How to Get Off the Blood Glucose Rollercoaster with Guest Nikola Howard

The 3pm slump... That frustration of trying to find the right word as you wade through the treacle that seems to have replaced your brain. Going up and down stairs not just to get your steps in, but because you've forgotten what you went up for in the first place.

If you're tired of trying to be "good" with what you eat, as your energy levels decline while your meno belly expands, then join me and my guest Life Alchemist Nikola Howard for advice, insights and anecdotes to help you get off the blood glucose roller coaster.

Connect with Nikola

https://nikolahoward.uk 

https://lowcarbinthe.uk 

https://www.youtube.com/c/NikolaHoward

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-howard/
https://www.facebook.com/NikolaHoward.LifeAlchemist/
https://www.instagram.com/nikolahoward/
https://bsky.app/profile/nikolahoward.bsky.social
https://www.threads.com/@nikolahoward

b19c0276942dde98656f2638f9c7148efbf54ad9

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Midlife Unlimited, the podcast for women who want more. I'm your host, Kate Porter, the Midlife Metamorphosis Coach, and I know what it's like to feel stuck navigating the midlife maze. I've looked in the mirror and thought, who is that woman? So Midlife Unlimited is here to let you know you are not alone. You don't have to put on a brave face and put up with it. You don't have to play it safe. Midlife Unlimited is all about ripping off that mask and telling it like it really is. Nothing is off limits, because together there's no limit to what we can achieve. So welcome to today's episode. Now, at the 3 pm slump, or hum as the clock, as I like to call it, that frustration of trying to find the right word as you wade through the treacle that seems to have replaced your brain. Going up and downstairs, not just to get your steps in, but because you've forgotten what you went up for in the first place. Only to remember once you get back in the kitchen and drinking that cup of tea you made an hour ago. If you're tired of trying to be good with what you eat as your energy levels decline while your meno belly expands, and don't even talk to me about that, but we are going to be talking about that, then this episode is just for you. Because I'm delighted to be joined by my guest today, Nicola Howard, Life Alchemist, to talk about how to get off the blood glucose roller coaster. So welcome, Nicola. It's fabulous to have you here. It's fabulous to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Oh, my absolute pleasure. I'm looking forward to this one. Now, I almost stumbled on my words then when I was reading out the how to to say blood sugar. So before we go any further, I'm going to put you on the spot. What's the difference? Blood sugar, blood glucose. Is there a difference? Is it just a trend in phrase?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

To all intents and purposes, there isn't a difference. But the what this is to do with how we see sugar. Because table sugar is a mix of fructose and glucose.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

And blood in and sugar in your blood is only glucose. So if you want to be exact, it is always blood glucose, but blood sugar will do.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Because you have you have the blood glucose tests and things, don't you? And I say, Yeah, we are focusing on blood glucose because, as you can tell from my intro and from the fact that I nearly got my words muddled up, brain fog, I'm post-menopausal and it's still a thing, it really is. And you hear so many things that I've got the magic wand, I've got the magic cure. And the more we look into it online, the more those blinking adverts pop up promising you this, that, and everything else, don't they? But I wanted to get you on because you actually not only care about helping women with this, you're doing something about it. You've got this amazing title that we'll be talking about later, and you'll be giving your top tips later on. But it's all about, if I understand it correctly, getting to grips with low-carb diet. Is that right? Am I oversimplifying it?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

That's what I believe. Um, having looked at science, I'm a very science-based bunny, yeah, that the what we've put, what we how we have created our food landscape is full of food-like substances. They're not food, they are ultra-processed yucky stuff, and that in itself is something that's what's called novel. And and in in the in the scientific meaning of novel, that means new to us, new to an environment. And so these novel foods, which of course we don't think of these things as novel now, we've had them 40 years, but in terms of how long we've been on the planet, 40 years is like the a millisecond equivalent, if you if you look at the entire scope of the of the duration of humanity, which is like 10 million years, if I remember rightly, it's it's a drop in the ocean of the life of the planet.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

It's that clock, the doomsday clock that always terrifies me. But as you just said, the last 40 years, but that means you, me, and the majority of our fabulous listeners, it is part of our normal this because it's what we've grown up with from a from an early yeah, I can remember going to McDonald's, other other takeaways, etc., are available for the first time and it becoming like a birthday treat. Yes. You know, I had a fillet of fish and a chocolate milkshake. Yes, yes, fileto fish.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I I worked in McDonald's when Macke D's when I was when I was in my sixth form, which was back in 1986. So yeah, just as just as all this stuff was coming on board, it and it was the why I look back at what I used to be on my break. Oh I I would have uh a Big Mac, a Philly, um, um, a diet coke, because you had to have diet coke, and um what else did I used to have one more thing? But anyway, it was this this whole tray of pie. No, I never used to have the pie, but I didn't like the apple pie. Um, I think I used to have a quarter, a quarter with cheese as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So I say so, my dad, bless him, he didn't like the burgers, he's never been a burger fan. It might be that you know he's in his 90s, it's a weird thing for him, but he likes the the fries with an ice cream and an apple pie. Okay, yeah, or maybe maybe a nugget. Obviously, as I can say, you know, we're not we're not being sadly we're not being sponsored by McDonald's. McDonald's, if you're listening, we're open to sponsorship. Anyway, I'm getting I'm taking you completely down a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I was gonna say we're we're off a complete tangent. I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

I'm hungry now. I'm see, this is it now. See, now I'm I'm not hangry, but I'm thinking about food, and I'm thinking about food that won't be helping my blinking brain fog, will it?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

No, no, but then that I mean that this is where you could go into the Morgan Spurlock stuff, where he did his n equals one experiment, because of course we are all equal n equals one experiments on our own lives. We we all have to find our own things, and one of the things he found was the guy that only ate the burger and didn't eat anything else, and he was a very healthy and skinny chap because it's the least harmful thing on the menu.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

It's everything, it's the it's the nice place to go with it. I don't eat meat, so with me, it's like the gherkins, yeah. The sauce, love it, but no, not the burger. But as I say, when we were chatting earlier, and I I love this because it's like so much of the coaching that I do, it's about not just shifting the food we put in our mouths and turnip, but it's shifting how we feel about the food, isn't it? Yes, rather than because you say there are so many different I mean, I in the past have used booze, I'd make no secret of it, as a reward, a weird word to use, but as an addiction, it is part of you reward yourself with a glass of wine and a cigarette, don't do it anymore. But you said you've had that kind of relationship with food over the years, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

The way all these these addictive substances work in the brain is all the same. So that so it's it's um your reaction hits what's called your nucleus accumbens that releases dopamine into your brain, and that is the reward chemical, for better or worse, that's what we've called it. Um and it is one of those things of the reason why we need more and more and more and more and more is because we become dope dopamine anured, we become resistant to it. Yeah, so we we need a bigger hit of dopamine to get the same sort of feeling, and everybody wants to feel reward, everybody wants that stimulation, it's a nice feeling. So when we are using these substances that make us feel better, that's what's happening. And then, of course, some substances have also accompanying things that make you feel better in slightly different chemical ways because we are chemistry, we produce 1.3 million chemistry chemicals in this wonderful, amazing body we have. Um, so yeah, we we are a big chemistry set, so everything we do, and that includes the things we see, feel, hear, as well as taste and touch. Um, everything we do creates a chemical message that is then given to our body and brain, and then we then react to it. Or because we are humans with the empowered choice and what's called metacognition, we can think about thinking, we can then choose to respond, which is a different thing. I was talking about this with my stepdad the other day, about how reaction is literally just the instinctual what you do with the with that message that your body's been given, versus hmm, yes, I can respond to it in this way. I want to do this, but is that healthy? And you have that little moment of pause. Victor Frankel, between stimulus and response, there is a moment, and in that moment there is choice. Yeah, so we us as us as empowered humans with this wonderful, amazing brain we've been we've evolved, we get to choose how we respond. So, so everything that we put into ourselves will create a stimulus, and if that is booze, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, sex, um, and food, because food is also reward-based, they they all stimulate this dopamine, and then as I say, you've then got the other effects like alcohol causes intoxication, um, sugar causes euphoria, um, so does sex. Um, drugs probably cause a whole bunch of euphoria and happiness and a whole bunch of things. And us as humans, we love we love that. It's not the way we're wired.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

So I always say, thank goodness I've never touched drugs because I have that kind of addict. I don't know. Well, I think it is a thing, an addictive personality that I know that I would have probably grabbed that with both hands. I mean, like chocolate. I don't really one bit of chocolate, no. If I'm gonna have chocolate, it's it's an all or nothing. And I really have that under control now, but it's been it's with my emotions as well. And another thing, like you said, dopamine, I love that. I love the whole dopamine dressing idea as well. But it's the guilt that can trigger as well when you suddenly think you've you've eaten the cake, and you then think, oh bollocks, that's x hundred calories, that's this, that's that. And then the guilt, and it takes away any of the pleasure that you might have actually got from eating it, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Well, this is where my system has been. I developed this because guilt guilt can get in the bin, as far as I'm concerned. Guilt isn't yeah, guilt is an enabler to keep doing the thing that you feel guilty about. Um, as far as I've always framed that. So when you want to make what I call a non-optimal choice, and I rank food on the OSN scale, optimal, suboptimal, non-optimal. This is a rational scale, it is not an emotional one. So when you make so when you make an emotion, yeah, yeah, when the emotion cut kicks in and that's what causes this guilt and this shame, it's it's no, it's rubbish. Make a non-optimal choice, own that choice like the adult you are, enjoy whatever you're doing, and then move on to your next optimal mouthful. It was just a moment in time, because of course, your body isn't we are what we eat. If you make lots of non-optimal choices, you will have a non-optimal body. It's as simple as that. So you always have the choice to be more optimal.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

No, absolutely, and I I do now very consciously and intentionally try to do that with what I put food-wise in my I almost just said what I put in my mouth. Food-wise, what I put in my mouth, and so as I just said, chocolate, eat the blinking chocolate, but eat it in context, don't sit there on my ass all day eating chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

But then there are also, I mean, I I I life is too short for cheap chocolate and shitty wine, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, but in terms of when you make that choice, I would never choose a bar of galaxy that used to be my my my bar of choice. I'm now choosing at least 70%, if not 85% cocoa. I'm choosing a better quality of chocolate, yeah, because the the the chocolate you buy in the supermarket is literally it's just a sugar bar with a little bit of cocoa on the side.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

So it's that creamy taste, though. It's a taste.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

For me, I because the sweetness expectation of our tongues can be tuned by what we eat, which is one of the reasons why I started my angle of being UK-centric. Because when I started going into my history a little back in 1999, everything, all of the information on low carbon was coming out of the states, and of course, they have a massive sweetness expectation. Everything in the states has sugar added, including their bread. Their bread is sweet, it's like brioche is our would be our equivalent. And so one of the things I I advise my clients is that if you're ever gonna use a US recipe to make anything, cut the sugar, cut the sweetness in it by at least a third, because the Americans expect things to be sweeter than us Europeans and us British do. It is as simple as that. So our sweetness expectation is tuned by what we're putting across our tongue. Our tongue is a very, yes, it only does five tastes, but it is very, very acute acute. It's a lot of discernment. Yeah, yeah, it's sweet salt, sweet, salt, sour, bitu, umami. Umami is um that savory meaty taste.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Oh, okay. Yeah, I got I got you.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Um monosodium glutamate is umami, pure umami.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Um, and where we then get the discernment is because we are smelling our food as much as we are tasting it. And so so it's the mixture of the oxygen you you you taste more when you breathe as you eat.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Which is also a little bit about slowing down and actually being conscious about what's mindful as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

And I think that's a great idea. Sometimes it can be rather revolting if someone else is doing it and you think I don't really want to watch anyone being mindfully mindfully eating. But when you're on when you're on your own and actually savouring and slowing down, and yeah, you always taste more when you take that moment and you breathe whilst you eat because the oxygen it goes.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

That's why we've got sinuses, because it all goes up into our our mouth, mouth, into our nasal cavities, it bounces around, gives us more um from what we're eating than just the five tastes, and away it goes, um, which is why slowing down is a good thing. Well, what was I talking about? So sweetness, expectation, tuning of the tongue. So the tongue will expect a certain level of sweetness, and when you start dialing that down, when you then put something that was previously your level of expectation, it will be too sweet. So, again, one of the one of the things with my clients is that I'll say to them, if you're going to eat strawberries, I only eat strawberries in June because that's frankly when they're best. But we as um human beings did not evolve eating fruit all of the year. We ate it seasonally. But when you have a strawberry and it is as sweet as anything, and before you would always put sugar on a strawberry because it was too tart.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah, I remember that sugar, yeah, growing up, always sugar on the strawberries.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Strawberry, yeah. But that's the tuning of the sweetness expectation because your tongue will dial down and and effectively amp up. This is this is this is logically, this is less sweet than it was five weeks ago, six weeks ago, but I now sense it as sweeter than it was because the tongue has as amped up the receptor. It's like anything, like like as much as dopamine. When you hit your dopamine centres and you need more and more, when you hit your sugar, sugar taste buds, they need more and more to give you the same sweetness reception. So when you when you've dialed that back, things taste literally, things are sweeter, things are more salty, things are more bitter because you're not putting as much across your tongue.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And it's really bringing back the joy, isn't it? And I love that because we're on a shared mission, coming at it from different angles, but at the end of the day, we're all about enabling people to fall back in love with themselves, to fall back in love with the way they live life. And I love that, and I love well, let's let's let's go back a bit in your story because again, we we share guiny issues, we share all sorts, but let's start back when things weren't so fabulous, and how you got to where you are now, and how you are celebrating being, I love the title, Life Alchemist. Take me back. I'm doing a diddle diddle at your side effects better than mine.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Um, back in 1999, I was absolutely huge. I was tired all the time. Um, I had never had, I've still never had a regular period in my life, but at that point they were like, Oh, okay, I'm I'm I'm on the third week of my menstrual cycle at the moment. Fair enough, that's all good. Um and a colleague at work, a chap called Tim, who to which I will forever be grateful, gave me a copy of Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution. And now I had done Weight Watchers, I'd done um the Apple diet, I'd done no eating at all, I'd done all the things as you didn't think.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, every all the diets and everything.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

And I picked it up and I opened it up and I read it and thought this makes utter biological sense. I can see the sense in this. So I and I love I love meat, steak is my favourite food. So so for me it was a it was a very okay, let's let's let's go for this, let's do this. And that was this I worked it out the other month. The 6th of December 1999 is when I start. God knows why I did it before Christmas. I have no fucking clue. Um, but yeah, but but 6th of December 1999, I started low carbing at Kin style, so 20 grams straight in. Um, I got keto flu, which is what it's now called. I felt crap for about a week and a half, and then I started to feel balanced and good and not as tired, and started to see the benefits of everything. Yeah, um, I was at that point still very much in diet mentality, so I was a loser. Um, and I look back on this now, and this is where this is where my system comes in. I look back on the language, it's horrible. Oh, and didn't build any resilience emotionally whatsoever. So I was still very much a comfort eater. If something went wrong, if something celebrated, whatever. My my 30th birthday, 4th of November 2000, I went to Pizza Hut and or Pizza Express had had a sloppy Giuseppe with doughs because I deserved a treat. I'd been good for like 11 months. Why can I not have a treat? All that thing that diet's culture thinking. Um, and at that point, I felt so much better. And then I had um in 2003 I was diagnosed with endometriosis. Now I don't know if I actually did have endometriosis because I had spots of endometrial tissue on my sigmoid colon at laparos laparoscopic examination. So they gave me a three-month medical menopause and I went batshit crazy. And so, of course, because I had no resilience, I immediately dived into sugar and chips and potatoes and crisps and all the things that sugar is a margiforic. And it's familiarity as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it calms you down, it balances you, and it starts effectively got me to dragged me through the day. And that was that for seven years or so. I self-medicated with food, I did I got I look back and think I was clinically depressed. I didn't seek any help because uh they basically just gave me this menopause and the jog on you, you are healed, go away. Um, so I didn't seek any form of um mental counselling. I just looking back now, I didn't change the bed for six months because I was bleeding. I had a year-long period after I had a year, year off of no blood at all. And I just I don't have many memories of between sort of 2003 and about 2007. I literally the life just happened. Life lifed, I was there. Don't know what I did really, apart from didn't really do anything bad because I'm obviously still here. Um, and about 2007, 2008, I had a a different chap, uh chat, another chap called Tim, different Tim. Yeah um and he got me into cycling. Oh and and and he was a mad keen like biker and or trice tricyclist, whatever you want to call it, cyclist. And so we started getting on a bike more, and I got my own cycle and started cycling to work, and not the whole way, I'd get the train into Cannon Street and then cycle up through London. Really lovely cycling in London, actually. And my body went, ooh, I like I like this movement, but I was still eating rubbish, yeah, and it it was like making the choice of yeah, I really need to start start not eating rubbish again. I really need to get back to how I felt like in 2000, in early 2000s, because of course this is mid 2000s now, and so he went on a stag do in late 2009. Three days, Amsterdam he went off and did what he wanted to go and do in Amsterdam, and I stays in Amsterdam, stays in Amsterdam, and I filled the fridge up with peppers and mushrooms and broccoli and steak and Cream and the things that I knew would give me a good start. And that's when effectively I restarted being low carb again. But I also realized at that point in time, I can't do it the way I did it before because I've got no I had no mental resilience. And I'd really because what I'd been through, I had realized effectively that emotional journey hadn't been finished, hadn't even been started. And at work, we were starting to do a thing called hierarchy. So instead of having hierarchy where you have the bosses and top-down management, yeah, um, we decided that everybody would have an empowered voice to say what they wanted to say. Now I worked for London Barough Camden at that point, the rebel council. And it was, it was, it was one of those things that everybody needs to have a say in how we run the council. Yes, it is still a little hierarchical because you have to because of law.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

But it was that whole if you are a grade three and you've got a blinding idea, you should be able to say that to the grade nines and it will be paid attention to. And so Camden were investing in coach training, facilitation training, um, the one begin with I, influencing training.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And so I hopped on those things, realized that I have a skill in facilitation influencing and negotiation. That was the other one, negotiation and coaching, and started to apply that to my own life as much as I was applying it at work.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Oh, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

And then I made my own little system of how I was doing life and choice. Very, very, very affecting baby person, but baby personal development. That then started to form the crystals of what's now called the Hope Protocol and your path to health. Because I then started giving that to other people. So in 2016, I started coaching others in well, this is how I eat food, and I know it works, mentoring. Let's have a go with yourselves. Yeah. And I'd had a Yahoo mailing list since 2000 because, of course, everybody that does low carb from a UK perspective, at that point, the carb calculation that comes over from the States, they they include fiber in their carbohydrate figure. We do not. We our fibre is separate. Right. So they do this complicated mathematics that you have to take your fibre away from your carbohydrate to get what they call net carbs. Our carbs are already net, we do not have to do any mathematics to eat. And of course, we didn't know that. So when back in 2000, when I bought my packet of scan brand from Holland and Barrett, I looked at the back, did the calculation, and came up with minus four carbohydrate. That can't be right. No. That's when I found out our laws are different. Well, if I need to know this, other people need to know this.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

It's about the information, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Absolutely. So I Yahoo! mailing list born in August 2000, and then I wrote a website, HTML4, because I'm a geek, years in technology, and started spreading the information all very informally, didn't have any aims for it as a career at all beyond. I need to get this information out there. And so in 2016, I had this foundation of an audience. We hopped over to Facebook because Yahoo groups were dying. Um, built a Facebook group that is now sitting on 10,000 people. Wow. Um, not that it is very active because of the algorithm changes, but that's a whole nother issue.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Um but but that sort of 2016, I started coaching and mentoring other people in this thing that I'd created. Um, I then wrote the book about it. Um, I wrote my first one that had the hints of it, and then the second one was about Christmas, and then the third one is is effective the Magnum Opus about how to do low-carb UK style. And that is my method taken out and concreted. So you've got the nine shifts to shift you over to a low-carb way of living, the ten keys that unlock your mind, then that became the path to health, and the three secrets that guarantee your success long term.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

And that and that I wrote that all while at least half of it while I was on a cruise in Norway with my mum. And that's a whole nother story. But but it got it out of my brain because one of the things, one of the things I really do is frameworks. I do those really, really well. That's how how my brain works. And so taking that then, that then created what was first of all called the Get Started Challenge, which was online group coaching. That then evolved into my once one, into all these other little glorious things that I've been doing for the last nine years. It'll be 10 years soon. Um, in fact, it is 10 years this year, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 26:42

I was just thinking, congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

20 years. Um, so for the last 10 years, I've built on this framework that was in my brain, and I know it's helped thousands of women to live a low-carb life very successfully.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I think that's amazing. Well, I say obviously we'll be giving all your contact details later on in the episode, and they're on the show notes for this episode, and you have your guest profile on the Midlife Unlimited podcast website, where I'm guessing we'll be putting the, well, we will be putting the link to get all three, three books, isn't it? But let's, if if we may, obviously, some people love a book and we don't know whether it's audio, I like an actual physical book. But as we promised earlier, can we actually talk through your your top tips, your top takeaways for how to get off this blinking blood glucose, I'm saying it right, roller coaster. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Um, my my first thing is is even if you don't want to make massive changes in your life, minimizing sugar, minimizing wheat, these two things are the biggest contributor to blood glucose that we eat.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Um and and when you work through the nine shifts, well, the first thing we we minimize, we start to avoid. I don't use the word remove only in a few circumstances, because avoiding, again, it's the power of the language power of choice. And you want it. If you say you can't have something, why not? I want that. Whereas if I'm avoiding it, well, yeah, I'm just avoiding it right now. It's it's it's it is what it is. Uh so again, I'm I'm a big fan of changing our language. It's key six.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

That's what I that's what my coaching is all about. Changing the way we speak to ourselves, changing the language we use about ourselves, because it's so powerful. It is so powerful and it's so simple. Yeah, it's so powerful.

unknown 28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

So so avoiding sugar, avoiding wheat is then the next the next shift. Can I just ask that to avoid other things?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Sorry, wheat. When you say wheat, is now this is me being ignorant. I'll put my hand up. Are we talking just about the gluten element of wheat? Are we talking about wheat full stop? Is this a different conversation to have on another podcast?

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Um, wheat is a mixture of gluten, which some people are have an intolerance to, some people are allergic to. Some are just walking away from it, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I mean, I know I've I've walked away from it in quite a big way.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yeah. Oh, I I there's a whole thing about a guy called Norman Borlock that we take about 20 minutes on, so we won't. Um, but but wheat also is starch at the end of the day. All grains have a massive starch component, which is glucose chains. Um, so if you think about table sugar is a fructose and a glucose welded together, starch is lots of chains of glucose. So it has a so wheat is a big source of um glucose. Yeah, effectively. So so avoiding sugar and avoiding wheat, top two. Um, the next one you could probably then add to that as well, which we tackle a little bit further down the way, because you also need to change your mindset about how you look at things. Potatoes. Potatoes are what's called a very fast, they fast break down into their component glucoses, which of course means they hit your blood glucose really, really fast.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

So that's so interesting because these are two things that I haven't, I mean, I I I've yet to read your book and I will be reading it, but those are two wheat, well, bread, um, pasta, um, potatoes, uh things I've I'm not allergic to them, but I have noticed a big impact on how I'm feeling. And I don't just mean in terms of gurgly tummy, and we won't even go down into that route, but yeah, in terms of how I feel. Really, and I love I love I love potatoes, especially because I don't eat meat. It's like, oh, you need you need a bit of a bit of some.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Well, this this comes down to the roller coaster element of our conversation because these things that are high in glucose go into the stomach, get absorbed by the stomach lining, and go into what's called the portal vein, into your liver. Your liver then processes it and kicks it out into the body. And the body's ability to break down glucose into its component glucosiness out of the things you're eating is very, very good. We we have a thing called amylase, which breaks it out of our food very, very quickly, sloves it and shoves it into our bloodstream very, very fast, which is one of the jobs why uh one of the reasons why whenever you eat something like fruit, fruit has fibre. Fibre slows down that absorption. So fruit on its own, although I don't tend to eat it um not in season. If I'm gonna eat fruit, I will only ever eat a piece of fruit. I would never drink a glass of juice because you've taken away the protective fibre. So potato doesn't have a lot of fibre in it, which is why it's very fast acting. And wheat, of course, white bread, got no fibre in it at all. So it's just straight in, straight through the gut lining, into the liver. The liver then chucks it out into the blood for your your body via insulin to then pull into your muscles and your fat cells. And so so this and this reaction starts by that taste. So so carbohydrate digestion starts in your mouth. Fat and protein actually starts in your stomach. There's it's a different mechanism. So the body knows that you've got starch or sugar incoming by the by the taste activation on your mouth, it then starts to produce insulin and it does it in two waves. It produces a little bit to start with, and then sees what's going on, and then will produce more for what's actually going on once once the liver lets it know. So if you're then ingesting a massive amount of glucose, effectively starches, potato, wheat, sugar, you then produce a dose of insulin to cope with that. If you've got what's called insulin resistance, um, which a large amount of the population does, because also this is like the more the more you hit on a thing, the more resistant your body becomes to it. Um, think of it as a suitcase. When you go on holiday, you put clothes in your suitcase, and then you try and get a bit more clothes in your suitcase and you sit on the and and that is what insulin is doing in our cells. It is effectively it opens the suitcase, puts the glucose into the cell, and then shuts the door. And if it's trying to put a bit more in it, it will squidge onto the top of the suit your cell suitcase. And but there's only so much you can put into your cells, they are a finite receptacle. Yes, we have a lot of them, but um, you can only stuff so much in, and that's when you then get blood sugar rising, blood glucose rising, because it can't go anywhere, we can't put it away into a cell to be safe, and also when you've got insulin resistance, your body will react fast to try and bring your blood glucose down because it has to. Glucose is a vital for life molecule, but it has to be within a certain tolerance for our health. If we have over too much glucose running around, our cells start to break down, which is why dia diabetics, diabetic repinothy, your eyes start going, your muscles go, your kidneys fail, because there's too much glucose knocking around, it causes um age, literally, um advanced glycation end products ages. And so when the insulin can't stuff it away anymore, we our blood glucose rises, and we're that's when we become officially diabetic. But before then, at least 10 years before then, insulin has started to try and put these things away. It can't do it, but it's putting it away effectively, very efficiently. So your blood glucose rises, insulin comes along, stamps on it all, your blood glucose drops. Your brain goes, I'm starving, I need more food. So you shove more carbohydrate in your face, your blood glucose rises, your insulin comes along, it shoves it all in your cells. Um, your brain goes, Oh, I'm hungry, and it's this cycle, that's why it's a roller coaster. So when you are taking away these three big doses, dose um put inputs into your body, insulin doesn't have to get as snappy, it doesn't have to clear up after itself as fast. So you become more stable. And because the brain doesn't actually prefer glucose, it prefers a thing called ketones, which is what we make from protein and fat, um, to think your butt when you are born, you are in ketosis, you use ketones for energy, and you cannot take a baby out of ketosis for for very long at all, but they will go straight back into it. Breast breast milk is the perfect, perfect blend of fat, protein, and and glucose for growing infant. And as we as we grow up in in our food culture, we move from ketosis to glycolysis, glycolysis, eating using sugar burning, sugar, which is quick, dirty, and uh not as efficient as burning fat in in the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. Um we we produce um oh god, my numbers have gone missing. It's it's something like 50, it's three times as much ATP. ATP is the molecule of energy. So the mitochondria is like the bureau de charge of the body. You put glucose or f or co-ketones into the mitochondria and you get out 59 ATPs per molecule of glucose, you get out 129 molecules of ATP for a molecule of ketone, so it's three times as efficient, right? Yeah. Um, it also takes more effort, and the body is lazy. So the body would much prefer to do the easy route and burn a bit of glucose. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

And also babies sleep a lot, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yes, yes, so that's so any relevance, but it but it's this whole um along the lines of we as our human body is as bad as our human brain in the fact it will always take the easiest way out. And carbohydrate in our plentiful food scape has become the very easy way out for people's bodies, and then there are two types of bodies. There's me, this is harking back to Richard McCarney's back in the 60s. He named it Mr. Fatten's Easily and Mr. Burns Everything. So those people that can eat what they like and stay skinny, um, their bodies are not protecting them by shoving the sugar into their fat cells. Whereas Mr. Fatten's Easily is the person that gets fat when they eat that. Mr. Burns Everything is the people that say skinny. If I said it the wrong way around, then I did. But it's it's this whole Mr. Mr. Burns Everything is not protected by our bodies, and we'll go straight to type 2 diabetes, and then they'll suddenly wonder why on earth did I get sick?

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Whereas the missy Mr. Mr. Fatten's easily, their body is trying to keep them as healthy as possible for as long as possible by making them fat, protecting them from their blood glucose.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Oh right.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

This is all evolutionary reaction. Whereas, whereas when you think, oh yeah, back in the 70s, people were not as big, you look at the people, what is it, the Brighton Beach picture where they took it in the in the drought of 1976 and they took one in is it 2024? They took the same picture.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

I think that sounds right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

And everybody in this in the Brighton Beach in in 2076 is quite slender, they're not skinny, but they're not fat, they're just yeah, yeah, what I would know, yeah, average. Whereas now there was a lot of very fat people on Brighton Beach.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

The average has gone up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

The average has gone up because I believe, and again, correlation is not causation, it's the start of science, not the end. However, the thing that has changed since 1983, um, when we produced the new food guidelines, NACRA said, um, even though um these go contrary to current wisdom, we believe now that we need to eat less carbohydrate and more um less less less fat and more carbohydrate, contrary to popular wisdom, which is what they actually said in the report. Um, we've all got fatter and we've all got sicker because we changed the way we eat as human beings.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

So I think it is time then to follow that lead and celebrate your new, well not new thinking, but the fact that you've got now that you've making it accessible in terms of the UK version of it. So, as you said, we can understand these labels because it can be a like, oh my goodness me. And especially if life gets busy when we're lifing, when everything else is going on, we don't necessarily stop and read the labels, do we? No, we don't or we don't necessarily look know what to look for.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

No. Um, this this is where um I I often say if it's got a label, then it's probably what's called a suboptimal choice because it's made of ingredients. Now I'm not I'm not down on processed food per se, because if I pick up a packet and look at the back, MS is great for this. You can look at it and go, I could make that in my kitchen. So I'm gonna buy it. I haven't got time right now, so I'm gonna buy this thing so I can eat properly.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

But because it hasn't got diestas of whatever and a whole bunch of junk you couldn't just buy, that's where that's where if it contains what's in this I always love yes, things that you would have in your kitchen cupboard, not necessarily, but you know, in a in an ideal world, things that you would have in an in a everyday kitchen cupboard, if they're the ingredients, we're okay. If it's long letters and numbers, we don't want to touch it.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Absolutely. So so look at but everything I I cook from scratch. I've I love cooking anyway. I'm blessed in it. We do, yeah. So so buying whole food, buying a uh a piece of fish and some broccoli and some stuff and putting it together into a meal. Um buying a meal that's ready made, if I could make it myself, is my is my is my personal guidance on that. Um, being discerning about choices, all all of my method comes back to discernment. And is is this thing that I'm gonna put in my face going to serve me? If it's going to be.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

That's a really good third top tip, isn't it? Ask yourself, you know, because no matter what your overarching beliefs are, let's go with the we're only here once, we've got this amazing body, let's look after it, let's honour it. I mean, that's a wonderful phrase that you used in our in our pre-chat. It's all about honouring ourselves, celebrating ourselves, isn't it? And thinking, now we're in midlife, we've bloody got here, let's do everything we can to make the next moments, days, weeks, months, years, hopefully, be as bloody good for our movement as well, for our state of mind, for our relationships, for our businesses, for whatever. Let's just go for it.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

I I believe we were put here to have experiences of joy. Yeah. Simple, simple as we what is it being existential? Life has no meaning. So the only meaning it has is what we give it. And I believe that meaning is joy. Um, and I hit I hit 55 years ago and went, oh my god, I I'm I'm I've got less time now than I've ever had. Oh, I need to make this count. It's like a real rocket up my bum, you know, it's that whole I've got to get a wiggle on with these books and these this serving and these messages I've got to get out. But all of that has to be focused on what I put into my body, what I put in my mouth, what I put in my brain, mouth fed, brain fed. Um, these things have to serve me and empower me and enrich me. And putting crap in my body and in my brain is not serving anyone, least of all me.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

No. Well, it's as I say, it's disrespecting ourselves, isn't it? Yeah. And I don't mean that in street talk, I mean that in terms of what are we doing? Well, really, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Spiritually, depending on what you I'm now, I'm a pagan, so I believe that everything has divinity. So honouring myself is part of honouring the whole universal collective awards. And again, if if you are have a different spirituality, it's still about if I am loving myself and being what I call ethically selfish, making sure I can give because I am full, my cup is full, cannot give for an empty cup. Making sure my cup is full so it overflows with abundance and joy that I can give to others, that in itself is then serving the glory of whatever divinity you want to believe in, because I am then a more useful servant of the universe, the world, God, whatever you want to put it as. And so having that choice around putting a quality thing in my face rather than oh, oh God, yeah, I just need a thing and shoving something that will give me a short term hit of whatever it gives me, and then I feel crap again, that in itself gives me a better experience, which gives the world a better experience. It's it's all part of part of the keys, part of unlocking your mind. These key for is love bath and just honor taking some time with yourself naked with no with like in the bath or the shower. And if you can't go that far, washing your hands is a good start under the tap. Um, and just thanking thanking the bits of your body for existing and supporting you and like your writing hand, my dominant hand. Thank you so much for penning these things that and allow picking things up and giving me the control over whatever. And thank you, like left hand for supporting me. My my my my right hand dominant. Thank you, my arms for being able to hug things and pick things up, carry things for me, and just taking this time and doing effectively a body scan, a little bit meditative. Thank thank you. Thank you, eyes, for seeing the glory of the world. Thank you, face for being able to communicate and lips and tongue for being articulate and tasting all this amazing, lovely food that we're eating. Thank you, thank you, throat for supporting my my head, which is carrying the brain. Thank, thank you, uh thank going down. Thank you, my but my my boobies for being amazing, and my and my tummy for being sort of nurture and whatever. Thank you, legs for carrying me, thank you, feet for walking all these places, and just taking the time to thank your body because we just don't do it. We've detached our brains. We we are we at the moment we are creatures of the mind, and the world wants us to be creatures of the mind with the internet and our phones and everything, going in feeding feeding our eyes with stuff, not taking the time to think, well, the world is glorious and I'm in it, and my brain is as much a part of my body as my as my body is part of my body. The body never lies to us, and the brain is full of full of lies.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Oh gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

So so listening to our bodies and giving it care and attention, some of that is food, some of that is rest, some of that is is cleanliness, some of that is being in nature and being the sun on our faces. And we we we've basically just stepped sideways and divorced ourselves from all of it, and and and part of being midlife is realizing that I'm not here. Well Michelle Obama said it on Cobert a little while ago. She's 60-ish now, and she said, Yeah, I've only got what 20 summers if I'm lucky. I want to make all of those 20 summers count.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love that. I love that. That's beautiful, and thank you for sharing the love bath. I absolutely adore that. I am going to be doing some of that later on because I I have I I am saying the whole gratitude, but it takes it to the next level. Now I know there are going to be lots of lovely ladies listening that would be wanted to get in touch with you. We're going to be sharing your details in a little while, but first, we're going to move into your three questions because you're not going to escape. You're not going to escape. I've loved our conversation. I could talk to you for hours, but we're going to be going live as well. So we will continue the conversation with our live video podcast. But for now, your first question: what is your midlife anthem? The piece of music or song that lights you up. Queen, I want to break free. Oh. Or a bit of a rebellious street there as well, then.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Oh, definitely. I'm definitely a rebel. That that comes into the the biography bit as well.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

So no, I love that. I love that. Not with a Hoover in hand.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

No. So yeah, but just it's it was such an you look about that ones. What the reason it bombed in the States is because they couldn't deal with the British sense of humour and cross-dressing. They just couldn't deal with it. But it's such again, it's this this whole, I look at those words now because it's it's a sort of a it's a relationship breakup song, but it's also I want to break free of the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Um, I want to break free from your lies, yourself, self-satisfied. I don't need you. And I've fallen in love. I've fallen in love for the first time, and this time I know it's for real. I'm talking about myself, yeah. So it's a it's the midlife anthem. Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Absolutely. I've got it in my head now. Like I've got and Freddie with his Doris Day Absolutely, awesome video. Oh, brilliant, brilliant. So now I want to know. Oh, I'm building up, I'm I'm getting excited about your book as well. So, but no, question two, we're not going to jump through that. Your midlife mantra. Keep on keeping on.

unknown 48:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Just doing it. Yeah. I don't like the alternative, quite frankly. No. So keep on settle.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

No, no, thanks. Keep on keeping on. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep going. Churchill, I don't agree with these politics, but the when you're in the storm, the only way through the storm is to go through the storm. That's it. You just need to keep going. Keep on keeping on. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

So now then, drum roll, please. Oh no, it's not finished. It's a work in progress. Oh, well, I love that. So title of your autobiography, work in pro that could be the title. It's a work in progress.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

It's something about rebellion and being rebellious. And I want to say rebel with a clue, but that's that's not quite, but it's that sort of energy that I would want my I would want my biography to have the whole rebel with a clue is probably actually a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

I like that. I like that. Oh, and I look forward to reading it. This has been an absolutely fascinating. I've learned so much. I am like a sponge, and I I my partner said to me the other day, he goes, Wouldn't you want to know everything? And I'm like, No, I wouldn't want to know everything because then there'd be nothing. I love the learning too much. Yeah, I can see all the full. I'm surrounded by piles of books and magazines and all sorts. Because I think when we it's I go beyond growth mindset, I'm more about a metamorphosis mindset because when you stop, when you go, Oh, I know enough now, I know everything.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

No, no, well, that's sliding quickly into that's why I had choose Life Alchemist as my job title, because alchemy is looking in previous times, it was looking at turning lead into gold. Modern alchemists are looking at the lead in life, the things that drag us down, the weights, weights, yeah, and then transmuting that into the gold of joy and happiness and momentum and growth. So that's what I'm looking with with the ladies I work with. We're looking at the heaviness in their life, and we're transmuting that into where can they have joy, happiness, energy, vitality, clarity.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Brilliant. Right. You've alluded to you're out there, come and connect. All your details are in the show notes and on the website. But talk me through how ladies and gents as well can get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Yeah, gents can. I'm primarily work with ladies though, because I have a female body and so I understand it a lot better than I that I get the testosterone, but that that's not my speciality. So yeah, so how can they connect with you? Um, my website, Nicola Howard, Nen I K O L A. Nicola with a K, that's part of my rebellious stuff. When I was 16, I spotted someone with a K and went, I'm having that, because there was four Nicolas in my class at school. Very, very, very, very popular name in the 70s. Um, so NicolaHoward.uk is my website. Um, Nicola Howard, again, with K is my socials pretty much everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, I think come on Pinterest, can't remember. Um, but it's are definitely on threads, which I'm I'm loving a bit of threads, loving a bit of blue sky. Um, Nicola Howard on LinkedIn, and he's Nicola with a little heart. Um, because I was in infrastructure for 30 five years, there's also technical me. She's got a little computer. If you go and just look at Nicola Howard, there'll be two of us. Um, I'm the one with the heart, the sparkly heart after her name. So that is where you can sort of find me hanging out. I mostly at the moment hang out on LinkedIn because it's the least evil of the social medias. Um, Blue Sky is also good. I do hang out on Blue Sky quite a bit as well. So and I'm not on X. I left X. I'm not on X. I left X as soon as it became X because Twitter was amazing. I spent a lot of like the when it was one of the early people I was on there. I loved loved Twitter, but it just became yucky. And yeah, as soon as Elon bought it, I left. I bailed.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Well, everyone, you know where to find Nicola, and obviously I say her links are on the show notes. Um, and I'd love your feedback on today's episode. So it'd be fabulous if you could leave a review or you can email and text me via the link in the show notes and come and join the Midlife Unlimited podcast Facebook group. The links there too, and the website link where you can find details of more, my award-winning all-in-one coaching program that combines one-to-one with group coaching, and for all you budding experts who want to transform from nervous podcast guest wannabe to the expert that podcast hosts want on their show. I've got spaces available in the next month, definitely, for one-to-one pop your podcast cherry sessions. Yep, you heard me right. So, thank you for joining me, Nicola. I've really enjoyed today. I've learned so much. Thank you for listening. I look forward to you tuning in next week because don't forget Midlife Unlimited has a new episode every Thursday available wherever you listen to your podcasts. So here's to being fabulous and flourishing together and living midlife unlimited. Thanks, Nicola. It's been brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

My pleasure. Bye.