Seriously… Eat Your 5 Veg! Part 2 with Associate Professor Shelley Wilkinson

This episode is packed with evidence-based advice delivered in a compassionate, practical way—helping women feel more confident and less confused about food. 

In part 2 with Associate Professor Shelley Wilkinson, women’s health dietitian and clinician-researcher, we have a practical, down-to-earth conversation all about getting the foundations of nutrition right.

Think of this as Nutrition 101 for women—cutting through the confusion, fad diets, and overwhelming online advice to focus on the basics that truly matter for health, energy, hormones, and longevity.

Shelley breaks down simple, realistic strategies to help women nourish their bodies through every stage of life. We explore what balanced eating actually looks like, why fibre and protein matter, and how small, sustainable habits can make a big difference over time.

We also chat about the importance of getting your basics right first—like eating your 5 serves of veg, because you can’t outrun a bad diet and you can’t outsupplement one either.

Because healthy ageing isn’t about restriction or perfection. As Shelley's mantra goes, "Don’t just get older, grow bolder". 

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_02 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.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

Welcome back to another week, Jules. Again, we're going to continue our discussion with Shelly. We are. We're talking all things diet and nutrition again.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

We are, definitely. We're looking a little bit more broadly at what those food groups look like, like the ones we hear all about all the time. So we're looking at those and more importantly, how to incorporate them into our daily routines. And there's also just a little bit of a discussion around supplements and where we can find a little bit more information on this because I think that's a big one at the moment.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

It is a big one. It's walking into a chemist at the moment. Is the depth and breadth of available supplements is unbelievable. Um, do we actually need them? And if we do, how do we navigate through that?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yes. So we do touch on this, and Shelly is wonderful as if you listened last week, um, you will know. Let's get into it. I see it a lot with my um age group. We're going in, heading into perimenopause, and so everyone's finding shifting weight. Nothing works the same anymore. Like you can't just do the same exercise, eat the same because it's not working. And so with that metabolic, like what is it just then again reassessing like and behavior change and then looking at like that whole diet and possibly like eating more?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

It's such an opportunity. Yeah, it's such an opportunity to take stock. It's a bit like when I've just um seen some women who are new mums and it's like redefining the new normal, because even then they say what used to work doesn't. I can't just get to five and go, I'm gonna make dinner because you've got a screaming child who needs to be. So it's looking at how can you work in your day to have the eat well but move around how you prepare. And coming into midlife, it's yes, things really need to change up. What used to work won't work because of the metabolic changes that are happening. And it's ta it's taking stock of yes, that's all changing, and that's changing what my nutrition needs are. So yes, I do need to take a a look and and change things up. And there's research that um and so this is mainly around declining estrogen. So our our ovaries not producing as much estrogen. And so our body is just yes, the culprit.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Um is it the X chromosome I'm just saying?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

And so the estrogen, you know, we think it's about we think about fertility and we think about reproduction, but it's involved in heart health and bone health and brain health and muscle health. And so the declining estrogen has a knock-on effect to all of those systems, and so we need to look at the nutrition that supports all of those systems to change things up, to support those systems going forward, to again, as I said, grow bolder, not just older. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

But also, yeah, and also too, going back to what you said earlier, we're hitting perimenopause. Yes, there's the estrogen changes, yes, there's life changes as well, because by this stage now we might not have kids at home, and so our routines sort of start to change. But also, is it not then by that stage, we've now started accumulating because we haven't been perfect beings until this point in time. Our levels of inflammation in our body are also up there. Does that also affect our like weight and how we potentially?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

It actually can, but one of the magic things about estrogen is an anti-inflammatory.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Yeah, but as we're losing, as it's losing it. So that's what I'm saying, we hit perimenopause, so we're losing estrogen. We've got this build-up. Previously, our estrogen had been protecting us from this inflammation, but now all of a sudden we haven't got that buffer anymore. So any accumulate that anything we've accumulated is still hanging around, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Well, yes and no, because inflammation can be kept at back. So a state of being above or very much above someone's healthy weight is a state of low grade inflammation. Yes. Um but at a hell general healthy weight um and eating well, it it's it does accumul it does accumulate, but it doesn't. So there can be that l low grade damage. But um the cells are always turning over, and if you've got enough of good nutrition in your body, it sort of keeps it. Should be okay. Um but yes, it's it's a time where maybe um the deficits can be accelerated if maybe someone doesn't start on MHT or doesn't eat well the menopause hormone therapy. MHT, yep. And then that can help because adding the estrogen back in not at the levels that someone would be on if they're on the pill, but it puts a floor under the fluctuations and then it um yeah, it can help control some of those body um processes. So for example, your thinking of your skeleton, your bone mineral density can decrease one to three years in the lead up to menopause, which is that one day, which is 12 months since that period. So one to three years before you hit menopause and then three to four years after. Yeah. Um, but um estrogen has been shown to knock that on the head. So um yes, yes. But then also that's when nutrition comes in, and as people hit. So I remember doing up my handouts for my private practice and just going to get the five food group handout to put within the um diet sheets and then going, oh, this stops at 50. It shows, you know, men, women, this age, this age, and I went, Oh, how many serves are above fifty? So I had to go and get the next one, which is not the purple handout, it's the green handout. I went, Oh, okay, oh my god. And you know, pick me up off the floor because I had never really looked at it. And um your dairy serves double. So instead of needing two serves of dairy or de milk alternatives a day, you need four.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

And then your breads and cereals and grains drop from six to four. So there's equivalent, all of those a serve of like a glass of milk, a tub of yogurt, a slice of bread, um, half a cup of pasta, they all have 15 grams of carbohydrate. So by dropping two breads and cereals and then bumping up to dairy, you're not going low carb, but you're just changing the nutrition um composition of the diet that you're eating. Okay. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

So can we go back for a minute? And so let's go back to, okay, I'm under, I'm a woman, I'm under 50. Let's go back again and let's just do a compare and contrast. So under under 50, I've got I've I remembered this bit. I've got two serves of fruit. I'm over 50, so I can probably forget this, but I've got two serves of fruit, I got five serves of vegetables.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

What else have I got under 50? Under 50. Um, so meat and alternatives. You're having about two serves of meat and alternatives a day. How much though? So that would be about a hundred grams of meat, a little bit less of chicken or fish, two eggs, a cup of legumes. So that's one serve. That's one serve. Okay, I need two legs. Two of those. A handful of nuts. That's one serve. That's one serve. Which, you know, it packs a nutrition punch. Yeah. Often we hear they're full of fat, we can't eat them. However, again, we were saying that microbiome loves the nuts. Oh yeah. Um, high in fiber. Um there's something called the food matrix. So nutrients when they're in a whole food are stored together and bound together. So when we digest it, we don't actually and we've seen that all of the fat isn't released from nuts. Okay. We used in the olden days, we would put food into a calorimeter.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And then it's burnt, and we see the energy that's released, and then that's put on a nutrition label. And so we would do that to nuts, and we'd work out how many calories in a vercom is in these foods. But when we actually digest it and you put people in special labs to measure, we're not actually releasing all of the energy from certain foods. Okay. And that's why um I would recommend to women having a handful of nuts a day because it's high in um good fats, iron, zinc, fibre. Yeah. So that's one of the two serves in the meat and alternatives group. Okay, so we're now up to two meat, two fruit, five vegetables. We're up to next. And then I'd say dairy, under fifty, yeah. And all over fifty. So that's the same for meats and alternatives. Yeah. Okay. But no. The ones that really change are the breads and cereals and grain groups and the dairy group. So you'd be wanting to have about six serves a day. Yep. And a serve is a slice of bread, half a bread roll, half a wrap, um, a third of a cup of cooked rice, half a cup of cooked pasta, um, equivalent of quinoa, maybe a third of a cup of oats, um, a couple of crackers, um, crispbreads. Um, that's six under fifty for over fifty. Hang on, six serves. Six serves.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

That's what a lot of people say. Six serves, yes. And if you if you're intermittent fasting, there's no one.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

No, no way. No way. But that's that might be a couple of slices of toast for breakfast or some oats and some bits that you add, like um psyllium wheat bran or um lunch might be a wrap or uh a couple of um scoops of rice or pasta, and then similarly for dinner it might be rice or pasta or noodles. So I th what I see in practice is people freak out about that but then don't realize. So the other thing I wanted to say was we've got our catalogs and we've got our food spend, and like, does that actually equate to how we're eating? And when you look at national surveys, a third of our calories are coming from junk food. So yes, we're pushed it, yes, we're spending on it, and yes, we're eating it, and that pushes out more nutritious food. And so when people say that's a lot of food in the food group guide, they're thinking, Oh, I've got to eat that on top of these other things. So it's often the junk food is displacing or the ultra-processed food is displacing healthy, nutritious foods. Yeah, right. Um, and it's they're not off limits, but they're often high in saturated fat or salt or sugar that cause this low-grade inflammation or the metabolic disruptions that then push out the foods that would be stopping that happening.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Yeah, right. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Okay, so hang on.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Now we've done cereals. Yes, and meat. We've done fruit, we've done veg. What's next?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

And the dairy police. Dairy polish. So how much?

SPEAKER_04 9:59

We haven't done oils yet.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Oh yes, so two to three serves of dairy, generally two before. So this is before 50. And then after 50, it bumps up to four serves.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Sorry, what was it? Why was the change like why again?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Sorry, was the science that sits behind that is your requirements for dairy go up from eight eight hundred milligrams to 1300 milligrams a day just to maintain your um skeleton. Yeah. So bone health. Bone health. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then also we've got the protein that comes often dairy is the forgotten protein. Everyone wants to have meat for breakfast or legumes, and we're looking at all those sorts of things. But then dairy's there going, look at me, I'm in a cup of milk. Um, look at me, I'm in a coffee. Uh and how much milk how much dairy do you say? So two goes up to four. Okay. But if you can be clever and get a high calcium milk, that drops you to sort of two to three. Because you get a bit of calcium across all of the other food groups as well. And if you're wanting to manage, not that I'm promoting it's about healthy habits, like we talked before. Um, I don't want anyone dieting, but being conscious about what you're eating and making food work for you. You can eat less to help you maintain your weight, but still get the nutrition needs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Yeah. And you were mentioning the other day too how good milk is because it's filling, but it's also hydrating as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

And that's probably the one thing that you can drink, the the food that you can drink and it hits the spot as opposed to drink your vegetables. Yeah, because it's got the protein and it slows, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

And but we're talking like full cream cow's milk.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Oh, I mean and well, generally I prefer so you know, other foods when you have a low-fat food, they've taken the food out, uh the fat out and they put a filler in, so sugar and other things. Whereas with milk, they skim the milk. So they take the fat off the milk. Oh, so it doesn't change. Generally, you can have, you know, a glass of milk. They don't put the things in. They don't put things in, so you've got equivalent of like yeah, it's half the kilojoules in a low fat versus a full-cream milk. Um, but you still got the protein, the calcium, the riboflaving and vitamin D. You've got all the nutrition still there. They've just removed the calories and fat. And then what there are two products that I really like that have had skim milk powder added, so it's boosting the protein and the calcium in that product. So for every glass, you're getting um, I think on my packet at home it says 40% more calcium.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

What is that?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

That would be so like Fizical Skim. So that's a skim milk with um skim milk powder added, so that's high calcium skim milk. Yep. And then Paul's have also brought out, not that I'm getting kickbacks from anyone, no, big milk.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

No, I'm thinking I've got to get my mum onto this.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, Fizzy Cal because she likes her skim. Yeah. So yeah, getting the calcium, boosting that up. And then there's one I think called Plus Protein, which is the old FizzyCal, which was trimmed with skim milk powder added, so it's repackaged because everyone loves a bit of protein on the packet. Yeah. Um, it's yeah, it's a high calcium trim milk. Okay. Yeah. The other milks, the plant milks, some of them are supplemented up to normal milk. Yep. Um, and some don't have any. And so something like almond milk is very low on protein and calcium generally. So I'd be trying to often people move away thinking milk's fattening or yeah, there's all sorts of reasons people move away from it. Whereas actually it's that's a time to revisit to see if it can be brought back in. That's interesting. There's so much on the market.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

Oh, like milk alone. Like, we haven't like just milk, the the lineup.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I know.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

It's like the ad on TV with the old lady. I love that. Trim, no trim, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Smart milk, yeah. The other um dairy products, you know, I've sort of skirted around kefir for a long time wondering about it, but I tasted it and then went, actually, it's really delicious. It's sort of really good. Between that milk and a drinking yoga, but with a fizz, and it's got different cultures. It's fermented, yeah, and that's very good for gut health. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

Um, yeah. And just so and then there's oils. Yes. Oh yes. Because I have another question, but let's finish this bit first. So we've got oils. Where are we at? Before 50, over 50.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Olive oil liberally, I would say. Yes. Yes, yes. And it's got all these, yeah, it's got phytochemicals in it and all sorts, especially if it's uh um extravergent olive oil that hasn't been wet processing.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

And in salads and what should we be avoiding? Like generally, like what's one of the nasty ones?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

In olive oils. Well, if you look on if you look on social media, it's seed oils, but that's not the case. Yes. Um, so there used to be the Queen of Nutrition, Rosemary Stanton, who used to be around. And I saw a talk that she did, and she said, and someone said, What should you have, butter or margarine? She said, use yellow spread, not too much. Um, and so yeah, butter is maybe um uh yummy yarn, but just still only use a little bit. Similarly, margarine. But if you're going to put a bowl of olive oil and do your dipping of your bread into the olive oil, put that. There's so many health benefits of olive oil. Um and in some of the um work I said about the mental health benefits of eating well, there was a study l looking at the Mediterranean diet, and it was using a couple of tablespoons of olive oil every day. Yeah. Um, and again, it's even though it's caloric, it doesn't lead to the weight gain that you know, if we're just counting numbers, what's on a label, you'd think I'll put on a lot of weight if I'm having a lot of that, but using it liberally with um and often it's um yeah, when you're cooking or when you're preparing, but if it's a gateway to eat vegetables, like if you can make a vegetable taste nicer by coating it in olive oil when you're cooking it, go for it. And then there's some research because some of the um nutrients in vegetables are fat soluble, it lets you extract more of the nutrients from the vegetables. Yeah, right. So yeah, as much olive oil, but limiting. So there's work around um ultra process. So there's a lot of processing for like chopping bread is processing, putting corn from a cob into a um can or popping. Yeah. Like that is processing. That's to make it's still recognizable and you could do it in your kitchen, but when it's ultra-processed, it's making it shelf stable. It's often Franken foods, they're not things that you could create in your kitchen. Yeah, there's a lot of research showing that that can affect our microbiome quite negatively. Right. And just seeing your two studies I've seen, they put people in one of those labs, you can give them food and monitor what happens. And so they gave people ultra-processed foods and they gave them this a matched diet of minimally processed foods, just whole foods. Um, and those it affected how they ate, it affected their appetite. So the whole foods had more satiety and um they managed their, they were allowed to eat whatever they wanted, as much, you know, eat to your appetite. The people who ate whole foods um didn't gain that much weight. The people who had the ultra-processed foods ate and they measured it. It was more carbs and fat because when you put carbs and fat together, it's sort of a sweet spot that hits um it's not real addiction, but it has this drive to eat more. They didn't eat more protein in one group or the other, but the people ate more carbs and fat around that ultra-processed food. There was this drive, and then the body stored more of it and they gained more weight.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

And so eating ultra-processed foods essentially leads to So it's not with that study, it wasn't that the people in the ultra-processed room had like cakes and all that sort of stuff. It was the same foods, but just it had been processed, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Well, in a bit of a way, but also they just said we're making sure that the foods you get to eat are matched for um carbohydrate protein and fat of what we're providing, but then they ended up overeating and gaining more. Yeah. Wow. So interesting. So interesting. And there's just this um there's normalizing that of treats and discretionary foods as everyday foods. And there was a professor at um QT who used to say she had three siblings and their family were only allowed soft drink four times a year, so it was when anyone had a birthday. So it was like you see people chugging 600 male soft drinks all the time or all day. Yeah, and it's just the thing you do, and yeah, like at work, there's always cakes or biscuits or lollies, and you just sort of graze and thinking, and until you write it down and think, how much am I actually having? That's that incidental snacking that can make it hard to maintain a healthy weight.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Work is tricky, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Because you go, well, that's a celeb I know that there's a term celebr celebratory food. But when you've got a big office and you've got lots of celebrations to birthday, look at that. There's a lot of celebrated food. So it's yeah. Wow. That's can I ask a question around I'm going back to our fatty bacteria in our gut. Um, fermentables. Should that be another food group on its own, or are we not there?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I think it's in it's in some of the different groups. So there's prebiotics and probiotics, and so the probiotics were advertised a lot that it's healthy, but often it doesn't get to the gut. Our stomach acid will break it down before they're the but good bacteria and a verticomas that are in foods that they say if we drink them, they'll make it to our gut to make our gut healthy. Yeah. We'll take tablets, but it won't make generally. There are a couple, very few, one or two probiotics or products that have been shown to be targeted for norovirus or rotavirus, maybe. I'll I always get those two mixed up. But there's a certain probiotic that will help one thing, but generally eating probiotics won't help as in supplements or as in a food product.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Like in sauerkraut or oh no, so they're a prebiotic. Ah, so what's the what's the what's it? What's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yes, the the pre essentially is the before. So that prebiotic sets your gut up to be the right environment for those gut bacteria to work properly. So it's a fermented food, it's a sauerkraut, it's a coffee. Um some of the resistant starch products. So um some of the foods that have resistant starch, whether it's this um oh it can be so when you cook pasta or potato, it forms resistance. The starch in the food changes chemical structure. And so when you eat cooled pasta or potato, even if you reheat it, it has that resistant starch and it will go through and be fermented. So that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Yes. So often white pasta gets lumped into that's bad and processed. Um I have heard Italians talking about trying to get the paler, whiter pasta than the you know, trying to get it fresher than the crispy, crunchy stuff that cooks, but um very easily. Yeah. So trying to go for fresher pastas, but yes, yeah. In um, I guess when you look at how much fibre is in white pasta versus brown pasta or white rice versus brown rice, it's not a big difference. So often I hear people cutting out food groups, whereas it's more let's look at the ultra-processed foods that we have in our diet rather than cutting out the food groups that might let us have other things with it. That's easy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Sorry, I'm gonna jump here. No, jumped. Really want to know this. Supplements and like protein powders and creatine and like Yeah, what do I have? What can I buy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Um, so I've been thinking, and I've tried to step back from this because I've been thinking, what should people have? And as I was saying, 95% of Australians aren't eating enough vegetables. So to get bang for your buck and to get more health benefits, I'd spend my money on aiming to have five vegetables a day. There'd be more health benefits than getting these different supplements. Get the diet right. You can't out-supplement, you know, you can't out-run a bad diet and you can't out-supplement a bad diet. Um, they're the sort of icing on the cake. They're and there is a little bit of um work around creatine. So I probably would say if you're in the gym, have a listen to some of the um Nutrition Science Bites podcasts. Oh, yeah. Yep, again after healthy. Listen to all of Healthy Banding, but she's got on the experts who are doing the work in the area, and it's so good because she'll say, This is where the science is, this is where the science, what the science doesn't know. So there might be some stuff around creatine. But I say get the foundations right first and really eat those foods that are going to feed your gut bacteria, which will improve your mood, which will improve your yeah, just general bowel health.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Um, and then also look. At am I eating enough dairy? Because there's something I was reading around calcium supplementation as we get older is not recommended. Um, people think, Oh, I'm not having enough dairy and I don't really want to. I'm watching my way. Um, I'm gonna pop a calcium supplement. But there, there's some studies that say the calcium supplement, it's a quick spike of calcium, which might lead to calcification. And as we get older, our estrogen isn't there as much to keep our blood vessels as elastic. Um and it that it gets harder, it's a bit like a hose that's left in the sun. It's not as supple and it gets stiff, and that's what can happen to our blood vessels. And calcium can calcium supplementation can enhance that and make that worse as well, and it's led it's leads to increased risk of cardiovascular um complications, whereas if we're eating calcium-containing foods, that same association is not seen, and then there's all the other benefits of satiety and protein um and helping our muscles as well as our bones as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

It's a no-brainer, yeah, isn't it? And then what what how like are there well what do you what would you use for like if if we're gonna take this like a step back and kind of reassess everything? Is there like apps or like food diaries or like what what what do you use?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Like, you know, I will say it, but I would say go and see an accredited practicing doctrine. Yeah, because it's a good answer. Because there is all of this information, but you know, you do get stuck. It's a bit like when I go and see a financial planner. I understand everything they say to me, but I cannot explain that to the next person who asked me. Whereas you can read the nutrition things like that all make sense, and then you go away, like, but how do I do it? Yes, yeah. And there's a you know, the psychologist in me will say we know to change behaviour. The most effective things are um it's around improving, if we say that's what's happening is improving self-efficacy. And so that's not I can do it, but it's the belief and in the capability that I have to do a certain specific skill. And so there's certain things that will increase self-efficacy, and one of those is um setting a goal and achieving and but making it a goal that's a stretch, but not not too hard or not too uh easy, and that mastery, that sense of mastery can improve self-efficacy, but the thing that wraps around that is um support and so uh and it and feedback. And so it's feedback from self-monitoring where you're writing it down and seeing, oh, how am I going compared with what I should be doing, but also that accountability to uh health professional to go, yeah, you're doing a great job. And I say to women, I'm here on those guardrails when you go bowling. You know what you're doing, you're in the driver's seat, but I'm here cheering you on and just bumping you in the lane. Keeping you in the lane, yeah, and um yeah, so I would suggest having a visit with uh dietitian and talking through.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

Yeah, and plus two, those goals would be quite specific goals because I think we all fall into the trap, and New Year's is a big time for this where we go, I'm going to eat healthy this year. Woo, that's me. But it's not, it's it's you I I'm assuming as a dietitian and as a psychologist as well, you're going to want people to say, I'm going to eat my five serves of veggies every day. And if I can do that for the first quarter of the year, just to get me into the habit of doing that, great. Then let's move on maybe to the right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

And then those, you know, they talk about the smart goals, and it's it's got to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time specific. So it might just be, and perfection is the enemy of good. And so sometimes we'll say, okay, you're having two serves of veg a day, maybe have another serve on two more days in the week, like where and I'll either say, look at the gaps in the day where you're not having them, or can you serve more when you serve a meal? So it's that practical. And removing the perfection, I see a lot of people who have that all or nothing, and they'll say to me, you know, I'm all or nothing on black and white. I used to just be able to go to the gym and do a six-week or a 12-week challenge, um, and then I'll be good for a little while in inverticommas and then I'd fall off the wagon. Whereas if you can make those incremental changes, they're actually quite powerful and more stickable.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Um, but it's helping people unpick the beliefs they have about what they should in inverticomas do and be able to achieve. Yeah. Um and avoid that cascade of like the negative thought cycle again.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

And then the and as a dietitian and in this space that we're talking about, I'm I love a cheat. You must have cheats for me. How can I cheat to get, you know, cheat myself. Go, this is what I want to achieve. But there's got to be a sneaky way of doing that. Oh, yes, yes, because I thought you were gonna say cheat foods because I said this yeah, we'll have cheap foods and cheat days and I want to get my five circuits, but how am I gonna do it? Like, give me some cheats.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I mean, what are the easy cheats? Well, as I said, there might be just when you're doing a scoop of whatever you're doing for veg, do a scoop more. Yeah. So serve yourself more. And what we often try and say, especially on a dinner plate, it doesn't all have to be not touching, but half the plate veg, a quarter protein and a quarter carbs. Yeah. Um, and so often you've got to bump out that vegetable, make the vegetables more. And proportionally, like if you're doing a stir-fry, it's gotta be. I know my mum used to do like a bolognese, and it'll be all pasta and then a little bit of meat, and then where's the veg? Whereas add um onion and doing Hello Fresh, they're grated carrot into everything. So onion, garlic, greater carrot, that's what I learned from HelloFresh. Yeah. Maybe chop some celery in there, a chin of tomato. So you've got all of those veg.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Maybe you've got the kick tomatoes is like uh, if I'm doing yeah, that's okay, I've got to serve a veg.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

A lot of people say, I don't eat enough veg, you know, I'll have this, this, this. And I'm like, no, you are actually, and and that's again, you've got to help people reframe to say, look at what you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Um, and you know, my daughter at school, I said, Oh, you know, practice makes perfect. She went, No, Mum, practice makes progress. We've got a great generation of kids coming up who are more realistic in their thinking. Yeah, it's a lot more realistic. It's a nice change, that phrase. Yeah, it's yeah, it's really lovely. And so I'm just trying to get people to unpick, they're actually doing a great job at actually dialing back their self-criticism. Yes. And then if you're having that less criticism, yeah, you're more likely to believe in yourself and and feel better.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

It's like that the positive reinforcement of, oh, I could do that, and now I might be able to do a little bit more and a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

I was just gonna say, I've even had women that I've worked with and they've gone, what you're saying makes sense, but from what I see in social media, I think I should be doing this, but I'll try what you and then they'll come back and go, oh, I feel so much better. And actually, I ate more at breakfast and morning tea, and then I didn't snack, which I was fearful because I was always snacking. So I've reoriented when I'm eating and you know, not thinking everyone's focused on their macros. And so sometimes I use those terms to help them understand the way they need to move food around in the day. But yeah, if you front end the day with a bit more protein and carbs together, that regulates the appetite centres, and then they're not snacking, but they feel fearful because they know when they come home they'll overeat. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:46

Are macros, when you say macros, is that as in is that as in carbohydrate, protein and fat.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

So macronutrients, so big, big nutrients as opposed to the micronutrients, which are all the little vitamins and minerals. Yeah, but gym bros love a macro, and then like they try and get certain amounts of macro. Proportionally, yeah. Yeah, but when you focus that and they get a little too focused on the numbers rather than thinking, well, I yeah eat meals with family and this is has to fit in with the day-to-day flow. So yeah, sometimes just focusing on the numbers can be hard.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Oh, that's just so awesome. I've learned so much today. It's been amazing. Thank you. Can we get you back again? Because that was true. Because I've got a million other questions around. I know that was yeah, that was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Thanks, Shelley.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Because I yeah, it was really great. Really great. Because I think the other thing is too, as a mum, I'm in my head thinking about my mum, like, oh wow, I really want to talk to her about how she can get, for example, more calcium, more dairy products into her diet. Yeah, but I'm also thinking about my kids as well, you know, like it's nice, but but mostly I'm thinking about myself.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

It's a triple whammy.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah, it is, and the cover, I think the dietetics with psychology, it makes so much sense, obviously. But like just that behaviour change. I really liked that side of it. Yeah, it was really great. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

That was the string to the bow. Like I was thinking, everyone knows what to do, or most people know what to do, but they I was just thinking people were stuck and I wanted to go back and learn about that the positive changes, yeah. How to support healthy habits. Yeah. Because again, like you say, you make those news resolutions, but they don't stick because we're setting up we're not setting ourselves up for success. That's another thing that comes from school. Our principal says, we've got ourselves set ourselves up for success.

SPEAKER_04 30:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so good. So good. Really good. All right, well, thank you so much so much. It's so great to have you here. Yeah, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Thanks, Shelly.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Thanks for inviting me.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

And that's a wrap today for the second part of the discussion with Shelly. And one of the main takeaways, which is Shelly's mantra, I feel, is don't just get older, grow bolder. And I love it.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

Oh, she was amazing. We learned, I learned so much in the discussion that we had.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

So did I.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Because there's so much information out there and available, and people getting really quite specific about numbers. But I think the thing that I took away was that it's it's getting the basics right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

And getting the basics right that's right for you. Yeah, getting the foundations. Yeah. Yeah. Like everything, it comes, it's it's quite simple, really. When you look at it, you would just need someone like Shelly. Lovely Shelly, to tell us again.

unknown 31:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

She was just so lovely and so warm and easy to chat to. So um, yeah, thank you again, Shelly. We loved having you on. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

And I think for me, Shelly's is don't just get older, grow bolder. And I really think for me, it's keep it simple, stupid. Like just seriously, keep it simple. Like, we we know the basics.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Now let's just apply them. Yeah, let's do it. Absolutely. 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. 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_04 32:22

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. Um, 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. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

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 33:20

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. 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 Jules. 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.