Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
Reinventing Health: Wilma Macdonald’s Journey From Medication to Health - All With the Right Nutrition
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Ever feel like you're running on empty? Struggling to balance work, kids, AND your own well-being? Yeah, we’ve all been there. Grab that half-full cup of coffee (or tea) you've probably forgotten about and hit 'play' on this week's episode of 'Work It Like A Mum'. 🎧
I'm chatting with the brilliant Wilma MacDonald, the genius behind Maverick Motherhood. This woman's got the whole work-life-health balance down to a science—literally! Wilma's not just sharing her glow-up journey from stress and medication to health-halo status; she's also gifting us her game-changing programme, the 'Flat to Fabulous Framework.' 🌟
Wondering how to ditch those 3pm energy slumps? We're spilling the tea—literally—on how your caffeine habit might just be the culprit. ☕
This episode is jam-packed with tips, tricks, and transformational stories that’ll make you rethink how you fuel your body and soul. If you've been toying with the idea of a health and wellness revamp but didn't know where to start, consider this episode your beginner's guide. 🙌
Ready to swap burnout for a total life glow-up? Then click that play button and let's dive in! Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. ✨
Show Links:
Connect with Wilma MacDonald on LinkedIn
Connect with Elizabeth Willetts on LinkedIn
Maverick Motherhood Website
Follow Maverick Motherhood on Instagram
Sign up for our newsletter and never miss an episode!
Follow us on Instagram.
Join over 1 million customers and counting who are saving money on their household bills with Utility Warehouse. Discover how much you can save here.
And here's your invite to our supportive and empowering Facebook Group, Work It Like a Mum - a supportive and safe networking community for professional working mothers. Our community is full of like-minded female professionals willing to offer support, advice or a friendly ear. See you there!
Nutrition and Wellness for Busy Mums
Speaker 1Hey , I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life . I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community . In this show , I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business . They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children , set boundaries and balance , the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success . Shy away from the real talk ? No way . Money struggles , growth , loss , boundaries and balance we cover it all . Think of this as coffee with your mates , the mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school . So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and make sure you cozy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams , or just survive Mondays . This is the Work it Like a Mum podcast . This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women . Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers . Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you . They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries , ready to find your perfect job ? Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity . Now back to the show .
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to this week's Work it Like a Mum podcast episode . Today I'm delighted to be chatting with Wilma MacDonald , a qualified nutritional therapist , and she is the mastermind behind Maverick Motherhood . Wilma has a background in banking and finance spanning over a decade and she has since set up her business , maverick Motherhood , to help other women navigate the challenges of nutrition and how to juggle that with their busy lives . She has a revolutionary program called the Flat to Fabulous Framework , where she's all about empowering women and helping them to rediscover their vitality and zest for life from postpartum through to perimenopause and beyond . So today we are going to be deep diving into nutrition tailored for busy women , workplace wellness and perimenopause . So if you are a mum trying to juggle it all or someone seeking insights into workplace wellness , this episode promises to be an enlightening perspective . So thank you so much , wilma , for joining me today . It's such a pleasure to chat .
Speaker 2Thank you for that wonderful introduction . No , thank you so ?
Speaker 1have you always been an internet nutritionist ? Are you the person at uni ?
Speaker 2No , no , no , no , no , no . So when I left home , I left home when I was 17 to go to uni and my mum kind of shot you know I knew how to do the basics , so you know . But yeah , no , all I can say is no . Like I would eat like three chocolate bars a day for breakfast and Fanta and Lut were my thing . This was like the 90s and the early 2000s , so I probably was in probably my 30s , probably about 32 . I'd always kind of been interested in health , but I was a bit confused as to what that meant . What did it mean for you then in your 20s ? What it meant for me 20s would be balancing my . So I take Gravita we all know and hate Gravita , what really all ?
Speaker 2cracker things , yeah , yeah . So I used to take Gravita with me as a snack and I'd have a salad but no dressing , no fat allowed , and but then I'd be having two double shot skinny lattes a day with two sugar and a double decker for my lunch . I like it didn't like food was kind of just something that I had to eat so I wouldn't be hungry . And I've always been small , so I'm small in stature and small like genetic wise , so I didn't really think about very much . And also , you know , I was partying a lot in my 20s . You know I'd be waking up with like a pizza and chips beside me in bed . It wasn't it . Just nutrition didn't really interest me at all or didn't even cross my mind .
Speaker 2And even so , I was probably age 30 , I think , when I was diagnosed with high blood pressure . Is that quite young to be diagnosed ? Yes , very young . The doctor was just like if you need to change your lifestyle , I remember her saying to me if you change your lifestyle , you won't need the medication . And I was like well , I'm not changing , so give me the drugs . And so I was on high blood pressure medication for quite a lot of my early 30s . Yeah , side effects medication .
Speaker 2In long term they probably would . But I didn't care , I wasn't really interested in that point in time . I just knew that had to keep my blood pressure . So my dad had a stroke in his mid 50s because of his high blood pressure . So it was , you know , at the genetic element there . So I was just like , okay , I need to keep my blood pressure to a certain level . But I didn't really take the lifestyle or nutrition thing into consideration at all until I was forced to .
Speaker 2And I remember I can't remember how old I was or had I got kidney infection after a rather large night out and I was meant to be at my five star Christmas party and I was in hospital instead because of this excruciating kidney infection . And just something like three months later I was still feeling awful . I had no energy , I was tired all the time , food wasn't great , I was getting like boils on my skin and it was just bad and I went to the doctor , I went to herbalists , had a cough that wouldn't go away and then eventually I think it was my sister that suggested I went to speak to a nutritionist and I didn't know what they did or who they were , but I found one and off I went and within a week I swear within a week of doing the changes that she suggested , the cough went , the energy levels were getting back up , my skin was clearing up . It was just like it was unbelievable , the changes . And I kind of went .
Speaker 2I kind of fully went a bit too far into it . I kind of got really obsessed with it and I then decided that I was going to study nutrition on the side . So I was working full time in finance at that point in time as a contractor , so I was bouncing around all kind of like the high street banks and I studied nutrition on the side , which was a lot , probably too much , and I did end up with like insomnia and stress-freezed hair loss in the midst of that . So that was kind of my enroute into it . I had no idea about fueling myself or nourishing myself at any point . I wasn't the one in my twenties kind of like cooking everybody , guru , my food or election people or what you did or anything like that . That was just not where it was at all . But it's been quite a significant change .
Speaker 1Yeah , so what were the changes you noticed then in yourself ? So you mentioned that you boil your boils .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , it was really bad , and my boyfriend at the time he's now my husband was just like what the heck ? So it mostly I would say my energy levels is just , it's completely different Like I'm now . I'm 45 this year and I would definitely see I have more sustained energy than I did when I was in my twenties . In my twenties it was like completely a roller coaster as to whether I was going to have a good day or a bad day , or what my energy levels were going to be like , and I just I powered through a lot because I was , you know , burning the candle at both ends and not looking after myself in any way , shape or form . My skin is completely , you know , completely different , completely clear glowing .
Speaker 1It's still glowing . If we share the video , we will see you . It's going to be really beautiful .
Speaker 2My hair is much , much longer , much healthier than it was . There's lots of like outside physical stuff , you can see , but yeah , definitely the energy and my moods are a lot more calm and sustained . I would say my default used to be like showy , stressy , really reactive , and to get to that stage now I have to be kind of pushed to my limits . So that's not my default anymore and parenting has its challenges . I'm not going to say I'm not a shitey parent . I do get narky sometimes , but there's always something else underlying if I'm kind of narky . So it's a whole spectrum of things and just my focus . Like I can't . It's really difficult to kind of explain how different it actually is and it's not . Changes in how I feel is quite significant , but I'm hoping , as I progress through the next stages of life , that everything I've done is going to help me adapt to that as well .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , interesting , because you obviously support people , don't you , that are going through permemoration . So how do you think you know , how are you hoping that your nutrition would support you between that point as well ?
Speaker 2The permemoration , you know , when nobody's going to avoid it and it's relatively . I didn't really understand very much about it until recently , because it wasn't a term that anybody was familiar with or we talked about it . You know , damina McCall changed the whole landscape .
Speaker 1She has . I was going to say , and it's really only in the past year , really yeah .
Speaker 2So she's completely changed the landscape of what's been acceptable to talk about and showing us that we're not going to slide into the Golden Girls era , that we have role models who are not in worth driving through this .
Speaker 2She looks fantastic , you know , and it's kind of like and there is still criticism I see criticism of her all the time as to kind of like she's portraying something that's unachievable , and I don't think that's . The point is that she is showing us what's possible . It doesn't mean we actually have to be exactly like her , but she's showing us what's possible as we progress through our various stages in life . So with the whole nutrition thing , a lot of it is supporting our hormones , supporting our mood , making sure that we're eating enough , like I cannot stress that if there's only one thing that anybody takes away from our discussion , is that you're most likely not eating enough , because what usually happens during menopause and menopause is that we do start laying down a bit more weight and it is a little bit harder for women of a certain age to lose weight , and what we then do which is our default because we've been told it for so long is to eat less and move more , and we probably actually need to eat more and move in accordance with what our body needs , because we don't want to put any additional stress on it . So what I see most what I see in everything a client I've spoken to in the last I don't know how long I've been doing this 10 years .
Speaker 2Nobody is eating enough for the stage of life they're at , for if you're postpartum , you need it for recovery . If you're pen and marine pause , your hormones need . Your hormones are made from protein and cholesterol and fats , so you need all that in your diet and we need to be nourishing ourselves from the inside out . My hope in discussing this is that we don't get embarrassed about discussing pyramid and pause , because we're all going to experience it at some point in time , we understand our bodies a bit more and start tuning in , and that we eat enough and nourish ourselves enough to help us navigate the changes that we're going through , because it is a big change , there's no doubt about it , and it doesn't have to be awful . We've been fed this narrative for so long that we're going to be hot , sweaty , short tempered and irritable . None of our clothes are going to fit . It's all downhill from here on , and I , for one , refuse to bide out that narrative and I won't let anybody who's in my vicinity .
Speaker 1Do you think Good nutrition because I didn't ask you about your , so you're still on the drugs for high blood pressure Do you think good nutrition can replace the drugs ? You know there's HRTA .
Speaker 2I think it's really individual . It's like it has to be taken on an individual basis . I think some people need the hormones back in and some people just can't , and some people the hormones do not agree with them . And I think , whatever you do , good nutrition can always work alongside it . It doesn't mean you know your nutrition is going to mean no HRT . Nobody can guarantee that . It doesn't mean that HRT means you don't need to focus on your nutrition , because I think if you have them working I always say it's complementary .
Speaker 2We're not alternative , we're complementary to modern day medicine Is that if you do both things , if you look after how you eat and you want to take HR and you need to take it there's no way that you're going to feel like you can't do whatever you want to do . So yeah , I think it's complementary and I wouldn't . I can't say yes , it'll replace it . I think it's all on an individual basis . I'm not great with adding hormones in , so I'm hoping I don't have to go down that route . But if I have to , then I'll always go to try , but I'm hoping not .
Speaker 1So you mentioned obviously you need to adapt your nutrition , I guess your approach to exercise as you go through life and life's changes . So maybe we can talk about
Balancing Work and Health
Speaker 1. You know , if you were Could meet 20 Wilma in her 20s , what would you say to her about how she's looking after health and what changes should you be making there ? You know , oh man , what would I say ?
Speaker 2I , oh God , I'd be like , don't drink a bottle of wine every Wednesday night , or three bottles of wine every Wednesday night for a start I would be . She was ambitious , very ambitious , so she worked a lot . If she finished at seven o'clock , that was an early finish , more so nine , ten o'clock it's a regular finish . I would be making sure she was organised and prepared . You know , it doesn't have to be boring . Like I wouldn't say to her never go out , never drink on a Wednesday night . It's all about making sure that you are nourished for what you want to achieve in your life . Because I don't think , even though she was working such long hours , I think she could have achieved what she wanted to do a lot quicker if she was looking after herself better . She'd have been a lot more focused and fresh .
Speaker 2Because I spent a lot of my 20s hungover and then when you're that hungover you just eat rubbish and you know it's like McDonald's breakfast . I'd get off the bus and there was a pret beside the bus stop , so I'd be in there getting a chocolate croissant and I think they used to have these cheese and tomato croissants as well and a kind of Coke and a double shot skinny laddie with two sugars . You know , complete sugar overload . So I've been getting quite a lot of guests during the day up there . You know , we , everybody knows it's three o'clock , you're ready for a snooze , but I'd have this huge rush and then I'd be like 10 , 11 o'clock , I'd be off for another coffee and then at lunchtime I'd probably eat a tuna baguette , something along those lines , or a salad with no dressing , and then I'd be after lunch . I was just exhausted after lunch , ready for a nap . Every time I ate something big like that I'd be just like exhausted .
Speaker 2So then off , I'd go for another coffee and then if I was working late I would go across the road because the coffee shop in the building at Rose . I would go across the road and get everybody in the building who was staying . I would get them a coffee . So it was just like I was just , you know , a caffeine and carb and sugar fiend and the wishes to my energy levels were just all over the place , which meant my mood was all over the place .
Speaker 2I , you know , I was quite unpredictable in my moods , which then translated into how I was at work , how it was in my personal relationships , and I used to go to the gym , but I'd be kind of like , you know , on the treadmill for five minutes , go like left to the weights , and I'd be like who's the right that I can check out , you know ? And then I'd go for a steam and a sauna and , you know , because I was had a gym membership , I thought I was being healthy , but I didn't actually use it properly . So it's just about educating and showing what you can actually do and the small things . Again , I would be like well , january I'm going into detox , which means I'd drink green tea even though I hated green tea .
Speaker 1I hate green tea and I drank it for years and I'd be like , really , I've tried , and every second you haven't tried the right one .
Speaker 2I'm like , oh , trust me , I have . I hate green tea , but every January , for the month of January I wouldn't have coffee , I would just drink this awful . I don't think you made me any healthier , really no , I remember once vomiting in the bathroom because I was drinking and I didn't like it ?
Speaker 2Yeah , it makes you quite sick it made me feel quite sad and it was not a time it was really out , and then so I'd be like , but then come February the 1st , I'd be back on all of our one coffee , and you know , so it was just . It was very up and down a lot of the time and I just didn't know , nobody had told me , nobody taught us , nobody teaches all this stuff . We just we don't know . And I read all these magazines about eating less , moving more . You know , it was never about . It was always about my size and how I looked rather than how I felt . And I want to kind of turn that narrative on its head . Yes , I'm not going to ignore the fact that looking good is part of it , but if you don't feel good , it doesn't really matter what you look like . So it's got to be , it's got to be both .
Speaker 1So you work long hours and there'll be people . I know you've got a few clients that are real high flyers and that's the challenge in itself , isn't it ? If you are so focused on work , you want to be successful . I put you make obviously different things , different people , but you want to maybe rise to the top of your organization . It's quite hard to find that balance between work or you might , you know , just busy with family and then that time for you and your health . How , what would you say to those people and how can they fit it in ?
Speaker 2It's not impossible . And I had this conversation with one of my clients yesterday and I also had my husband in the evening and we got quite heated discussion about it because I was talking about can we have it all ? You know , it's always directed at women and he said to me he's like nobody's ever asked me if I can have it all . That's my husband . I was like , of course they haven't , because I support you having it all . I'm the one that has to question whether I can do it all or whether I want it all , and I think all is different for everybody .
Speaker 2But when I speaking I was wrapping up a client yesterday who is like the pinnacle of her career and has two kids and don't get me wrong , she has support from her husband at home and after school clubs and all that kind of thing . But she decided that to get to where she wanted to be now she had to look at how she was fueling herself and nourishing herself , because her focus and energy wasn't where she wanted it to be . And yes , a bit of that was about how she looked as well . So we can address that as well , but never underestimate the power of tiny . And she said that she was like she was really surprised how easy the small changes I suggested were , that then fit it into her already really busy day in life , and that they actually built up to get to her where she wanted to be . And that's what I say .
Speaker 2And I fell into this trap as well to think that has to be big , massive changes , like we have to overhaul your life . I used
The Power of Small Changes
Speaker 2to try and overhaul my life . Every January or every time I woke up with a hangover I had to go to work . I'd be like , well , I need to overhaul my life .
Speaker 2I'm never doing this again . I'm never doing again . I'm not going to eat pizza at three o'clock in the morning . I'm going to eat properly . I'm going to have it for my thing . For some reason , I used to be like I'm going to go for facial every month . I don't know why I got that in my head . I thought that was a pinnacle of looking after myself .
Speaker 1I know what you mean , though I do know what you mean . I used to go for bikini waxes and I never even had a boyfriend , and I think it was just Just think .
Speaker 2I've got to do it . Yeah , I was just going to do it . I was like you know , if I have a facial every month , I will not feel this crappy or look this crappy . And that wasn't it . So when I say to people really is , sometimes people don't believe me . Because it can the small changes actually make a difference and I'm like just try them . It's like because the really small changes that can fit into your life and is really busy will add up to the big changes and to get you where you want to be . So again , I was talking to a client this morning who full on job , two kids and she was like I'm really surprised , she's like , at how balanced my energy is throughout the day . She's like the fog has lifted my focus and all from adding in a breakfast , that's all she's got . She wasn't eating breakfast .
Speaker 2She sometimes would be get to her job after getting her two kids to school . She'd get to her job after like getting up at like six , and this would be like nine o'clock and she's like she hadn't even had a drink of water in these three hours .
Speaker 1Oh gosh , yeah , I feel awful . Actually , I feel like I'm not even drinking water .
Speaker 2Yeah , and she became like no wonder I was feeling crappy .
Speaker 2But because you're so in it and because you're surrounded by people who are doing the same thing , it's kind of normal and everybody's doing it and everybody's feeling a bit tired and crappy , so that's just the way it is Right .
Speaker 2Whereas I got her to add in kind of like a small , a tiny breakfast first thing in the morning and then she had her proper breakfast once she got to the office . But even adding in that small little thing where there's like a mouthful of yogurt , a couple of bottles of yogurt with some like nuts and seeds , wasn't something huge . She didn't have to sit down and do it . She could do it while she was doing everything else . I know I don't sit down for breakfast , just filled her tummy a little bit , have some liquids that weren't caffeine or related , and then when she got to the office she could have her porridge and her coffee . And that little change alone has kind of like blown her mind how much it changed her energy and her focus and her outlook . And then that feeds into the rest of her day and her habits and what she wants to do .
Speaker 1It's basically mentioned happy because I really I just noticed if I have too much tea I don't feel good and I've had to
Tea, Coffee, and Caffeine Limitations
Speaker 1really wish I'm not a coffee drink but I drink a drink like tea and actually I've really limited it now to you know , this fell from outside a lot to some people , like two or three cups a day , but really I was on like five or six and actually I felt it in my head tired .
Speaker 2It's got just as much caffeine as coffee .
Speaker 1Yeah , do you still drink coffee If you want to know I'll have .
Speaker 2I've got a really wonky coffee order , so I'll have a decaf oat milk mocha maybe once a month , or if I'm going out to meet somebody for coffee or whatever , I have something about paying 2.50 for a tea bag and a mug that I can't bring myself to do so .
Speaker 2So I genuinely have some kind of I like . Like I say , I have a decaf oat milk mocha , but I like , for me , cutting it . Coffee is a gradual thing , like I used to drink lots of it , like three , four cups of coffee a day , double shots , sometimes a triple shot if I was feeling it , and they were caffeine , your coffee , so they were just knocking my head off . No , if I have a cup of tea or an empty stomach , I'll feel sick . So everything I see that's all right .
Speaker 1And no one else . You're the only other person that sees you have that I can't do that .
Speaker 2I can't do it . I can't do it on an empty stomach at all , and what I see to people is you don't need to care at coffee , like , if you love coffee , don't want you to drink 10 cups of it a day , but I know what it's like in offices . You see everybody wandering around with their Starbucks or keep cups .
Speaker 1Yeah , do you want coffee ? Do you know what the sides do ? Oh yeah , I'll come with you .
Speaker 2I'm going to have a chat in the kitchen and it's like what's the time ? You don't even really want it , it's something to do to get away from your desk or something to have in your hand or whatever . And what I see to people is don't have coffee on an empty stomach first thing in the morning . Always eat before you caffeinate Again if you do nothing else . Do that . And I spoke about this at a workshop I delivered a few weeks ago and one woman message me and said I can't believe the difference that has made to my energy levels . Because if you have your coffee on an empty stomach again if it's tea or if it's coffee it sets you off on that energy roller coaster right away and then you've got that all day , have you ?
Speaker 1I've got that all day .
Speaker 2And if you have something in your stomach before you have your caffeine , it kind of dulls the impact it has on your energy levels . See , I'm learning stuff .
Speaker 2I'm like , oh my gosh , we're all working and these are really small things and I'm not saying that's what I used to do , but like I'm never drinking coffee again , I'm never eating bread again , never drinking again , there'd be this whole kind of never doing this again . Start again on Monday gym every day . It couldn't be the gym twice . We had to be every single day and it was never sustained . I'm going to leave at five o'clock . It was never sustainable . So it's kind of like don't think that working with nutrition just means that you have to give up everything that you love , that you're never going to drink coffee again . It's just about we need to drink it strategically for your health benefits .
Speaker 1It sounds like you'd rather your clients to do smaller changes that they can sustainably than really big changes there .
Speaker 2You know I'm for , if you like , the way I do , the way I work is I give everybody a nutrition protocol which can be quite in depth . If you want to do it all , knock yourself out . But I meet very , very few people who can do all the changes all at once and sustain them , and I know it's really tempting to want to do that , especially when we're high achievers . Trust me , I'm kind of like I'm up there with the Taipei wanting to kind of do the achievement and be the best and get the gold star and things like that . But if you take because I break it down into small changes what you can do and how we do it , if you take the small changes and embed them one by one , the likelihood of you keeping on doing it and these then becoming something that you don't even think about is much more likely and the changes are much more likely to stick and stay .
Speaker 1We talked about , obviously , the high achievers . I mean , that was another thing . You know people are working really long hours in an office . I know that a lot of us now can work from home and a lot of people work hybrid . But even if you're doing three days in an office , it is very hard because it'll be someone's birthday and then you get the cakes coming or someone's leaving and there's chocolates , and then how do you navigate that ? Oh , you know , like you said , it's the three o'clock , I'm bored and I've had this . I've still got a couple of hours left at work and time's dragging and I've got to do something to give me that break from the desk . So I guess what are the healthy alternatives that people can use ?
Speaker 2So , yeah , I remember , like I said , I worked in retail banking up until six years ago , whatever . I had a small human and I remember the cakes coming in . So I'll be honest , I am a cake snob . I am like , yeah , so I remember some , like God bless him . Whoever brought them in , they were from Costco and they had an expiry date longer than your , you know . They were about five years through the expiry and I was like , oh my God , cake is meant to be off the next day . So I've been like , if you're going to have cake , have the best cake you can find . And if people keep bringing in and I know people are like quite fushful in their want for you to eat cake- yeah , we're nice .
Speaker 1We're nice .
Speaker 2It's my birthday on Christmas , if it's your birthday or like yeah , yeah , or you know and I know like at Christmas time they're always like chocolates and cakes and stuff .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2I , if you're eating enough at your main meals which I know a lot of us aren't then a snack every now and then is not a big deal . It's when we're doing it every day . So I would say , if you're going to eat cake or chocolate , make it the best that you can find . And you have to decide what's worth it for you and what's not . And you mean like the quality . The quality , yeah , so if I like . So for instance , I love tiramisu , but I don't eat dairy and I don't drink coffee . But if I'm somewhere that they're offering tiramisu I have to have it . I can't say no , but it makes me snorty because I'm going to literally just eat dairy . But for me that's worth it . Especially if I'm in Italy , I have a tiramisu every day just to try it . Yeah , but that's for me , that's worth it . Anything else , like I wouldn't have a cream bun or something like that , with anything with dairy or something . So you decide what's worth it and what's not for you . And then you usually have to zone the people out . I mean I would go into work with , like laterally , after I'd kind of done my research and I was qualified , I'd be going into a bank , the bank that I used to work in with kind of like a whole bag of snacks and like my Stanley with my obusin curry and stuff like that . And I remember this one person would be kind of like snickering because I had my obusin curry and then a couple of days later they were like , can you look at my food diet and see what I'm eating ? So people are interested . Yeah , they are interested . And it's a case of what other people are doing is not relevant , because they are not going to be you in 20 years time and they're not to be how you feel , how you feel is up to you and you just sometimes have to be like you know what ? No , thanks , not today . Or you know what , yeah , I'm going to have it today because I feel like it and not feel the peer pressure .
Speaker 2And the three o'clock thing is an interesting thing because it's a really common feeling . Do you want to have a nap at three o'clock ? And what I say to people don't look at what's going on at three o'clock . Look at what you ate for breakfast and what you had for lunch , because that's what's going to impact your energy levels at three o'clock . And if you feel like you're bored and you want a break from your desk , can you pop it signed for a walk around the block ? You know , is there , like my client today she has she had with these dash drinks , which is the sparkling water with just fruit in it . So what's the alternative you can have to coffee or a kind of Coke or a Diet Coke . Is there something you can have that's not caffeine or sugar , related to three o'clock ? But also it's a case of looking at having you had your protein , fat and fiber for your lunch and your breakfast , because that's what's going to impact your energy for the rest of the day .
Speaker 1Yeah , Well about healthy foods , can feel quite expensive , can't they ? And that's , that's trashed out and that's wrong . But you know , you're going to supermarkets and they have all these two for one's own . Now , on the crisps , on the busy drinks , is it expensive to eat healthy , or is that misconception ?
Speaker 2So if you are having yes , it can be is the annoying answer there's no getting away from it For now . I lived in New York for a year and I was completely skint . So I'd have a slice of pizza every day for lunch or a Wendy's , because it was $2.50 . Whereas the salad from the other , from the bodega probably wasn't that much healthier , but that was like $10 .
Speaker 1Yeah , and it's a huge difference .
Speaker 2It's a massive difference . So I had to make a choice and I didn't come back from New York feeling great for various different reasons . So , yes , it can be , but it depends what you're buying , like if you're going into the supermarket , depends what supermarket you go to as well , and if you're buying your lunch , lunch out every day can cost you about nine quid . So it depends what you're . It depends what you're eating as well . So , but you can make a bean and veggie chili that can last you for three days . You can make it really cheaply . Or you can buy a healthy meal from Mark's Asbestos for your lunch , for that comes to nine quid .
Speaker 2So it kind of depends what your capability is to want to make your own food and bring it with you , or what I'm not a fan of , like meat replacements and all this kind of replacement stuff , because it can't get quite expensive , and the gluten-free stuff . Everything needs to be gluten-free , so these kind of replacement meals can be expensive . So it's kind of like a tin of beans and that , but a broccoli isn't that much . So it's about changing our perception slightly as to we don't need green powder , we don't need green juices or green smoothies . We need to be drinking enough , eating enough and moving enough .
Speaker 2And then , if you want to and you have the financial capability , you can start slotting other things in . But if you have access to a tap and some water , you can drink two liters of water a day . You don't need to drink filtered water from the million mountains or whatever . You can just drink tap water . You can make , like I say , a bean chili , you can make a veggie curry or you can make curry with chicken in it and take it with you for lunch . So it's like what slight changes can we make ? You don't need a gym membership , you can walk or run outside . It's kind of like making these slight changes that don't break the bank but that can add in a huge amount to our energy bank .
Speaker 1But I'll be honest , it's not a massive fan of cooking . You need to cook from scratch to be healthy , to eat healthy , Because you're like do you want chili ? I'm like , yeah , I get that .
Speaker 2You can assemble food on a plate . Yeah , yeah , I can do that , you can do that . So I was at home in the summer and my sister was there and I think I was having leftovers and she didn't want them . I can't remember , I think it had over , I can't remember Anyway . So she was like I'll have some of the toast , and I was like no , we had a pack of lentils , a bag of salad , and I can't remember what else there was . There was a few things , but literally within five minutes she had lentils , which is your protein . She had some salad , avocado , which is your fat that you need , and I think she had something and there was something else , but within five minutes we assembled her lunch to then kept her full until it drawn in the afternoon .
Speaker 2So do you have to cook from scratch ? Preferably ? Yes , like I don't want to . I'm not gonna mislead anybody and say you know what you can be perfectly healthy eating out and you know ready meals and stuff like that , even if they're healthy ready meals . So that has to be the element of yes , but I was like I kind of taught myself I don't , I am not a gourmet chef , but any stretch of the means and I repeat a lot of things just because they're easy and they're quick .
Speaker 2I'm not . I don't have Insta perfect meals any time of my life . I just like shove things in a plate and check that I've got everything covered off there , and preferably if it's less than 10 minutes to get from the pot to my plate is handy as well . And , like I had to teach myself , I learned myself , but I would never go so far as to say that I am brilliant cook or a chef . I just decided that's how I wanted to feel was more important than anything else and that's why I made that choice . Yeah , so interesting to ask you . There has to be an element of cooking in it .
Speaker 1Yeah , final question , and then I'll just get people to know how to cook . It's all for me really , because I'm you mentioned about people that you know a pot on weight shift can't shift the weight . And there'll be a lot of people as well after lockdown that potentially put on weight and I'm thinking our audience that might be listening , they'll probably be in the , might be in the 30s and 40s and probably at that perimenopause stage that I know that you're really passionate about . What advice would you give to those people that you know that can't shift the weight they put on ? You know you think healthily during that time .
Speaker 2It's stuck on a diet yeah , don't eat less . It's about finding the right way of eating and moving that works for what stage of life you're in now . What works in your 20s is not going to cut it now at all . So we need to be doing some strength training , and that does not mean that you need to go starting CrossFit and lifting 100 kgs or double your body weight . That's not what we're talking about at all . But there needs to be some element of strength training , not too much high intensity cardio , because that's a stress on your body . So anything like that needs to be short and sharp .
Speaker 2We don't want to add anything else that's stressful onto the body . Eating enough , especially protein , fast and fiber at breakfast , lunch and dinner , because that's what's going to fill you up and it's going to keep you feeling full and it's going to send the right signals to your brain hormonally as to how you're feeling and it's going to help remove excess hormones out of the body as well , so we're not re-assorting them and getting the body confused . And sleep is another thing which sometimes goes a bit skew with , yeah , stress management . It's a little bit of a jigsaw puzzle and each person has different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle .
Speaker 1And I help . I was going to say how do you work with somebody that if a client came to you , I mean , obviously most clients have come to you . They're not going to come to you if they've got everything in order . So how do you help people get everything in order there ?
Speaker 2So I'm kind of unattached , so I'm not used . I'm not attached to the situations . I can take a willm of use . I'm kind of up here looking down and we look at your health from the minute you were born up until right now . So you go back to the beginning , go back to the very beginning , and what we look at is the patterns . There's always the patterns Because you never wake up one morning and be like , oh , I'm really really absolutely knackered and I feel crap , I don't feel good in my body .
Speaker 2It's been a gradual journey to get to where you are , so it's kind of like what triggers and drivers .
Speaker 2It's kind of like what started this , what keeps it going . Things like having children , stressful jobs , not having time to exercise or eat properly these are all things that keep us stuck in this cycle of not feeling great . And when we look at what sets things off , sometimes it could be something like 10 , 15 years ago , because we've been feeling kind of not great for a long time , because we don't actually realize how good we can feel . And that's when we've got some , quite sudden , we get like , at the right times . I've had people going oh my goodness , I felt like this for 15 years , and this is why this is what triggered it . And then everything else has kept going and suddenly it gets too much and unbearable . So , yeah , we take a bird's eye view of everything that's going on with your health from when you were born up until right now and then figure out where you want to get to , and then I put together a plan , quite detailed plan , that will get you there , and we look at it every two weeks .
Speaker 1I'm going to say how many sessions do people have , how long do they typically work ?
Speaker 2with you for . So three months is the minimum , because that's the minimum before you're going to see any changes or make any habits go to a glue stickie . So the first session is an hour and a half and then we meet up every two weeks after that and then we have a wrap call of an hour at the end and there is options to kind of add things on if you want to keep going after that . But these three months you will see some very significant shifts in how you feel and how you look . And I'm there for accountability and I'm not a saint is what somebody said to me and I'm very gentle , but I will kick your butt to get you where you want to be . So I will hold you accountable as to what you've said you're going to do and if you've done it or not . So it's all about .
Speaker 2So I worked in banking finance , worked in big governance projects . I was making sure that the plan is delivered and I never thought I'd take . Once I left I was like , thank God , I'm never going to use that , but I use it all the time because we're checking if you're meeting your goals , what needs to happen , what little steps do we do ? Ok , that's not working . What do we need to change ? What's on the crystal path ? What's finance available , how we need to change everything , because you are your own biggest project and my bracket is in big transformation projects . But now I'm transforming you and it can be done . I never just set you off on a path and leave you and be like see you three months by . We tweak and we change as we go to make sure that you're moving in the right direction .
Speaker 1And I suppose there's a lot of emotion attached to food as well .
Speaker 2You must speak to people that have been told things about food and we all think that we're the only one that feels that way . But everybody has emotions attached to food in some way , shape or form . We either don't eat it or we eat it to comfort ourselves , and there's nothing . Every comfort eats at some point in time . But food in itself is a neutral thing . It's there to nourish us and it's really hard to say there's no good or bad foods Because I'm not going to lie , there is stuff to spit for us than other things , and there's more . There's some things I don't want you to eat ever . So it's just about navigating these things and once you take the emotion out of the food and see it as something that's fuel you and nourishing you and making you actually feel better if you eat enough of it , which is a really difficult thing to do because as women , we've been told for so long to eat less .
Speaker 1I know you think like slim fast . It wasn't even a meal , was it ? It was just a drink .
Speaker 2God and like . It's still around , and these meal replacement shakes are a lot sneakier these days , but there's still not enough to nourish you . So it's all about figuring out what works for you , your life circumstances , your needs , your goals , and then putting everything in place and making sure it happens .
Speaker 1It sounds like you're doing such good work . I think we all need you in our lives . I think it's really important because our health is everything , isn't it and your health ?
Speaker 2Your health is what makes everything else possible , and I learned the hard way when I didn't have my health about what I could and couldn't do , and I want to make sure that people don't get to that stage . But unfortunately , sometimes it's only when we had rock bottom with our health that we're kind of like . Actually , I need help to get myself out of this and there's no shame in that , there's no judgment at all for me because I was kind of like completely scraping the barrel with my health before I made some differences , and it's not all sunshine and rain bushes . Now we all still I still have dips and kind of wonder what's going on , and especially if I've not slept enough or small humans being a pain in the butt or work stress , all that kind of stuff .
Speaker 2But we have to roll with a life We've got and we can't ignore that . Like I say , our health is what makes living our lives possible . And once you see what you can do with the energy that you have because time isn't our most valuable resource , it's the energy we have , Because if you've got loads of time but you're knackered , it doesn't really matter . But if you've got a little bit of time and you've got loads of energy . What you can do with that time is huge .
Speaker 1Love it Do you know what I'm saying . You're tingling Work and be able to find you , and you work with people , don't you ? Nationwide ? That's a lot , I think so .
Speaker 2Yeah , so I work with people nationwide . I've got clients overseas as well , so everything's done online . I do meet clients face to face in Edinburgh if they want to not all the time , but everything's mostly done in Zoom . So Marig Motherhood is the website , and I've just launched a blog where anybody can ask me any kind of nutrition related questions , and my LinkedIn is also Marig Motherhood well , macdonald . And Instagram is underscore Marig Motherhood . So I share lots of nutrition information and tips , and a lot of it by myself . People can get to know me and trust me , and I'm open to anybody asking me any questions at all . Nothing is off limits . We talk about anything body function related . There's nothing to be embarrassed about , so I'm an open book in that . In that Vane Brilliant Well , thank you .
Speaker 1So much , Wilma , for joining us today . It's been such a pleasure to chat with you , Thank you . Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like a Mom podcast . If you enjoyed this episode , please rate , review and subscribe , and don't forget to share the link with a friend . If you're on LinkedIn , please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode . You can also follow my recruitment site , Investing in Women , on LinkedIn , Facebook and Instagram . Until next time , keep on chasing your biggest dreams .