaticism. Four days of strength, daily steps, and mobility you actually do will outlast any all-or-nothing plan. We talk dopamine, guardrails, recovery after injuries, and why “moderate” is different for a desk worker than for someone on their feet all day.

Then we tackle the digital pull toward obsession. Algorithms reward intensity and make extremes feel normal. That’s where self-moderation online matters: curating your feed, adding diverse voices, and stepping away when content narrows your world. We share personal stories about cultural pressure around treats, the “Goldilocks” effect in choices, and how moderation protects relationships by reducing unrealistic expectations. The through line is simple: choose the middle path that fits your season of life, respect your limits, and let steady effort compound.

If you enjoyed this conversation, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a gentler path, and leave a quick review so others can find it. Want more? Subscribe on YouTube and come say hi on Instagram at GetReal with the English Sisters.

Transcript

Moderation As A Family Motto

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Moderation is a key. Is it really the key to a good life? I think it's been the key to our success in life. Definitely. Well, to us living a happy and what we would consider a good life. A good life, absolutely. I don't know about you, but listen in. Listen in to this week's podcast episode of Get Real With There. English is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. So what was it our mum used to say? We know that saying only too well. She used to say ni tanto, ni tanta. Yeah. She was Spanish. So she taught us moderation, isn't she? She did definitely teach us moderation because she would say that so often. Every time. That it's like in our subconscious minds, isn't it? It's like ni tanto, which means neither too much or too little. Or too little. So yeah, it's like the the the the moderation is the key. The middle. The middle ground. Yeah. And so if we were gonna say, oh mum, I hate this, I never want to study that subject again, she would always say, Ah, ni tanto, ni tan calvo. Try to think about it a moment. Maybe this was one day was a bad day, you know. She would say that to me a lot. Yeah, but I'm thinking about the expression that we looked up and it said neither with neither with two wigs or without any. Because calvo is a Spanish word and it actually means bald. So for those of you who don't speak Spanish, it means that if it it literally, there's yes, there's another expression which says ni calvo ni con dos pelucas, which is hilarious. It means neither bald or with two wigs. So it's always exaggeration because if you're bald and you want to have one wig, that's okay. But you're not gonna wear two wigs on your head because you're gonna look harder. And it was just funny, yeah, it made us laugh there. We were back there in the kitchen having a cup of tea. Yeah, that was funny.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

That was funny, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So, really, yeah, it's about moderation. Um, and I really do think that it's one of the keys to uh uh to the well I'm always spitting out the phase, yeah. I know, I know because I I told it to my daughter the other day. Really?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

She saw she was on about some podcast she listened to about dieting and uh exercise doesn't work and all this.

Food, Candy Bars, And Small Course Corrections

Fitness Routines Without Extremes

Subjective Moderation And Safety Limits

Dopamine, Doctors, And Listening To Your Body

Algorithms, Rabbit Holes, And Obsession

Binge Culture Versus Balanced Choice

SPEAKER_01 2:37

I know, and so I thought, no, no, exercise does work, and it and calorie counting works, and everything works in moderation. Yeah, let's not let's not be extremist about this. Yes, it's not go to you know, it's like, oh my god, you know, like one person can have so much candy and so much chocolate and think nothing nothing of it, and another person has one spoon of sugar and freak out. Oh my gosh, that's a classical case when you'd say, Hey, ni tanto, ni tan calvo, come on, chill. Let's find a medium here. You don't have to, you know, eat three Mars bars, but you don't have to freak out if you've had a little bit of a little tiny bit of sugar today. Well, it can be one Mars bars. Oh, one Marsbar, yeah. It's not something you're gonna be doing every day. I don't like them much now. I don't know if we've changed the chocolate's gone down, apparently. Really? Yeah, I mean, we're not sponsoring this in any case, nothing to do with us, nothing to do with us, yeah. But apparently, yeah, that's the case. Anyway, yeah, I mean, yeah, again, if you do have a candy bar and you have a chocolate bar, okay, let's not make such a big deal about it. No, you know, you're not having one every day. Yeah, it happened. Okay, so what happened to me once you started eating one a day. I know, I remember, yeah. And then you were saying, Hey, I'm not fitting into my skirts anymore. What am I doing? And I was thinking, it's not because you're buying the chocolate bar every time you get on the train, is it? Do you remember? We were so naive, we were so young, and then you said, What chocolate? I got that chocolate bar you're buying every morning, and then you take it with you. And yes, definitely. It it so is you weren't you weren't even thinking. And then you got back to a normal way instead of being yeah, exactly, straight away, yeah, straight away. So that was that was pretty easy, yeah. So that was I don't know, yeah. You've taken me down this funny little tangent now, but yeah, definitely it was funny. Yeah, moderation. I do think we have lived in moderation most of our lives. Whereas it comes to food. But I think I'm thinking about fitness because I I was talking to my daughter the other day, and like I'm on this program now, she's put me on it's pretty tough. But she is motivational. I remember like when we first used to go to the gym when we would go every day, but we would just do about an hour there. I mean, they used to laugh at the other people because they would be real fanatics. What we would consider would be more extreme in those days. But we always used to do it in moderation very much. We did get better. That I wonder if that kind of moderation was a bit too little moderation because I I never really felt as if I pushed myself enough. I would always like stop when I'd start getting a bit sweaty and things like that. And yeah, and then we go and have a cup of tea, no, because it had this nice bar at the gym. And then do you remember what happened when they closed the bar at the gym? We said we're not coming here anymore. And then we thought, oh dear. You know, is this really what we should be saying then? Why are we coming? Is it for the coffee and the chats? Or is it but really it was for the coffee and the chats because that's where we developed our first book as well, once again. No, but it was just for it was for the fitness as well. Because when my kids take the Mickey out of me saying I didn't do anything, I did, because I still still went on the treadmill for 20 minutes. Yeah, and that's when the moderation and we used to go to the Pilates whole hour class. You couldn't get out of that. Yeah, you had to do it. She would wash us like a hawk. Some of the other classes are a bit cheeky, and we used to sneak out after half time. Yeah, if you go at the back, yeah, you could get out, but but not with a Pilates. We were forced to do that, so let's not say that that was that was no, but anyway, I'm thinking because like now I'm on this program when I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to do well, not trying, I am doing you are doing like a weight weight training programme, and it's four days a week, and then the rest of the days of the week, I've got this thing thing now that counts as steps to be a bit more active, so I'm doing walking now. Someone else might say that was extreme, and you're getting obsessed because you're walking every day and you're doing uh the all this you know, weight training every day. But I for me in this case, I don't think that is obsessive because I think now looking at the balanced way of life, considering how sedentary we are most of the day, we sit down most of the day, we're not doing active things all day. Maybe if you had an active job, you're working in the forest or something on a farm or doing something, obviously, you wouldn't need to do that, and it would be obsessive, you'd be exhausted. No, you can't, no, but totally with our lifestyles now, we need to do something like that to keep strong and fit. Whereas someone else might look at you and say, Oh, are you getting a bit obsessed? We know why you be why are you doing all this? This is too much. Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, yeah. But for me, that's been moderate because obviously when I'm doing it, I'm careful I don't put too much. So, what you're saying is moderation is subjective, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it's not objective, it's subjected to the person. So it depends on what stage of life you're going through. Exactly. Yeah, but I think you that you have to put like a a safety safety things in there because uh you can get carried away. Some people can, especially if anything we get carried away the other way of not doing enough, of not wanting to do enough, but uh some people get you know more obsessive about it and want to do push themselves more and more, and then that's where it can lead to problems, injuries, well you don't want to be obsessive about anything, really. Yeah, I mean the word obsessive already describes that there may be something that's not quite right there. Yeah, you want to go towards your your goal, your goal, and say, Okay, I'm gonna train now because I want to train because it makes me feel good, and you remember how good you feel afterwards, so that motivates you to start because at the beginning I don't think you're really that crazy about starting, but you remember how good you feel. That's how that's what gets you going, isn't it? Well, it's the dopamine you get. The dopamine, yeah. So that's what happens to me as well. Before going on the treadmill, I might think, oh, try and make my little excuses in my head of why I don't want to start, but then when I'm on it and I actually enjoy it. Yeah, I enjoy, yeah, and I just do walking, so I'm not into all your weight training at the moment. No, but also because for health reasons I've told you not to, yeah, exactly. So yeah, yeah. Moderation again. Yeah, I listen to it. Moderation, you listen, you listen to what your your health care but your doctor tells you. So it's not like I also after my eye operation, I was very careful. You know, I waited for uh the right retinal detachment. I was waiting for two, I was waiting for, you know, it's okay to go ahead. But yeah, obviously, I think that whatever stage you are in your life, you have to take into consideration what people are telling you. You know, that's where you have to be a moderator as well. You have to listen. What's going on? What are people telling me? Like they told us we were obsessed. I remember when I went to England. Oh, that's a bit obsessive. Oh my god, are you getting obsessed about doing gym every day now? What's going on, Violeta? Really? And I said, No, I just enjoy it and it uh helps me feel better. It helps me feel better and it helps me keep keep in shape and keep healthy and flexible. Yeah, get rid of my backache because I have backache at the time. You haven't got any of that anymore, have you? No. You really have become stronger and stronger, stronger and stronger day by day, day by day with this training. Yeah, it's been brilliant. And so it's it's uh it's a question, yeah, because also when you're doing like weight training, you have to eat properly. You have to eat it. Yeah, you get yeah, that's so you get more savvy, more veggies, more protein, healthier, less sugars because you think, well, it's I still eat sugar, but what what's it gonna give me? You're gonna because it's moderation. You don't want to deprive yourself of a cake or whatever if you feel like you're a couple of biscuits. I do think that moderation has been the key to success for many, many years and years in this world, but like now, today it it's gone a little bit wonky, hasn't it? You know, there's there's a bit of expression. Social media takes you down that, like like the podcast episode we did about or we're gonna and we did like just saying that it takes you out down these rabbit holes because you'll look one thing up or it'll hear you. The other day it heard us talking about I don't even want to mention it because it'll come up, and and it immediately it feeds you all these things. You mean the algorithms fed you fed me all these things I didn't want to see, and they were actually horrific. Uh and and I I say I don't want I don't want to see these things, and it was just because we were talking about a client of us who who had this problem, and it's it's it's it's scary because you're thinking if someone is in that uh has got that eating disorder or whatever, whatever it is, they're gonna be going down this thing which saying, Oh no, it's a good thing for me, it's been amazing, blah blah blah blah blah. You're gonna hear lots of things. And you're gonna hear it and you're gonna think you're almost gonna get a little bit skewed and think, is this this has become normal? Because this is what I'm seeing all the time. I'm just seeing this. Yeah, I'm just being fed this, so this is normal, it's healthy kind of. So you mean if you're an obsessive like uh person who who just does too much exercise, you're gonna go down that uh rabbit hole of just focusing on that all day long, yeah, and on the nutrition side of it, and then it becomes unhealthy unhealthy, it becomes a problem there because you can't socialise normally. Your whole life revolves around the training, the eating. You can't go out with your friends because they might want to eat something that's not right for your training programme. Because so, yeah, it can become once again, yeah, that there's moderation again. It would be nice to be able to live in moderation, but really, I mean, today's world I think is all about the opposites excessive. You know, you either watch one show, you don't normally do like even watch TV shows now, they call it binge watching. I do it myself. I watch and I want to watch an entire series. I mean, it what when we were little, do you remember what it was like? You had to wait a whole week. You know, was that moderation? Was that just frustration? I doubt that was frustration, but it also kept you away from it. You were less time on the screen because then you go off and read a book or go and do something. I didn't have you read a book, yeah. That's you would definitely read a book, and I remember reading a lot. We'd go to the library. I like reading, yeah, but no, other people might not. They might watch what's next on the tell. Uh just watch any old programme. Instead of being able to choose what you watch, you just get fed what they want you to watch. Yes, yeah, that was horrific as well. Yeah, I mean, I do love it that you can choose, yeah, that nowadays it's there are the I thought that's yeah, that's horrific. It's so boring, yeah. Just being just being literally fed, you know, and just being hypnotized with whatever is on their agenda. Yeah, whatever they had to offer that they have to just watch again and again and again. Usually loads of time they put the same thing on again as well. Thinking boring. Yeah, very boring. Now there's more choice. You can do gaming, you can do television, you can read. If you use your moderation skills now, if you become your own moderator, you have a lot of choice to be able to choose something that's good for you at that point. Yeah, yeah, it's just like the content online moderators when they can when they don't allow the the scams and all the things that are going to come through, the trolls. You know, if you do the same with your own mind, I think there could be that could be really brilliant, you know. Your your your own mind's model to where you're maybe doing something excessive. You might notice that you're drinking too much or something that's excessive or too little, or too much too little, because ni tanto ni tanta but you know, either too much or drinking too little. No, I'm not talking about drink I'm not talking about something, I bet you're all laughing. No, I'm not talking about drinking. There was a point where I didn't used to drink anything and I used to think I should drink a little bit. Really? Oh, yeah, just to be a bit more sociable. Because I didn't drink anything. Well, I thought it drinkers, but I mean, you know, because Yeah. Because your husband's an English family. Because here in Italy, even though it's a land of the wine and the plenty, you know, it's really common for people not to drink. In the north they do, yeah, they have the whole thing. And there might be a bit more pressure around. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I I can't talk about that. No. Yeah, I know Rome and that, you know, the area we're in is really quite common for people. No, but sometimes I used to think, okay, well, what if you because I used to like wine and and then and beer. I thought, well, you can have the old beer, come on. Yeah, don't be so bad. No, because I used to think, oh, it's got calories in it. What's the point? I might as well eat a piece of cake or something else since that's really that I prefer. There's no point in putting extra calories on for something I'm not going to enjoy that much. Right, yeah. So I suppose I was moderating there. What do I prefer? Preferred. You were choosing. Yeah, choosing something I preferred a bit more. Yeah, and then you had the peer pressure, obviously, yeah. Like maybe from Yeah, but I think you should be able to say no. That's there now. I mean, now it's different. Now it's different, I think. It's not that different, I would say. But now, of course, you can say no to anything. You don't have to be pressured into doing anything you don't want to do. You don't feel like you have to. No, which is great, really. Yeah, but yeah, no, do you know what you were pressured more into here in Italy? Like if you said you didn't like gelato. I mean, really, no, honestly. It's a bit of a stigma for me because you weren't crazy. Do you remember? I mean, even now today, if you could jam I don't want wine, I don't want not bothered with a candy or whatever, no thanks. That's fine. Oh, water, aqua, they love it. Here, give you any aqua you want. Water, water. They're very happy. But then when it comes to the gelato, if you say, let's all go out for a gelato, and then you're saying, Oh no, I don't think what you're not eating it. It's like shock, horror, and and sadness, and you have to say, No, you haven't tried this one. We're going to the best one, the best gelato. I mean, there is pressure there. I could be fine with it because I was so against it. I didn't like it at all. It was too cold. Yeah, you really, I mean, that's I do remember it being a bit antisocial. No, a bit. I mean, you weren't really, it was quite because I didn't hang out with Italians that much. No, yeah, because since my husband's Italian and he has all Italian friends, just as well. I love it. With your husband, it was fine, but yeah, obviously, if I when I do remember when we when we would go together, he would say, but don't prend the gelatin or something. Still today, if I say Violetta doesn't like gelatin like a sad face, does come on. Oh my god, what's wrong with that? That's very sad.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Why doesn't she like gelatin?

Becoming Your Own Content Moderator

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I don't know why I don't like it. I mean, I do like it. I'm not mad about it, so there's no point. But when I was little, I didn't like it. Because I remember you then I really struggled with it because it was freezing. Yeah, do you remember the first time I actually had a taste of it when we went to Switzerland with the with our uncle bought me? I'll never forget it. For me, it was like the first time I'd ever tasted, I think, real gelato. We went to Switzerland, he gave me that lovely that glass full of I can still remember I remember it as well because it was a big experience. It was a big yeah. We went to this like six or seven yeah, restaurant or something, and he gave oh my god, it was like da-da. Because he worked there. I see, because you worked at the bar. Oh so sweet. I didn't remember that. He worked at the bar, so he took us there for a little. Well, he paid for it. But it wasn't just like a normal ice cream that you know there's a proper one in the in the in the glass glass. And the cones and five or six balls of ice cream and fresh cream and a cherry or something. It's all part, and I thought, my god, this looks beautiful. And when I tasted it, I thought this tastes beautiful. This is so cold. Yeah, it's like a kinesthetic thing for you, isn't it? It has to be soft and warm.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah, the fake ice cream, I was gonna say. Then that the Whippies ice cream, the 1990s.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

The one that used to come round in the van. That was that because it was soft and it wasn't as cold. Yes, yes, yes, and I used to like that. Yeah, that used to be delicious. I wasn't as mad about it as you, but I did used to chocolate bit in the god now. I would dream about that. Yeah, I can still remember it now, and the smell of that ice cream van. God, I can remember it. I can remember it really well. The noise, the music, the Sunday afternoons, just kind of like thinking, oh, the ice cream van's gonna come now. A little music, God.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Well, you never had any money for that.

Social Pressure, Culture, And Treats

SPEAKER_01 20:01

We were poor, we didn't really have enough money for that to buy these luxuries. But once a miracle happened, I mean, it was hilarious. I mean, sometimes mum would say, but do you think do you know the problem with us is that we were shy, so we wouldn't go begging our mum for it. And we used to kind of know she was poor. We knew we could be able to be able to be able to do it. The family came from suffering. We knew there wasn't that much money to go around, but we're not just poor, really, because mum mum used to spend a lot of money on uh fruit and real food and cheese and meat. We always had enough, yeah. It wasn't really that she was poor, it's just that she didn't consider that those kind of things she would consider more like something that was a bit unhealthy, I think, and wasn't that much of a luxury. Yeah, we shouldn't be able to do it. No, it's because sometimes she would buy us cakes and things when we would go out. But I remember at that age she would be more likely to want to make us a cake. Exactly. She'll make the apple pie than instead of letting the ice cream van come along and just give us a pound or whatever it was. It was more expensive as well than the ice. Of course it was more expensive. I think it was one pound for one ice cream. Not when we were tiny, it was like 10p or something. It was 10p. Anyway, that one time. Oh my god, we call it the money tree now because we went, we heard the ice cream van, we went running out. We I don't know why. We would always cream. Yeah, we would always go running up the street. Even watch just to watch the other kids get the ice cream, you know, it's quite sad, really. But we used to think nothing of it. I think just enjoy the smell. I don't know, that's what we would do. We would run up and then watch it. They would give it to us now. I think people are kinda. I do know it was those times, wasn't it? It's like the 70s.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

If you saw two little kids come up now without any money and just staring like with the dog with eyes, the the ice cream man, he was.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Used to it, so he just ignored you. No, but I mean I wonder if the ice cream man or lady would do that now. They'd be kinder. I don't know, it's a business, isn't it? I suppose they see so many little children staring up at them. Mmm. I mean, what can you do then? You still see as many now. Well, I don't even know if they exist now. They do exist now. Oh, they do. Oh but they tend to go more towards uh like cities. Do you see them around shopping centres and things? I don't know if they still go around the little streets, but I think sometimes they do. Anyway, we went running up. All the other kids got their ice cream. It was just about time for the man to start getting in. I remember he was just getting away. He said, all right, getting away from there, and he was gonna go back and in the driver's seat. When all this money falls from this big I think was it an oak tree? This I don't know what tree it was. From above our heads, money falls on the ground like pennies. I mean, I just remember staring. Screaming, screaming, we're rich, we're rich. And we started picking up this makes me feel like crying now. Picking up these pennies. And then the ice cream man, he just but then do you know that we didn't even go and buy the ice cream. We ran to Mum to ask if it was okay if we bought one. And I remember telling Mum, we're rich, you know, with all this money that we had, and then yes, can we get an ice cream with it? And then we ran back up. I mean, he was still waiting for us. Must have been terribly sweet. And then for many years we had no idea what happened to them, where that money had come from, the the so-called money tree, because other times we would wait under the money tree. You know, they say money doesn't fall from trees. Well, it did when we were little. It doesn't now. It doesn't now. But we we waited under the money tree for many times after that, you know, thinking it didn't come. And then when we were a little bit older, I remember telling mum and she said, darlings, it must have been the lady who lived upstairs from that house. She must have one that had the Siamese cats. Yeah, with the Siamese, she must have thrown her pennies out of the window. She must have seen you a day in, day out, waiting for this ice screen van, and she threw it, which is terribly sweet. But yeah, thank you, lady with the Siamese cats. If you're still around, yeah. We still remember that today, and you did make our childhood a bit of a fairy tale because we used to read all the fairy tales. So and it would happen in the fairy tales.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

I wouldn't have fairy tale, maybe it came because other people used to do the same thing. I don't know.

Childhood Stories And Money From The “Tree”

SPEAKER_01 24:39

But in the fairy tales, you would read but then there, I think, in moderation as well. If mum had been a bit more savvy, like should be been been a bit maybe more aware of us and said, Hey, do you want an ice cream every now and again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was rather extreme in that sense. Or she would have could have said, You've got a little bit of pocket money, do you want to save it up for an ice cream? But she kind of made us think that going to buy ice creams and that was kind of a waste of money because I always remember thinking we had to save our pocket money. Whereas my happy said he would get his pocket money and run down the shop and buy loads of sweets with it. No, no, that was not looked well upon. That was condemned, yeah. Yeah, so I think she used to say need to need, but in some some ways, some areas extreme. Yeah, she could it could have benefited from her. Yeah, obviously, those are the mistakes that I I thought mistakes, I mean, she was a darling, but yes. That I tried not to do as a parent, and so did you. Yeah, be more become be more aware that the kids are kids, you know, that you you've got to save, yes. It's great to teach children how to save, but also to teach them that it's enjoyable to make the most of your money, and you've saved all week now. Off you go. Yeah, it seems bad saying that now because another time she would tell she would encourage us like to spend our pocket money on things that we like when we would go. I remember once we went to Venice, she encouraged us to buy a little purse with it. It's not as if she was saying never spend it and you're having to save it all the time. A little purse.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

It's funny that you said it and sort of like a little purse. We're recalling all our childhood now, remembering it. Yeah, that's funny. I think we wanted to buy the person who would tell us about it. Were you sure? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Anyway, the uh the thing is that yeah, she was very generous and she would always give us lots of money, especially when we were older and that. I just think she wasn't that aware because she used to think it was so bad, like sweets, and that was so bad. She used to think the kids used to eat far too much candy, it wasn't in her culture being Spanish, so it's also a culture thing. Spanish kids hardly ever ate, they didn't eat candy. No, uh full stop, they would eat churros, which was that those fried, these like fried donuts. Well no, what she used to say, she used to make sweets, she said. Yeah, there was still both sugar. Yeah, but very rarely. Yeah, come on, yeah, once a year. Eat sweets maybe at Christmas or something. She would always make us lots of cakes and things like that. There was the house was always full of cakes. Every day we'd come back, there'd be a cake cake. Oh, yeah, she as long as and chocolate, she used to like us to eat chocolate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Like chocolate squares, lots of chocolate, lots of bread and chocolate. That would be considered like a healthy snack. She wasn't wrong though, then again, because it was simple bread.

Saving, Spending, And Parental Balance

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I mean, what I mean is now if you're listening, don't think you know she was uh she was really hard on us or anything. It's just what she considered me, she just thought maybe she just thought it wasn't important. I don't think she even liked it. She's it's she didn't like ice cream to tell you the truth. That's why. Because if she like she liked cakes, like she probably would have gotten it. Because like me for my kids, I love ice cream, so I would always, whenever you pick them up from school, do you want to go to the bike get gill out? Or sometimes they say no, and I go didn't like it much either, did you? Not interested. When they were older, they liked a bit more when they came to Italy. Yeah, a little bit more, yeah, then they would like it, yeah. But no, you're right. Yeah, so it depends maybe on the preference, but you you know, there again, if you're moderating yourself, you can think, well, maybe that's something that I don't like, but hey, you know, others might. Others might, so yeah, that feels so a nice. I think it's a nice thing to come to that conclusion because also in with I was just thinking now, things that divide a lot, like political views. Exactly. Don't be so extreme, you know, go towards the middle. And unfortunately, like all the social media and the news and everything does tend to be very extreme. It's either one or the other. It's either very right wing or very left wing. You don't often get that that that middle ground, which which in the end it's the middle ground, is what you know. Yeah, absolutely. So I I mean marketers know that all too well. It's a Goldilocks thing, isn't it? Yeah, when she tr tries all the different porridges and all the different chairs, and then you find one that's just right. That's usually the middle ground, isn't it? Well, I don't know about Goldilocks, it was a small one, I think. Because she was a little thing. But in the in in marketing, they they they place a product very expensive and then one at the lower end of the scale, and then one in the middle. So you have the middle range, and that's the one that gets the most purchased purchase. Yeah, absolutely. But it's nice for the consumer likes to have the idea that there's a it's a top and a and a and a cheaper one, and then oh no, I'll just go for that. Just for the middle. I'd probably do that myself actually without realising. I think we probably all do it, yeah. We all do it. Because you think, oh, the one in the middle is neither too excessive nor too unless you save up for something really special, because normally it is a middle, it is a middle one, so for us anyway, but we are moderators, yeah. Exactly, yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

No, dear me, yeah, we are indeed. We did grow up at that.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Our friend would tell us that when we would say we were moderators, because we would have a piece of here. They used to when we first came to they had this delicious pizza tag that you could cut into squares, and you'd just go to a little shop and you'd go in and they'd cut what they have, fresh pizza, like at 11 o'clock, we'd have the lemonsies, we'd get a piece of pizza, just scuff it down, and then have lunch later.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Of course. And our friends say, Where'd you put it all? Because she couldn't, she wouldn't, she couldn't conceive that.

Goldilocks Logic And The Middle Option

SPEAKER_01 30:40

She says, Far too many, you're eating far too much. Yeah, but then she always struggled more with her weight than because she was more excessive afterwards, yeah. So maybe there was that one piece of pizza and the and the and the lunch or whatever it was, but then it wasn't like what you know, like the the portions for the lunch were smaller. The piece of pizza was one, it wasn't three pieces. It's again, it's about okay, yeah, you're not gonna be like maybe super in shape if you eat that way, but you were just normal, you know, a medium, just happy for what you to be in your skin, as to say, yeah. So it wasn't like unhappy about it. We were just normally happy about it. Yeah, and couldn't be. She was normally quite unhappy about it. Very unhappy, yeah. Because she might not eat that piece of beef, but then she'd get so hungry that she might eat a massive portion of something else. Something else, or yeah, binge on something usually, yeah, because I used to know her very well, yeah. That is the case, yeah. So that's once again, even like what you say, even things like eating, like food, moderation, but not only food ideas, but relationships as well, really. Because if you're if you're like a bit too extreme in your relationships, it means you can also expect too much as well, like of your your the your loved one, and that's not really good, is it? Because then you're you know, you're gonna be always going towards me feeling more in lack, yeah. You're gonna be kind of disappointed and think, oh, they're not, you know, why didn't they understand me? Or why didn't they, you know, just come on. You've got to really be a bit, you know, moderate and think, well, maybe they didn't understand me because they're not me, and because they have a different brain, different upbringing, different stuff happened to them. Even if we live in the same home and we sleep in the same bed, for example, it doesn't mean we are one. Uh so you know, that's also a bit extreme, I think. You know, when you think your couple has to be you, yes, yes, that's extreme. Come on, it's not friends as well. Friends are different to you, and they're gonna have different opinions. It doesn't matter if they have a different opinion, that's what enriches you as well, isn't it? Exactly. What do you think? Are you going to be your own moderator? Are you already your own moderator, or do you find that you tend to go to one extreme or the other? Well, as we say, ni tanta, ni tanta bottom. There you go.

Portions, Satiety, And Everyday Balance

SPEAKER_00 33:19

See if you can learn that. Bye from the English sisters.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

And please, if you find this podcast useful and it relieves your anxiety, do come and follow us and subscribe to our YouTube channel as well. And come and say hi on Instagram at GetReal with the English Sisters or also our English sisters account. Bye bye. Bye.