The Feed My Health Podcast
Welcome to the Feed My Health Podcast, where we redefine what it means to thrive as a modern woman over 30.
This is your space to explore sustainable health, balanced nutrition, mindset shifts, and habits that actually fit into real life—kids, careers, and all.
Hosted by Rosalind Tapper, a high-level coach and mentor for women ready to take the lead in their own lives, each episode is packed with expert insights, practical strategies, and inspiring stories to help you feel unstoppable💫
Whether you're navigating perimenopause, balancing family and work, or simply trying to find you again, this podcast will empower you to:
✨ Build a body and mindset you’re proud of
✨ Break free from yo-yo dieting and quick fixes
✨ Balance health with the joys of life, guilt-free
It's time to make yourself a priority without sacrificing what you love. Let's do this together. 💪
🎧 New episodes every week—tune in and take that first step to becoming the leading lady in your life!💫
The Feed My Health Podcast
THIS Is Keeping You Stuck - AND Your Kids Are Watching...
From the moment we become mothers, society teaches us that sacrifice equals good parenting. But what if the greatest gift we could give our children isn't our sacrifice, but our self-respect?
Mum guilt is the silent saboteur that convinces women they're selfish for prioritising their own health. Drawing from my personal journey of raising three small children while running a business, I've experienced firsthand how this guilt creates a destructive cycle - one where we believe our worth comes from constant doing rather than simply being. This mindset doesn't just harm us - it places an unbearable burden on our children, making them feel responsible for our declining health and happiness.
Many mothers tell me they'll focus on themselves "when the kids are older" or "when they need me less." But this thinking reveals the truth: it's not about time, it's about permission. When we examine our daily choices honestly, most of us spend hours scrolling through social media while claiming we can't find twenty minutes for a walk. This isn't a time management problem - it's a priority crisis.
The reality is startling: health isn't a luxury accessory to life - it's the foundation everything else rests upon. We work diligently for mortgages, holidays, and possessions, but what value do these have if we lack the energy to enjoy them? By treating our wellbeing as optional, we're gambling with the very resource that makes everything else possible.
Consider what message your choices send. When you model self-neglect as virtue, you teach your children the same harmful patterns. Alternatively, when you prioritize your health, you give them freedom from future struggles with confidence and body image. You show them that healthy living isn't punishment but normal, empowering, and sustainable.
Ready to break free from mom guilt and start leading your family from a place of strength? Message me on Instagram at rosalind.feedmyhealth with your age, location, and current health situation - let's transform guilt into power together.
If you'd like me and my team to help you improve your daily habits, to lose pounds every week, and keep them off forever...
Apply Here
Today we're going to talk about something I am deeply, deeply passionate about and I feel like I've gone through all of the spectrum of this. Today we are going to be talking about mum guilt. If you don't know who I am, I'm Rosalind. Welcome to another episode of the Feed my Health podcast. Feed my Health is a one-to-one bespoke coaching program for women who really want more. They are sick of hiding in baggy clothes, they're sick of putting themselves last and they really want to be a great role model to their families. So I know a lot of you suffer with mum guilt and I completely understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 1:When I had three really, really small children, I really, really did struggle with mum guilt a lot. I had a business that I ran in the evenings, I had a house to run and I really, really wanted to be the best at all of those things and that really was a big issue. That was really the biggest challenge because, yes, I wanted to be the best mom and I wanted to be the best wife and have a lovely, tidy home, but it all came from a place of me feeling like, without doing that, I wasn't going to be loved, I wasn't going to be accepted, I wasn't going to look like I was serving a purpose and for me obviously I went to college for four years in order to get all of the qualifications that I could possibly get, to then progress on to a very, very difficult degree. And I got on to that degree with really no experience in the subject other than just talent. So just to kind of give you a little bit of a context here, I went to do popular music performance and I was simply a girl who had grown up loving to sing. I didn't really know anything about music theory. I didn't have the kind of skills that a musician actually needs outside of singing. So unfortunately for me, when it got to a position where I was choosing where to go and where to do my further education, I didn't even know the course existed. I didn't even know it was possible to study and train as a popular music singer.
Speaker 1:So I discovered this course just before the eight week holiday, so just before breaking up from four years of college, and I had eight weeks to learn what essentially most musicians have spent their entire childhoods learning to get into that college and into that university. And that was the first clue actually for me that anything was possible as long as you put your mind to it. So that's why I'm very, very stubborn in my mission to share with women that you are possible of so much more than you believe. Um, but all that to say, because I was so focused on what I wanted to do and I was very focused from a very young age I was very, very, very, very driven and I felt that I had more to give, and that was the big challenge. So I wanted to give loads. I wanted to give loads to my children, I wanted to be a really, really great wife, I wanted to have a really fantastic looking home and I wanted to have a really successful business alongside that, and so I channeled every single thing, every ounce of energy, into all of those things.
Speaker 1:And that's great if that comes from a place of, you know, a healthy place, but it didn't. It came from a place of me wanting to have purpose, wanting to be loved, like I said, wanting to have, wanting to feel that I was doing everything I could to fill some kind of a void, fill some kind of a need or limiting belief that I held about myself. And I think it also stems back from being a really young child where, you know, I had my first job at 14. And the motto at that place was if you have time to lean, you have time to clean. And so I also grew up in a household where we had chores and we had things to do and sitting around watching TV was kind of frowned upon. And so I've kind of grown up with this mindset of you must be doing, you must be performing, you must be showing up in order to look like you are achieving something or you have a purpose.
Speaker 1:And I think that that, whilst it's given me a great work ethic and it's given me lots of benefits, there's also a lot of negatives to that. So, one of those things being the guilt around doing anything else, specifically sitting and doing absolutely nothing, the guilt and the shame around doing nothing is absolutely limiting. Like honestly, it's so consuming and it's something that I'm working through every pretty much every single day. I really have to talk myself into saying you know what, ros? It's absolutely okay to sit down in the evening and do nothing, it's absolutely fine. Um, so it just goes to show how powerful your influence is on your children when you're bringing them up, because we you know parents do the best that they can with their information, tools and knowledge that they have. So this, this is not a blame game, but when you are aware of the impact that your choices and your decisions and your beliefs hold on your children, you will start to see. You know potentially how, what you want and what, how you think and the lens that you look through can impact your little people in your life, and that's really, really, really important.
Speaker 1:One thing that I'm kind of learning at the moment is the whole concept of what I believe my children should do, based on my experiences, versus what they want, and this is something that is becoming more evident to me as the kids are getting older, because I really value education and I value flexibility and freedom and having the choice, having a choice. So, you know, for me, having lots of qualifications and lots of education has been a really great starting point for me to be able to go into areas of life that I have done into the health, fitness and fitness space, for example, as well, and so I'm carrying that belief that that's what my children should be doing. But actually that's not a one size fits all situation. You know, every single child is different and they need to have their own path and their own choices and they need to potentially make mistakes and they need to maybe make better choices than I did and end up in a better situation. And that's not me to dictate. And so you know, I feel like with parenting, you never stop learning and you can have your values and you can have your thoughts and you can have your morals about what you feel should be done when they're little and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1:But ultimately it is a constant learning journey, and so I want to shed a little bit of light on the mum guilt side of things, because I am seeing a lot of women suffering and struggling with where they are in life because of this guilt. And the first thing I want to say really is if you were to ask your child whether they are two years old, whether they are 10 years old child, whether they are two years old, whether they are 10 years old or whether they're 18 years old, if you genuinely went up to your child and said, how would you feel if I went for a walk on my own? What do you think that they would say? Because even the littlest one probably wouldn't say no, mummy, don't go, they'd probably say let me come with you. The 18 year old probably wouldn't care, and the 10 year old again probably wouldn't care. Maybe all they want to do is sit in front of the tv and watch minecraft, and that's their prerogative, you know um.
Speaker 1:So I think we're putting a lot of um the responsibility onto our children without really realizing it. And then, when you're not achieving the things that you want to, we have to think about what kind of a message that that's giving to the child. If your health declines because of decisions you made based on the thoughts that you have about whether you should or shouldn't do something, based on mum guilt, what you're essentially doing is putting the blame onto that child, and that's a really heavy burden for a child to live with. Imagine I know this is a really morbid thing, but I just want to really drill down the point here imagine if you were 75 years old and you were lying in a hospital bed and your child came to visit you and said mommy, like how did this happen? How did we get to this point? And that mom said well, you know, I always put you first and I never looked after myself. That might sound really noble and you know all the rest of it, but imagine how that child's going to take that. To me, that's saying you're the reason why I'm here and that's a really, really unfair thing to do.
Speaker 1:And so when you frame it that way, I that that's really really harsh and you might be thinking, gosh, well, that's, that's really cruel to say that, but sometimes we need we need that reality check because ultimately that's what's happening and the only person that is giving yourself permission to put yourself last is you. Nobody else is expecting that of you and even even now, when I think about conversations I've had with women on calls, they'll say to me you know, my husband goes out and plays golf, my husband goes to the gym, my husband goes out and rides his bike every morning before work, but I just don't feel that I can do that Notice the language. I don't feel I can do that. Not, I can't do that, but I don't feel that I can. But ultimately as well, if your husband turned around from doing no exercises and didn't look after his health and decided that he wanted to and came to you and said I really want to start this program, I really want to improve my health, I really want to start going to the gym, or I really want to start working out, or whatever. Are you OK, are you open to that? You're not going to turn around and say no, but a lot of women will also think that they can't because their partners will say no, or their partners won't be on board, or their partners will think, oh, here we go again. Here's another thing that's not going to work, that you're not going to follow through on and, ultimately, it shouldn't matter.
Speaker 1:I know, know, this is really hard to say this, but you are an individual at the end of the day, regardless of whether you're married, regardless of whether you are a mum, you have to do things for you. You have to make decisions as if you are an individual, because you are and again, I know this sounds really, really, really really morbid and horrible, but there will come a point in your life when you will find yourself on your own. Your kids will move out. You know you will be starting a new chapter of your life maybe retirement, whatever and you will be limited by what you can do based on what you're doing right now, and so this episode is really coming from a place of like. Here's the mirror. I want to hold it up to you. I understand how you're feeling because I have been there, but there is another way and you are allowed to do the things that you want to do. You don't have to ask for permission ever, okay, ever, ever, ever.
Speaker 1:The other side of it is realising that sometimes guilt comes from excuses and lack of understanding. So you might say I just don't have time, like, I don't know how to fit all of this in. I don't know how to balance having a healthy lifestyle and running the household and raising the kids, and, ok, let's talk. You know, strategy aside for a second right, we've established that maybe what you're doing and what you've tried to do hasn't been the right things. Let's just move that across to the side.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about priorities, because having time and making time are very different things, and I'm seeing a lot of women who are spending two to three hours a day scrolling on their phones, saying that they don't have time to track a meal or to work out or go for a walk. So this isn't a time issue, this is a priority issue, and when you lack clarity on what you're trying to achieve and maybe you lack a system or an approach that actually is in line with the values and morals that you hold, ie, do you value and do you strongly believe that people should be doing shakes? Probably not. So therefore, if you're doing shakes, you're not aligned to the values and morals that you hold about nutrition, then, of course, it's going to feel like a challenge and a struggle and so you aren't going to make it a priority. So, to be clear, we have to separate those, those things. You have to find a solution that fits your lifestyle and your, your priorities, your and your morals and your values.
Speaker 1:And when you do that and you have clarity on what you're trying to achieve and then you make time for it, suddenly you find that you do have time for it because, at the end of the day, we all have time. We do, we all have the time. It's about how you manage your time and it's about how you prioritize your time. And, in my opinion, if you are prioritizing work and you're prioritizing taking your kids to and from something and you're prioritizing, you know whatever it is, you you know, you know what you're spending most of your time doing. Only you know that. But if you are doing that and you're saying, well, I need to work, I need to do this. I need to do that. Well, of course you do, right. Of course you do for lots of reasons, but a lot of the reason we work for money, right, you probably wouldn't do your job for free, no matter how much you loved it.
Speaker 1:But ultimately you want that money for a reason. You want that money to be able to pay your bills, to pay your mortgage, to go on holiday, to have nice clothes, to have nice things, to have a nice life. But what are all of those things if you don't have your health, if you don't have good health, what happens to those bills? What happens to that mortgage? If you don't have good health, what happens on those holidays? Can you even go? Can you afford the health insurance? Can you afford the holiday insurance? Can you even get in the pool or get up off the sunbed on your own? You've got to think about. Actually, am I making my health a luxury item in my budget as opposed to what it should be, which is the number one priority? Because without your health, everything else that you are putting time to and money to is going to kind of start to wobble a little bit. And nobody on their deathbed says, oh, I should have put more money into my mortgage, or oh, I should have gone on more holidays. Or oh, I should have bought more clothes, or oh, I should have had that nice car.
Speaker 1:All we care about when our health is not on point is getting our health on point, and the most dangerous place that you can be is not having a goal, not having a vision, and just sort of sitting there like a duck in water, sort of floating about, hovering, because then there's no urgency to ever change anything, to ever improve anything, to ever optimize anything, and that's a that's actually quite a frightening place to be. So, even if you are somebody who is incredibly happy with how you physically look and how you physically feel, don't rest on your laurels. Don't just sit there cruising away. Think about okay, so now I'm here, what more can I do to improve things? How do I want to feel in 10 years time? And work towards that. Try and be at least two steps ahead of yourself, because then you're setting yourself up for a really, really strong, positive future, because we don't know what's around the corner.
Speaker 1:And I just want to circle back a little bit to things that I hear off an awful lot as well. So when you have younger children, especially children that are still at home maybe they're not at nursery yet, or maybe they are at nursery part-time I will hear mums, you know, have a little bit of a oh, I do start, want to start looking after myself a little bit, but they can't go all in on themselves because they feel like they can't right, because that guilt's still there again. They need to be 100% focused on little junior whenever she's around or awake or whatever. Um. And then then, if we fast forward to maybe when that child is going into secondary school, suddenly a parent will turn around and say well, actually, now they're a bit more independent, they don't need me as much. I can start working on myself, and in that moment I feel like what you're saying is now I can feel less guilty about it, not that you have more time or they don't need you as much, but that you can feel less guilty about it because you've justified to yourself that they don't need you as much. Ultimately, you could spend as much time when your children are teenagers or when your children have moved out on your health as you can when they're little.
Speaker 1:It's just understanding how to do it. And it's also understanding what kind of a child or children you want to raise. Do you want to raise children who are independent? Do you want to raise children that grow into independent adults who don't need you to wash their washing all the time, don't need you to make every single meal, don't need you like you don't need to to wash their washing all the time, don't need you to make every single meal, don't need you, like you don't need to be making a child's bed every single morning, like they can do so many things for themselves and I think, as parents, allowing them to do that is so important.
Speaker 1:But understanding that if you aren't allowing them to do that, why? What is that saying about you If you don't do all these things for your children? And fluffing all the cushions and doing all the things, what would it say about you if you didn't do all of those things? Because that is the key challenge, that's the key issue, that's the key belief that's holding you back from progressing with your own life. It's a really, really important thing to sit and reflect on. It be I'm not good enough, I'm a terrible mom. What if something goes wrong? And it's all my fault? It's always about how we feel about ourselves. It's never truly about what we want for them or what we want for our house. It's about what doing those things means to us for us, and about and when I reflect back on the times when I felt really, really guilty and I put everything else and everybody else before me, I was not a nice person.
Speaker 1:I was very, very snappy. I professed not to be a morning person. My blood sugar levels were all over the shop and I didn't realise it. I was crashing every five minutes. I was tired. All the time I needed, or thought I needed, like sweets and sugar and carbs to keep me awake, and I justified it by saying well, I've got young children, I'm tired. Of course I need these things. It's not a rite of passage to live like that. It was a choice that I was making because I was in a hole and I didn't know how to get out of it, and so I really do understand.
Speaker 1:But I waited too long to realize that I didn't need permission to change and that actually, yes, I wanted to bring my children up to be really great, independent children, and that was the thing that I was very clear on from day one, which is why I gave them a lot of responsibility from a very, very young age. But what I didn't see was that things like dieting and the dieting industry and healthy habits were also something that I wanted to instill in them. I didn't want them to grow up worrying about their weight or thinking that exercise was something you did to punish yourself when you wanted to burn calories and lose fat. I wanted them to grow up not only being independent children and adults, but also understanding that a healthy lifestyle is just normal and eating unhealthy food and living off Greg's sausage rolls, mcdonald's and sugary lattes is actually not normal. That's really, really unhealthy and that should not be the majority of your diet.
Speaker 1:And when you help your children to grow up in that environment, you're giving them the biggest gift you can ever give them. You are giving them a life of freedom Freedom from ever having to worry about their weight, worrying about their confidence, worrying about how they look in a swimsuit. You're giving them that gift. So before you think about investing in that holiday to Florida or buying them the latest gadget or buying them the trainers, think about what you truly want to give them as a gift. Do you want to give them the gift of you being available and present and happy and energetic and full of the joys of spring every single day. Do you want to give them the gift of self-respect and understanding what a healthy lifestyle looks like? Because for me, that is the biggest, best gift that any child can ever receive.
Speaker 1:But yet we get so caught up in trying to keep up with the Joneses. And what are they doing? And what is that what Sam's parents letting them do? And what clothes is my Matthew wearing? And oh, I should be taking my kids to every single club after school, because I feel that that's what they need and that's what they want. They don't want that at all. That's what you want for them. That's not what they want.
Speaker 1:And I know that this probably comes across as being very like I don't know. I don't know how it's, I don't know. Regardless, it's coming from a really good place, because I spent 10 years thinking that I needed to keep up with the Joneses, keep up the Joneses with my kids, keep up with the Joneses with my house, and it didn't serve me a purpose. It like it really dragged me down and I can see now, with the women inside, feed my Health and we've got a few men as well, actually, but I can see with all of them that they're showing up better for their families because of how they're looking and how they're feeling and how they're actually prioritizing themselves.
Speaker 1:And when you have clarity and a vision on where you're going with your health and an understanding of what to do every day and how to maintain this, that confidence radiates out of your face. Absolutely. It's incredibly empowering. You are an incredible leader to your family when you get to that position and it's an incredible gift that keeps on giving. It's an incredible gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 1:So I know that, mum, guilt is a real thing and I know it's a real struggle for so many of you, but I promise you you do not need to feel guilty about looking after your health. Your health is the number one tool that you have. It is your number one power. Your power is not how big your house is or your mortgage payments. Your power is not the car that you drive. Your power is not whether big your house is or your mortgage payments. Your power is not the car that you drive. Your power is not whether you've got a holiday booked. They're all life's luxuries. Your health is not a luxury, so please stop treating it like one. Please stop treating it like a luxury. It is an essential part of your being on this earth and you being able to provide for the people that you love.
Speaker 1:If this episode has hit home for you in any way, shape or form and you really want to start moving forward with clarity and with confidence and you really want to start being a great role model to your family, then all you need to do is drop me a message on instagram. It's rosalindfeedmyhealth. Do is drop me a message on Instagram. It's rosalindfeedmyhealth. Send me a message with your age, where you are in the world and what's going on for you right now with your health and fitness, and let's start leading your family from the front and feeding your health.