The 5 Episodes You Keep Coming Back To - Recapped & Explained (Hysterectomy, Ketogenic Diet, Style & Biohacking)

The 5 Episodes You Keep Coming Back To Recapped & Explained (Hysterectomy, Keto, Style & Biohacking)

Ever wondered which episodes listeners return to most — and why? I went straight to the download data to find out. Some episodes consistently outperform the rest, and the patterns were clear: topics like hysterectomy, ketogenic diets, personal style, and biohacking are resonating again and again.

In this episode, I’m recapping and explaining the top 5 most-downloaded episodes so you can get the highlights, insights, and key takeaways without needing to listen to each one separately. 

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How to navigate hysterectomy recovery with confidence
• Practical tips on ketogenic diets for everyday life
• Ways personal style can boost confidence and wellbeing
• Easy biohacking strategies to optimise energy and health

I created this episode because I wanted to give a clear, listener-focused guide to the episodes that have already proven most valuable — saving you time while highlighting the conversations that made the biggest impact.

Start here to see why listeners keep coming back — and take the insights straight into your own life.

The Most-Downloaded Episodes (By Topic)

These episodes continue to stand out in the download data and remain some of the most listened-to conversations on the podcast (you can also find the link to my High Protein Low Sugar Guide right here too!) 

Etsy

• My High Protein, Low Carb, No Added Sugar Reset is available on Esty HERE

Hysterectomy

• 🎧 The Hysterectomy Chronicles: How to prepare, what to expect and recovery tips
  👉 Listen to the episode here 

Ketogenic Diet / Keto

• 🎧 Eating for energy: how the ketogenic diet has brought me incredible results (part 1)
   👉 Listen to the episode HERE

Ketogenic Diet / Keto

• 🎧 Eating for energy: what to eat on a ketogenic diet (part 2)
  👉 Listen to the episode HERE

Style & Confidence

• 🎧 What to wear when you don't want to wear jeans
  👉 Listen to the episode HERE]

Biohacking & Lifestyle Optimisation

• 🎧 An introduction to biohacking: 10 simple biohacks you can use every day to optimise your health and wellbeing
  👉 Listen to the episode here

Transcript

0:00

Do you ever feel that you have some of your best ideas whilst having a shower? I definitely do, and that's what happened this week. I was standing in the shower thinking to myself, I've done 55 podcast episodes now what can I do to mark this? Because I love the number five and I really wanted to celebrate the fact that I'd done 55 episodes. The reason I love the number five is that we are a family of five. We live at number five. My mum's birthday is the fifth of the month. My sister's birthday is the fifth of the month, and I was always number five on the school register. So I thought, okay, what can I do? And then I had the bright idea to go back through all of my podcast episodes and to pull the most five, listened to together and do a little summary of each so that you could take a listen to them and perhaps go back and either re-listened to them. If you've listened to them in the past and you thought, oh, that's a good one. I need to revisit that. Or if you're new here. Just as a bit of a recap of the kind of things that I've been covering since I very first started the podcast. I hope you think that's a good idea. I'm really looking forward to doing this episode. I'm very excited about it. It gives me a chance to do a little trip down memory lane to take a look back at some different areas of my life to really share what I know people have been interested in, and then if at the end of listening to this podcast episode you think, oh, this was a good idea and you'd like the next five, then I would be very happy to do that as well. So let's get started with the first episode that I wanted to share. It is called the Hysterectomy Chronicles, how to prepare, what to Expect, and recovery tips. As you might imagine, this is my most listened to episode ever, and it obviously struck a chord. In the episode, I shared my personal experience of having an abdominal hysterectomy, why it happened, how I prepared for it, what the surgery itself was like, and what recovery looked like in real life. And actually it was really fun revisiting this period in time. I mean, there were bits that were quite inconvenient. It had to be said, and there were bits that were a bit painful and a little bit of a struggle, but equally, there were some great things that came outta that period of my life as well. And the reason that I wanted to record this episode in the first place was simple. I knew there would be women listening who either had a hysterectomy coming up or were being advised to have one. Or were worrying about what it might involve or perhaps knew someone else who was about to have one. I'd had lots of messages from women on Instagram saying they were unsure, anxious, or stuck in limbo, and I wanted to offer reassurance from my perspective, which isn't a medical perspective, but just through my own personal experience of what it was like. My journey really started about 18 months earlier when I experienced some unexpected bleeding and was referred to the women's hospital here in Birmingham. Scans revealed a couple of large fibroids, and though at that time I felt completely fine. And actually when the consultant examined me, who also turned out to be a neighbor of mine and told me that I might need a hysterectomy in the future. I didn't take a blind bit of notice. I just thought he didn't know what he was talking about, which I feel a bit bad about now, but it was so outta the blue, so off my radar that I think my brain just shut down to the possibility and decided that he was the one who had got it wrong. Anyway, over time. The fibroids grew. I had a little bit of pain and eventually I was told that my uterus was the size of someone who was 16 weeks pregnant, which I thought, you know, that's fine if you are 16 weeks pregnant, but if you're not, that's quite a considerable bump to have. So I was told through all of the options, monitoring it, delaying. Or surgery, and ultimately I chose to have the hysterectomy then rather than wait and face it later under what could have been more difficult circumstances Now, emotionally, the decision took a little time to process. It wasn't about feeling less of a woman, which. I was slightly concerned it might be, but it was more about letting go of the place where my babies grew, which sounds, I don't know, maybe that sounds perfectly normal, maybe not. I don't know. But I just felt somehow that I'd let them down a little bit, and I remember having a conversation with my eldest daughter and she just reminded me that what mattered wasn't my womb, but my ability to be there and to give her a hug with both arms. She said, mom, I don't need that anymore. I've been in there. That's fine. There's other bits of you that I'd rather were intact, so just don't worry about it. And I found that really, really helpful. In the podcast episode, I talk about the lead to surgery and, how I focused on what I could control because there was so much outside of my control that I just had to find a few things that I could focus on, and that involved staying fit, eating well, resting properly, and preparing mentally. I just wanted to be in as healthier place as I could be when I went into hospital so that it made my recovery well also so that it made the surgery. And my recovery as quick as it could possibly be. That was the only thing that I had any control over. So I thought, okay, come on. Let's get on with it. And then when the day came, I felt surprisingly calm. The nurses were just astonished at how low my heart rate was because I was really quite chill about the whole thing. When it came to the surgery itself, it involved a spinal followed by a general anesthetic, and they did the incision via my previous cesarean scar. I woke up in recovery. Obviously having not been aware of a thing. I felt really safe. I felt really cared for. My pain was well managed. It was less of an issue than I thought it might be, and, I basically stayed in bed the first night I had to because I had these things that were attached to my legs that inflated and deflated presumably to prevent deep vein thrombosis. Uh, and I went home a couple of days later. So I went in on the Friday morning very early, and I was home by Sunday lunchtime. So I was there for a couple of nights from there, recovery became an exercise in patients. It has to be said, the day before my surgery, I'd run something like 10 or 13 miles and I was down to walking about a hundred meters, doubled over whilst holding my side. So it was a massive shock to the system, but I really just had to lean into it, to surrender to it and think, okay, this is going to take a while. So what can you do to enjoy it during the process? I remember watching a lot of Netflix. I had some lovely meals brought to me by my husband. I had friends come round and slowly, slowly, I just got out and about and took baby steps each day. I did bump into my consultant at one time and I told her how far I'd walked, and she was really crossed with me because I'd walked too far and she said I needed to rein it back or else bits might start falling out of me. So I took her advice and was very good. I think everyone expected me to want to get out there and back on my feet and running as soon as possible, but I knew that I had to take it slowly if I wanted a really good recovery. And I think probably the reason I knew that is because with our third child, i'd had a cesarean and I took my recovery slowly there as well, or as slowly as you can when you've got three children. And I knew that rest was key to getting back on my feet as quickly as possible. So everything followed a bit of a rhythm. It was do a little, have a rest, go out briefly, go back to bed, chat with some friends, have a rest. And I think one of the biggest lessons from this episode is how much we can achieve from bed and how important true rest can be, especially for women who are used to pushing through. I made a conscious decision to step away from work, email, and social media for several weeks, and just protected my energy and the capacity that I had and poured all of that into healing. Small rituals became really important. Getting dressed when I could. Putting a bit of makeup on when I could, lighting candles, having flowers in the bedroom. None of these were about productivity. They were just about little joyful moments and feeling like myself again. When I recorded the episode, I was several weeks into recovery. I talked honestly about the strange in-between phase. It was a really funny phase actually, because my old life felt a really long way away. There was no chance that I could get out running for many weeks, but the future hadn't fully arrived either. So I was in this limbo state. I didn't know whether I was going to be able to get back on my feet and run long distances again. I say long distances in kind of the loosest sense of the word, but somebody had told me on social media that their surgeon had said that they should never run more than 10 K again. And I was thinking, what? That's just crazy. Anyway, it's not true. Let me tell you. I've run a lot further than that and nothing's fallen out yet. So that was a really interesting space to sit in for a few weeks, but I ended the episode with massive reassurance. If a hysterectomy is coming your way, you're not alone. You are not weak for needing rest and recovery, although slow is really important Now bringing you up to the current day? I rarely think about my hysterectomy. I dunno if I was just lucky and I haven't had any ongoing complications, but it hasn't held me back. It hasn't changed me. It hasn't made a difference in any way other than sometimes my 18-year-old daughter will say, mom, do you think you might be pregnant if I say, oh, I'm a bit tired, or I'm a bit. Feel a bit nauseous or something on a very rare occasion. She's like, are you pregnant, mom? No. No, definitely not that that would be a miracle if that were the case. So moving on to the second most listened to episode, it's called Eating for Energy. How the ketogenic diet has brought me incredible results. In this episode, I talked about something I'd been doing behind the scenes for a while, changing the way that I ate and why I felt ready to finally share it. This wasn't a dramatic new diet announcement, and it certainly wasn't about weight loss for the sake of weight loss. It came from a place that many of you will recognize from feeling stretched, from being busy, from being physically active and outwardly fine, but inwardly a little uncomfortable, a little flat, and not quite as energized as I wanted to be. At the time I was exercising regularly, but I'd reached the top end of my clothes. So I was a size eight, but I was at the top end of a size eight, which I mentioned for illustrative purposes only, it's not about the size of the clothes, it's the fact that they were getting less comfortable and I'd reached that stage either where I was going to have to buy new clothes or I was just going to keep living in the same couple of pairs of jeans because I do not like tight clothes at all, and I just thought, no, let's do something about this. More importantly, I wanted to feel strong clearheaded and properly fueled for what life was asking of me, which at the time was a lot. I'm really careful in the episode to put boundaries around the conversation. I am more than aware that food and weight can be triggering topics, and I make it clear that listeners should take what serves them and leave the rest behind, which is what I always say about anything that I do. And most importantly, I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist, but again, this is simply my lived experience. So in the episode, I explained how I came across the ketogenic diet almost by accident through a conversation with my hairdresser, and it was more about how curiosity led me to start researching it properly. What reassured me was learning that keto wasn't about shakes or starvation or ultra processed food, but about real whole foods and changing how the body accesses energy. So the ketogenic diet is actually more of a metabolic state than it is anything to do with a diet. And in the episode I gave a simple explanation of ketosis, which is this, instead of constantly running on sugar from carbohydrates, which most of us do, the body learns to burn fat for fuel. And the thing about that is it's a great source of energy because it never runs out. We can only store so much energy in our liver from the carbohydrates that we consume, and once that energy, which is glycogen, runs out, then our body has to switch and start burning fat instead. But if it's not very efficient at doing it, it can cause a few bumps in the road. Whereas if we're always running off fat, Then we've got this endless supply of energy, and I've definitely noticed that over the years that I've now been doing this, which is coming up to three, You don't get those sugar highs, you don't get the sugar crashes and fat burning offers a much steadier, more consistent source of energy. In the episode, I also share where keto originated from medically, particularly its use in childhood epilepsy before it was later marketed primarily as a weight loss approach. And this really matters because it reframes the conversation totally away from punishment and restriction and brings it back to what I was mentioning earlier about metabolic health. I also talk about the benefits that I personally noticed and they were significant and they still are in terms of energy levels feeling more stable and sustained. No longer experiencing kind of a mid-morning crash or woozy urgent hunger that I used to hit if I didn't eat at exactly the right moment. And then the other big change and something that we are hearing a lot about is inflammation. I didn't realize how many small aches and stiffnesses I'd got used to until they disappeared. I have very, very little, unless I've injured myself and I've got a bit of a naughty hamstring at the moment. But definitely in terms of sitting on the floor and then standing up or sitting down for a while and standing up, there's none of that. Ooh, ooh, ah, kind of noises coming from me, which I'm very pleased about. I'm also convinced it has an impact when it comes to brain fog. My mind is much clearer, my thinking feels much sharper, and I don't have that sense of moving through treacle anymore. And I think something really important to highlight about this episode is it's not about being obsessive. It's not about counting calories, it's not about weighing food, it's not about anything of that. It's just about eating really tasty, filling meals, not having sugar, not being full of. Of padding. I kind of see a lot of the carbohydrates now as padding, like bread and potatoes and pasta and rice. I just think they're fillers that I don't particularly well, don't enjoy at all because in a way they detract from the beautiful flavors that we often put with them, like the sauces and the seasonings, and they just dilute those things down. And then in the episode I touch on the practical realities eating out. That requires a little bit more thought snacks, need a bit of planning, but batch cooking can be helpful in terms of preparation. And then I finish the episode by saying, the overarching message of this episode isn't, you should eat this way. It's an invitation to notice how you feel to question whether any fatigue that you feel or whether the discomfort that you feel is inevitable, and to question whether there's anything that you might be able to do about that in quite a simple way. And at the end of the episode, I then talk about the next episode that will be upcoming and which has turned out to be my third most listened to episode. And that is what to eat on a Ketogenic Diet, part two. And in that episode I dive into what you actually eat on a ketogenic diet, because I always think it's great to understand the theory and the benefits and the science behind it and where things have come from, but then you need an everyday practical, okay, so how am I going to include this into my life in an everyday easy sense? There's some really simple swaps that you can do. There's a little bit of taste bud adjustment to get through as well, but nothing that can't be accomplished really easily. Breakfast, for example, really changed for me. I went from years and years and years of cereal eating to Greek yogurt with berries and nuts and seeds and nut butter, and it is basically like having a massive pudding for breakfast, which frankly I am all about and it keeps me full for hours and for meals I've gradually built, I think as we do, if we're not eating keto meals, we just have a little repertoire that we cycle through week after week, can then add a few in as we go along. I really find batch cooking helps. So on a Sunday, I'll quite often do some batch cooking so that I'm ready for the week ahead. Just some quick ideas for meals. Vegetarian options include bergin, parmesana, which is delicious. Ti, which is basically a JE that I use a peeler on or a spiralizer to turn it into kind of noodles or spaghetti with avocado, pesto. I do stir fried tofu, tofu, can't remember which it's meant to be. I'm sure I grew up saying it one way and now my kids tell me I've got that wrong. And it's meant to be pronounced a different way with cauliflower rice, halmi, and garlic mushroom salad, roasted veg with cheese, and feta with tomato sauce. So all of those are lovely vegetarian options. For non-vegetarian dishes, I love ragu in lettuce boats. I like chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella wrapped in Palmer ham with lots of veg, steak with broccoli, Asian style salmon with coleslaw meatballs with corcetti and fish curry in coconut milk. There are so many delicious recipes. And actually since I recorded the episode, I have created on Etsy a download with my seven day meal plan. But actually it's. Probably a year's worth of meals, to be fair, that you can just cycle through. It is a high protein, low carb guide in it. There's meal plans, there's a shopping list. There's a section on simple and easy swaps, which I find really handy. There's a list of snacks and there's all the recipes and how to make them as well. I'll link to that in the show notes below. In fact, I'll link to all of these podcast episodes plus that guide, which, as I say, is available on Etsy below,'cause I think you might find that really helpful if you are interested in going down this route and exploring it a little bit further. And the main takeaway from that episode is that keto eating doesn't have to feel restrictive or boring. With a few clever swaps and a little bit of thought, you can eat tasty, satisfying meals every day and Every meal feels like a bonus and you don't have that bloated feeling, and dare I say it sometimes the associated win that goes with it, ladies, none of that anymore, which in itself is a win-win. Now my fourth most listened to episode was called What to Wear When You Don't Want To Wear Jeans, and I actually had to go back and listen to this episode again yesterday when I was prepping for this podcast episode because. The other episodes, I could find the transcript of everything that I'd spoken about, so I could read that to remind myself what I've said. But there wasn't a transcript for the episode about what to wear when you don't want to wear jeans. So I listened to it on one and a half speed as I was getting ready yesterday morning. And that episode came about because I posted a question on my Instagram stories asking ladies what their biggest struggle was when it came to getting dressed. And it came back that people were just really tired of wearing jeans and wanted some alternatives. And this episode went down a storm. And in that episode I talk about five alternatives, two jeans. I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but I cycled through different options. I think they basically involved. You know, a different color gene or a different style gene, because it's all about when it comes to style, my theory is not to step too far away from what you're comfortable with, because if you do that, you'll freak yourself out and you'll go back to what you've always worn. So it really is a case of baby steps. So I always encourage ladies to look at what they're wearing now and go, okay, what is one step away from that? So if, for example, you are someone who loves. A skinny gene, it might be going to a straight gene. If you love a straight gene, it might be going to a boyfriend gene. If you're in a boyfriend gene, it might be going to a barrel leg gene. But I think the contrast from going from say, a skinny gene to a very wide leg gene will be too much for some people. So I know that's still sticking within genes, and the whole point of the episode is. What to wear when you don't want to wear jeans. But sometimes wearing a different style of jeans can feel very, very different. It can also be a good transition to get you into a different style of trouser. So if you gradually go through the jeans and get to a wide leg, jean, you might then go, okay, let me go to a wide leg trouser. So it does make sense in the grand scheme of genes, I promise. So we looked at genes, we also looked at things like, um. Elevated tracksuit bottoms, side striped trousers. I talked about dungarees, I talked about jumpsuits. So it's definitely worth having a listen to that episode if you are sick of wearing your jeans, which I think I probably am right now, and are ready to ring the changes alongside that. So there were five different alternatives to genes, but then I looked at. Some other things to consider as well. So we talked about shoes, also talked about different tops to wear. Talked about accessories. So it was a whole I, I must admit, when I listened to that episode, I was like, oh, that's actually quite good. You could take some of your own advice there. So that's what I'm going to do because I have been living in jeans recently. I don't think it has stopped raining where I am for at least the past. Three and a half weeks. So I need to, yes, get my act together and go and have a little rifle through and see where I can make some swaps. And then the last episode, episode five of my most popular episodes ever is all about biohacking and 10 simple biohacks. I won't run through all of them now because that will just be too overwhelming. But like I say, I'll link to the episode below so that you can go and take a listen at your own convenience. But essentially, I just felt that biohacking was a buzzword that had been popping up everywhere, and it was also something I'd been exploring for the past 18 months. But I really wanted to make it approachable, especially for women like me in their fifties, because a lot of the biohacking advice out there is very bro, it was very male dominated, and really, biohacking is simple. It's about taking small, intentional steps to improve your physical and mental health, and that's it. It can be something as simple as lighting a candle. It can be as simple as drinking more water, going to bed earlier, and then it gets progressively more sort of interesting and not complex, but just it can go down a whole root of its own. So in the episode, I started by talking about what biohacking actually is, why it's worth considering whether it's safe. And whilst the word biohacking can sound a bit extreme, it's really not. It's really very accessible and there are easy things to incorporate into everyday life. Things like I briefly mentioned, better sleep, intermittent fasting, mindfulness. Cold water therapy sessions and saunas. Throughout the episode, my aim was to keep things relatable, sharing my own experiences from experimenting with intermittent fasting, to trying breath work after surgery, after I have my hysterectomy, cold water therapy, and even the ongoing quest for a good night's sleep, which touch wood I am okay with. But I know for many women it is a really, really big problem as ever. I try and keep it light with a little bit of humor in there, and some practical tips. And my hope was that by the end of the episode, people listening had a clear, friendly, and doable introduction to biohacking with ideas that they could start trying immediately without the need for any specialist equipment or extreme routines or 4:00 AM starts or weird and wonderful powders in their cupboard. Just little tweaks to help feel better, to feel more energized, to feel healthier, to have a clearer brain and less aches and pain, which frankly I think is something that we're all after. So that brings me to the end of my top five. Listen to episodes and I hope that you might think, oh yes, there's something interesting there. I'll go back and find it. Just a recap. So the first one was the Hysterectomy Chronicles, how to prepare, what to Expect, and Recovery Tips. The second one was eating for energy. The incredible results I've seen from following a ketogenic diet. The third episode was what to Eat on a Ketogenic Diet. The fourth one was What to wear when you Don't want to wear Jeans, and the fifth episode was all about an introduction to biohacking and 10 simple biohacks. As I've mentioned a few times now, I know I'll link to all of those podcast episodes in the show notes below, together with my guide that you can get from Etsy, the No Carb, no Sugar Guide, which is really helpful if you're ready to make a change and you're thinking, I don't really know where to start. I think one of the easiest places to start is by looking at the snacks that you can have instead and swapping those out. And then looking at the swaps that you can make. And some of the recipes are so easy as well that you'll be absolutely amazed, I hope.'cause I think it's a really, really good handy guide for people who are getting started and it's something that I use every day. I use those recipes all the time. I should also mention,'cause I always forget to do this, that I have a really great discount code with stripe and stair underwear. They do great knickers in lots of different styles. Now. When they first started, they just had their original knicker, which is the one I still wear. But now they have a high rise, which is a much bigger pant. They have Brazilian, they have thongs. They now also have different bras, which I tend to wear in bed like little bralet. They have vests. I love the vests. They have pajamas, love their pajamas. All sustainably sourced, made from bamboo, really comfortable. Great if you're somebody who tends to get hot in the night because it's fully breathable. Like I say, I have a 20% discount code with the code Beth 20, so that's Beth, BETH, and just the number 20 on the end. If you enter that at checkout, you will get 20% off, and I've specifically negotiated with the brand so that you will get more out of the deal than I do. You'll get 20% off and I make 10% on that sale. A lot of people do it the other way round, but I wasn't happy with that and I felt it was important to pass on that saving to you so that you get to experience Stripe and Sta because I promise you, since I swapped all my knickers over to Stripe and stair, which I, I don't even know how many years ago it was now, five, maybe I haven't looked back. I don't wear any others. They don't go up my bum, they don't ride up. They're really comfortable and I absolutely love them. So if you haven't checked them out before, again, I will link to that in the show notes. So all that it remains for me to do now is to wish you a fabulous week. I hope that you have something lovely planned, that you're going to see some friends that you're going to work in, a bit of exercise, some cooking, your hobbies hanging out, whatever it is. I hope that you have a great week and I will be back this time next week to join you again for another podcast episode. You take care. Lots of love and bye for now.