Nourishing Women with Associate Professor Shelley Wilkinson Part 1

In this episode, we sit down with Associate Professor Shelley Wilkinson, women’s health dietitian and clinician-researcher, to unpack what women really need to know about nutrition across the lifespan.

From fertility and pregnancy through to postpartum and perimenopause, Shelley breaks down how a woman’s nutritional needs change—and what actually matters (without the overwhelm). We cut through the noise of diet culture and online misinformation to bring you clear, evidence-based advice you can apply in real life.

We also take a deep dive into one of the most underrated nutrients: fibre. Shelley explains why fibre is essential not just for gut health, but also for hormones, energy, blood sugar balance, and long-term health—and how to easily get more of it into your day.

This episode is all about practical, no-guilt nutrition—helping you feel more confident in how you fuel your body at every stage of life.

For more of Shelley and amazing free online resources, books, blogs, as well as the capability of booking an appointment, including telehealth, if you feel that you would benefit from guidance or a dietary review, follow the links below. 

https://lifestylematernity.com.au/

https://lifestyleperimenopause.com.au/

For 10% off Shelley's "Nourish & Nurture", please enter the code HB10

Looking for more Healthy Banter? Check out our website at https://www.healthybanter.com.au/ or follow us https://www.instagram.com/healthybanter.podcast/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Healthy Banta, the podcast where women's health gets real relatable and just a little bit cheeky. We'd like to begin this podcast by acknowledging the traditional owners on the land on which we meet today. We would also like to pay respects for elders past and present. Hi Jules. Oh, hey Meg, how are you today? I am very excited today because we have a really cool guest coming on today. And I think everyone's going to really love this chat because it is all about nutrition. It is with Associate Professor Shelly Wilkinson, who is based up here in Brisbane with us and has lifestyle maternity and lifestyle perimenopause. That is her business. And Shelley is also well, I mean, she was so lovely to have in. And I think everyone's going to really enjoy the chat. But what I really loved about her is that she is a dietitian but also combines that with psychology. And I think that combo is a really lovely one to have, which you'll hear when we when we chat with her.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

Oh, absolutely. And it's necessary because you can know what you need to eat, but then actually doing that is so hard. And she covers that so beautifully in the first episode. She does. Um, she looks at uh our nutritional needs as a woman. We also talk a little bit about some myths and trends. Yeah. Because there's a little bit that pops up on social media that's, you know, you hear so much, and now kids are hearing so much. So it's like, you know, what's right and wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

But we had a really good discussion around the benefit of fibre.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

No, which is kind of nice because we hear so much about protein. And I think Shelley does say when is fibre gonna get its day. Um so it it is really it's a really fascinating chat. Um, I got heaps out of it. Yeah, and I feel like it was yeah, a bit of nutrition 101.

SPEAKER_05 1:52

Yep, maybe maybe Shelly's starting the fiber trend today. Hopefully. On Healthy Banter. You heard it first here.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

All right, let's get into it. Today we are joined by Shelly Wilkinson. Welcome, Shelly, to Healthy Banter. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. Um, I'm gonna read a quick bio for Shelly for our listeners. So, Associate Professor Shelly Wilkinson, PhD, is a women's health dietitian and clinician researcher. Shelley is a director and principal dietitian of lifestyle maternity and lifestyle perimenopause, specializing in evidence-informed nutrition across the reproductive lifespan, from fertility and pregnancy to postpartum and the perimenopausal years. A senior principal research fellow at UQ and Fellow of Dieticians Australia, Shelley brings decades of clinical experience together with academic rigor to translate research into practical, compassionate, and myth busting nutrition advice. Helping women make informed choices without guilt, fear, or unnecessary restriction. What a bio.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

And I'm very interested in the myth busting. I think that's amazing. We'll be having a few discussions around that, I think, today too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

That sounds great. So I think Shelly, looking, I think the best way to kick it off is if we look big picture at this. Um, and when we think about women's health across the lifespan, I think nutrition can be a bit overwhelming. So, where like how do you start the conversation with women with in this space?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

That's a good question. It depends on if someone's come to me around um trying to optimise fertility during pregnancy as a new mum and defining the new normal or perimenopause. There are some um probably like we're talking about the myths, there's some um traps women fall into into believing, and so they can tie themselves into knots into trying to do things that actually aren't necessary. Because healthy eating's quite simple, but it's not easy to do. So if you look back over the decades, it's still eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, um, have minimally processed foods, um, have a balanced diet and know what balance means. Um but advertising can trick people into thinking they need to do different things. So often I spend a lot of time unpicking the beliefs and trying to find out what beliefs people hold and then helping to sort of myth bust that. And then um there are a number of things um that are in our diet that can, as I said, optimise fertility or improve um nutritional status to make sure it's a healthy pregnancy or um grow bolder or just older into very menopause. There's certain key nutrients that are required, but they sit behind a food pattern. So it's sort of trying to one of my lecturers at uni used to say dietetics was an art and a science. It was the creativity of applying guidelines to a person, so really tailored personalized nutrition, but using the science that sits behind what people should do, but helping adapt to daily life.

SPEAKER_05 4:50

That's such a good way.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Yeah, that's a great way of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

Because everybody would be not only are they highly individual in terms of their tastes, likes, dislikes, and lifestyle, but they would also physiologically and at different phases of their life need slightly different things. That's right. So you have to adapt and help people adapt to that.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

And it's often through there's those key life stages, whether it's teen, pregnancy, um, and then going into perimenopause, that can be real um trajectory changes of chronic disease. So ultimately, what we're thinking about is decreasing chronic disease, then that means decrease the risk of heart disease, diabetes. So it's trying to maintain cardiometabolic health, heart and um metabolism, and at that cellular level, how the body processes nutrients, that's the end game for us. But often it's not presented like that. It's still like how do you eat well to feel strong and glowing and yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:48

Because that's hard to convince a teenager that that that's your end game, right? Because teenagers life is long, they're never gonna die. You know, that's the mentality that you approach that phase of life with. Is it fair to talk about and should we talk earlier in life to younger people about do you ever use the term inflammaging? Oh, I've never but it sort of is a little bit like what you're talking about in that aging is it's just a build-up of inflammation in our body, which therefore triggers a number of chronic diseases. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Yes, yes, and um I suppose, yeah, the way that um nutrition um educators have looked at more for teens and early 20s is looking at how nutrition can help for more of those short-term. It is what can we help people do that makes them feel better now that is also helpful for those longer term things. So, how do you um have glowing skin and hair? How do you concentrate and work best at school or at your job? Um, all those sorts of things. So how however eating to perform well in day-to-day will have that knock-on effect to um longer-term health.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

Yeah, because I guess too teenagers where they're hormonally and metabolically growing at such a rapid rate, life's changing, but they're often busy with uni and sport. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Like how do you how do you get the habit or the lifestyle changes? Like, how do you help the teens with that? Like I'm sure it's across all life stages, but teens especially, how does how can we support?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

I was reading an interesting like this, dietitian nerd. So I was reading an interesting PhD that your Friday nights are fabulous.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

I'm coming to your place. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Um, there is a a school counselor at one of the girls' schools in Brisbane, and she's a psychologist and did her PhD around how do we support um better health and well-being in girls at school in teens. And it was um an explore, you know, often we say the PhD, not a Nobel Prize. So you're actually learning how to do research in a PhD rather than solve the problems of the world. And often there's a lot of things that in averted commas go wrong, but you learn in the PhD. So she thought, let's go in and teach them about body image, but it's a lot it's a lot more up uh no downstream, no upstream. I always get that wrong. It's the what happens before body image. So it was actually empowering the mothers and how they talked about themselves and food and and how you empower um the girls to think about themselves more broadly, and when girls are feeling stronger and have the words to talk about um self-worth and self-regard, and there's a lot of that work around consent as well. They that because it's the way people talk about food and the certain things that happen with food in teen years, that it's about control, it's not about the food. And so it's that um upstream thing of helping people feel better within themselves and understand maybe how the media's working, yeah, how food can help them feel is um the antecedent to then some of the things that we're seeing day to day.

SPEAKER_05 9:06

Yeah, right. That you would have found that fascinating because you've done a little you've done a PhD and you interestingly, despite being a dietitian, your PhD was in psychology. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

And that's I think why that's that PhD was extra interesting to me to see that intersection of um, yes, it's about what to do, but it's about how to do it and the the regard around that.

SPEAKER_05 9:29

Because I think people know in general, like you started with, people know they should be eating fruit and vegetables, people know they should have certain things in their diet. We're going to talk a lot more about what they should have to make sure that they have the knowledge to make the decisions they need, but then to actually implement that or integrate that into their life, that's a whole different ballpark. So you've got that people have knowledge, but do they know how to change their behaviours or habits to make that part of their life?

SPEAKER_02 9:59

And then even critically appraise what they're being fed in the vertical in the media of oh, who's saying that message? What do they have to gain from saying that message? Yeah. Um, and is it true? And have I heard that elsewhere, or or does it conflict with something else? So there's a bit of yes, it's media literacy in a lot of cases.

SPEAKER_05 10:16

Well, media and slash well, social media. Oh, yes. You've got your TikTok, TikTok, yeah. What what has there been uh anything, a trend? Because TikTok is really aiming at the young ones, or Instagram, or yeah, you know, has there been a trend that you've noticed and picked up that might be targeting teenagers that you've thought, ooh, um that's not great.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Only something I heard at Pilates, which is more the other end and was this the mothers talking about okay, we're up 50, 60, 70 year olds who were getting angry that they couldn't get their Greek yogurt because there'd been a TikTok trend on Greek yogurt, maybe cheese.

SPEAKER_05 10:55

Oh my god, it's been driving me nuts. Right. The cibani yogurt. I know what it what tell me. Chibani yogurt is just a brand of yogurt. Yeah, yeah. It's been no problem ever. There's always been plenty of cibani yogurt. All of a sudden, no one has cibani yogurt.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

It's empty shelves. Is that that? I have seen that before. But there must be, I think there's a cheesecake recipe that has cabani, and then there's something about cottage cheese.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And I think that's layered with the um the protein push at the moment as well. Oh, yeah. And so there's a lot of um yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:27

Yeah, so inadvertently that might be slightly good, but slightly annoying. Yeah, and it's that all or nothing, or why is protein?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, I've seen actually I've seen a few um posts around when's fibre going to have its day, because it's sort of it was carbs and then it's fat and now it's protein. But the thing that's really probably that we're needing to boost in our diet that we're not eating enough of is fibre. Um, and that has a knock-on effect to a lot of how our body works, especially inflammation and immunity.

SPEAKER_05 11:53

Um how is that? So, what does fibre do? Well, I'm clandular.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Here we go.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

We're going down a rabbit hole. Come along, everyone. It's the science.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

And so, you know, when we did dietetics at uni, we did nutrition science as well as counselling. So it's understanding at that metabolic level what's happening in the body. So when you eat certain fibre, so there's um the soluble and soluble fibres that we gener or maybe we don't know about, but yeah, there's generally educate us. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So plant foods, yeah, good question. Plant foods, so um fruits and vegetables and breads and cereals and grains and products made from those will have um fibre, things that our body can't digest. Yep. And so that's soluble and insoluble. So some of its roughage and some of its um bulking agents. Okay. So it helps keep us regular and keep our gut healthy. Can you go back for a second?

SPEAKER_05 12:47

What's the difference between roughage and bulking? So is roughage like sloughing? Yeah, but bulking is um giving me nice stools.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yes, that's right. That's from the welcome to a normal dietitian's lunch. We will talk about these.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Um so yeah, it might absorb more fluid and um like a soluble fibre. Yeah. But both of those fibres are things our body can't digest. So it gets to the colon, the large intestine, and the bacteria, which is sometimes called our second brain because there are that many cells, yeah, um, and they manage how our body runs. It's our microbiome or the gut microbiome.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Um, they chom away at that fibre and then they release little farts themselves. So what's happening? This is my gas maintenance. So they um they digest the fibre and it produces um short chain fatty acids. So things um proprienate, acetate, and butyrate, and that actually keeps the cells lining our gut healthy. That's the fuel for what lines out.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

So the bacteria's fart is keeping the farts overall. Yeah. Okay, so then that's also what's produced with um yes, our farts. Right. Okay. Um and so the So hang on, when I fart, am I is that I could be helping myself.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

No, no, you don't want to give it in because then it'll come in a cat through your brain. I can't. So sometimes it's yes. Yeah, because it goes back into the blood and then it circulates, and the next um bus stop that it can get off is in the lungs. And um, so yes, essentially, short story long, the food that can that we can't digest ourselves will go down to the gut to be fermented by gut bacteria to feed the lining of our gut, keep that healthy. But also, there's some very clever people who've done studies to find receptors all around our body where these um short chain fatty acids will cross the lining of the gut into the bloodstream and go around. And that's essentially what that's our control centre of our body. So these short chain fatty acids going around will manage our inflammation, immunity, um, how our body harvests energy from food.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Um there's another fibre called resistant starch, which isn't quite a fibre, but there's certain foods that again are very um able to produce short chain fatty acid. So these sorts of foods drop the pH of the gut because it's producing acid. Yeah. Um, and so that's the effect of fibre dropping the pH to produce acid, and then that the acid byproducts give us healthy.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

And is that also is that is that part of when they talk about that gut brain, is what you just described, those short-chain fatty acids, we need more of those for better and clarity and cognitive function, or not so much?

SPEAKER_02 15:35

With a few more steps in there, and essentially, yes, there's these sorts of there's certain foods that you can eat, and again, it's the same sort of dietary pattern, whether we call it Mediterranean or minimally processed, but that's that certain pattern of plenty of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, um, a little bit of lean meat and then some dairy and your healthy fats, that general pattern is the one that's being shown in studies to decrease depression when compared with people who are on antidepressants. And um it yeah manages all sorts of bodily functions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

So what is what does that good diet, like what does it look like in a day? Like a typical because this is what we hear like you know, fruits and vegetables. And I'm like, which ones and how many? And like, is it like this or you know, like how big's a like what does it kind of look like on simplified, like a really yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Well, and so this is informed by the dietary guidelines, which are currently under review, but the last review um was a l uh tens of thousands of scientific papers, and then they looked at the link between certain nutrients and certain outcomes, and then what the um reviewers did was produce the dietary guidelines and through food modelling, and then they said, Okay, to stop you having anemia, you need this much iron, to stop you having osteoporosis, you need this much calcium, to stop you having all of those sorts of things, and they said, What does that look like in food groups? So we've got the we remember learning at school, we have the fruit and the vegetable group, the cereals and grains, dairy and alternatives and meat and alternatives, and then you've got some oils. Um the people, last people who did it with a CSIRO just did mapping and they said, okay, if we give people four serves of veg, two serves of fruit, one serve of dairy, et cetera, et cetera, do they get uh does everyone's nutrition needs get met? No. So that it's sort of like a bit of a sliding scale from all other food groups, and so they do food modeling in inverticomas to say how many serves do we need to eat. So it's different for different age groups and men and women and kids, but generally, and then because no one except for dietitians thinks like that, in food groups we translate it to um a healthy eating plate to show sort of proportionally in a day how much we should be eating. Yeah. But then often we get people throwing back saying, Oh, that's a lot of food, or the diet treaty guidelines don't work in inverted commas. And there's been some research showing um, and this makes sense, um, there was a paper that I saw presented about how many junk food, what what makes up shopping catalogues? And half of shopping catalogues eat junk food and alcohol and sweets and lollies and chocolates. Or probably pricey processed foods, which are yummy, but yeah, they can push more nutritious things out. And it's like, okay, well, that's the catalogue. What does that equate to how we spend? And some public health nutritionists in Queensland actually did that work and said, yes, actually, more so. So maybe 50% of the catalogues are junk. 58% of our food dollar is spent on discretionary, which is junk food. That's a nice way of saying that. And then they actually showed it in a pie chart. And the pie chart of junk versus um the other food groups, you could see actually, no, we're not spending the dollars on the foods that actually we know decrease chronic disease and keep us healthy. Yeah. So what we should really be having is um two and go for two and five. So always two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables a day, and that's to give the fibre and all of the nutrients that are in the fruit and vegetables. And so a serve of fruit is like one whole piece, like an apple, an orange, a pear, a medium-sized banana, two kiwi or two plums, a cup of diced or canned fruit. So that's what a serve is equal. You can have half a banana and that's half a serve. You don't have to eat full serve at once. Yeah, but that makes it fruits kind of easy, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Um, veg would be half a cup of cooked or one cup of salad or a medium potato. So it's about equipment. Five of those. And that's that's aspirational for Australians. So 95% of Australians don't eat their five veg. Um and it's a prob it's yeah, the fruit's about 150 grams, the veg is 75 grams, but that's sort of what it looks like in household measures and serves. Um and everyone gets obsessed about antioxidants, this and that, and the other, and they try and take tablets. But if you're having your five veg a day, they're more powerful, you're covered. You've got your five different fibres, you've got your different nutrients in the right proportion that we should be having them in.

SPEAKER_05 19:56

And I'm guessing with that five serves, you want a little bit of variety as well. You're not going to have five, all five serves of lettuce. You know, exactly. That wouldn't be good because even though you're getting your five serves, that's a lot of lettuce. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

And they talk about eating the rainbow, like a lot of the schools now are talking about eating the rainbow. So each of those different colours is a different food chemical, which is a different antioxidant and phytochemical, plant chemical. So you want to be having lots of different colours across the week to get all the different vitamins and minerals.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

If we had it in like a juice form, like a juice, you know, go and get like beetroot and carrot and like all of that. Like, is does that Unfortunately no.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Sorry, no. Because you'd be getting that wouldn't contain the fiber. And even if you put it the fiber in at the end of the whole P bit, um, there's some work coming out. So Professor Claire Collins or Laureate Professor Claire Collins at the University of Newcastle has done a few podcasts. Yeah. She's got a podcast, sorry, Tim.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Let's finish this one first, and then you can go and do another one.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Because she talks to lots of people doing research in specific areas. And there's a lot about, you know, can you drink your breakfast essentially? And there's work around your appetite hormones being stimulated by chewing. So drinking and your calories don't you don't register. And so it's easy to overeat, and you don't get the same benefit of the chewing and the satiety effect, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

We were having that conversation the other day with the is there another study that looks at soft drink and lollies and the how it fills people up, and if it doesn't register the soft drink, yeah, um, and so you can like kind of over consume. Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:37

And here I was, I thought I was so good because my morning smoothie I go, if I put XYZ in there, I've covered lots of things. And the occasional. And I can fit smug all day. I've got my colorful ready. I've had my nuts and I've had my cilia and I've got my oats and I've got my yogurt and I've got my fruit. The convenience. Though isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah. Yeah. But some of the you know, I I love my overnight oats. I love oats, you know. I mean, it's not that hard to cook porridge, it only takes two and a half minutes, really. But to be able to open up the fridge and grab your bowl, it's there. Yeah. But that's where you can put your oats in, yeah. Your um high calcium milk.

SPEAKER_05 22:17

And if you actually look at that, like if the point Megan brought up, which was the point you brought up the other day, is that if I sat and had to eat my overnight oats versus my smoothie, I would chug that smoothie down, not touch the sides, I'll feel full in a little bit. But that I might not even finish my little pot of overnight oats because it you immediately feel more full.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

And it lines your stomach and it keeps you. There are so many benefits to the overnight oats, and you can put psyllium in and chia seeds or other seeds. Can you do chia as you can? Yes, and we can talk about later how good they are. Yeah. But then another thing, Claire Collins says, and especially in her breakfast podcast, she says um that the foods that we often have for breakfast, it's the best, it's a great way to get dairy products or high calcium foods and fibre-containing foods. And so if you're skipping breakfast or if you're having something on the go, you miss a real amount of fibre that you could be having.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Intermittent fasting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Well, you know, I saw one, I saw a really funny oh no, some people are doing work on it, and it's essentially oh no, let's see how to say this. Someone said it's just disordered eating in a different package. Sometimes yeah, it can help people decrease how much they're eating if you skip and often it's a skipping breakfast and not eating till later, but then you're missing that high calcium meal and the high fibre meal. Um because you're not really because you're not having breakfast then at lunch. If you don't have those sorts of things. Um I know that there are good outcomes with links with helping manage blood glucose with di people with diabetes and things like that, but there can be other ways to help reduce intake, like teaching people how to eat, not just the what, but yeah, why are you eating, how are you eating, where are you eating. And if you can get people eating more intuitively and coming off automatic pilot and questioning what they're eating and when and why, and having no foods off limit, but if you allow anyone to eat anything but say there are sometimes foods and everyday foods, it just that it lasts longer. It's not a I I was doing intermittent fasting, but then I needed to go away with a family and I couldn't do it. If you teach people how to eat and get back in touch with the intuitive eating skills that we have when we're younger, it's more sustainable in the longer term for health.

SPEAKER_05 24:33

Yeah. Um yeah. Yeah, okay. Because it also does this is sorry, this is just this is I've not read anything on this. I've my Friday nights have been fun, but um question. Um with that intermittent fasting, does it also then does it change your brain or your appetite drive, like the messages that you're being sent, does it affect that or not? Like, are you overriding a hungry? Because you know, breakfast, the whole idea of breakfast is to break the fast from the nut, right? That's right, yeah. And so if you're then not eating until lunchtime, does that mean you're dampening down those messages from your brain to say, I think I need you to eat now? Or have we eaten already so much the night before? Well maybe, maybe still quite full and and what's the right word? Oh, satiated.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Satiated. Um, yeah. I don't know. There are some other people who've done more work and understand the sort of appetite mechanisms of that. I'm not so across that. Yeah. I just think it is not a sustainable way of eating. It does it does have positive effects when it's tested, but often in short-term periods. So it is one way that if it suits someone, it is a way to decrease health-related weight if they need to. But it's possibly I I've seen some posts either on Instagram or Twitter about is this just a bit like biohacking for men? Is that just um another word for disordered eating? Yeah. We're glorifying. Um and some people try it for a bit and then they fail in their heads, but the diet's failed them because it's still a diet. And so then they're not controlled.

SPEAKER_05 26:10

We're back to teenagers, it's a control. Yeah, yeah. When you feel powerful bec or you feel in control because look at me and look at what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

And then when you come off the wagon in there in a person who's doing it thinks, oh now I've failed and I'm no good because I've not been able to sustain it. Whereas maybe it's that that sort of diet and the restriction is only for short-term things like finishing a report for work or yeah, and then but like it sets up that cascade of negative self-talk, negative beliefs, which yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:41

And also too, it only leaves you really if you if you are not eating until lunchtime, you've only then got two meals to get in. Now we only started, we've got the two serves of fruit and we've got the five serves of veggies. We haven't even covered everything else yet, and now we've only got two meals to eat those in if we're doing the intermittent fasting. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Yeah. And that wraps up the first part of our discussion today with Shelly, and we are going to continue on with this, though, because there was loads of information as always. So look out for the next one in the next couple of weeks. The next time we sort of continue the discussion about differences in diet for women before and after menopause, and also wrap up our dietary goals.

SPEAKER_05 27:23

Yeah. What are we aiming for?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Two serves of fruit.

SPEAKER_05 27:29

Five vegetables, and the rest you'll have to listen to the second episode to get it all because it is there.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

It is all there. We'll also link in the show notes to Shelly's websites, Lifestyle Maternity and Lifestyle Prairie Menopause, where you'll find heaps of free online resources, books, blogs. Um, there's also a capability of booking an appointment, including telehealth, if you feel like you would benefit from guidance or a dietary review. And I can 100% recommend Shelly will be amazing for that.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

There's also on the website, she also offers a self-directed course. So even if you live interstate, you can still jump online, or even if you're in Brisbane and just don't have the time to get into Shelly or have a telehealth appointment. Um, the self-directed course is called Nourish and Nurture, and very generously Shelly has offered a code, and that is HB10. This will give you a discount uh on the Nourish and Nurture course. Shelly works really hard to make her courses affordable for all. She doesn't want finances to be a barrier to any of her, you know, nutritional courses. Uh, I think she was saying it's around $54 normally. So with the discount, it'll come down to in the 40s. So that's highly affordable.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

And this program is designed to inform and empower you to find easy and practical solutions for lasting changes to your routines and habits. Um, it's absolutely one I will be doing because I need to make some changes.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

And that's a wrap for today's episode of Healthy Banter. We hope you're leaving with something useful and maybe something worth sharing with a friend because that's what we're all about. Women supporting women, one honest chat at a time.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

If you loved hanging out with us, make sure to share, follow, or subscribe on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, or just head to healthybanter.com.au so you never miss an episode. Take the advice that helps, ditch the guilt, and keep cheering for yourself. We'll see you next week for more stories, more science, and even more banter. Healthy Banda is hosted, produced, and edited by Megan Jewels. Our main music theme is composed by Ada Akbal. Healthy Banda is not a licensed health service. It is not a substitute for professional health advice, treatment, or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you are in need of individual advice or consultation, please see a healthcare professional. If you are struggling, call Lifeline on 13314.