Episode #005 How to Enjoy Festive Food on Your Terms as a Midlife Woman with Guest Caroline Tyrwhitt

Food glorious food…. it’s seemingly everywhere at this time of year. 

From overflowing shelves of delicious temptations in the supermarket to TV adverts, mouth-watering must-make recipes in magazines, and tantalising posts all over social media. 

The result?

Maintaining a healthy relationship with food over the festive season can be as tough as avoiding Wham’s Last Christmas.

So take some Me Time and join your host Kate Porter and her fabulous guest Caroline Tyrwhitt for this festive episode of Midlife Unlimited® as they discuss how to enjoy food on your terms this Christmas – and beyond. 

From Kate’s mince pie nemesis to Caroline’s top tips for curating your Christmas menu your way, this Yuletide episode is packed with inspiration, insights and stories that will open up a new way to think about food.

Kate and Caroline bust the miracle diet myths and explain how praise and positivity are key to changing our focus from weight loss to wellbeing when it comes to what we eat this season and beyond.

And you won’t want to miss Caroline’s three steps to food freedom. 

If you’d like to rewrite your food story, connect with Caroline here

https://www.freetobenlp.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/carotyr

https://www.facebook.com/groups/themindsetdiet/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-tyrwhitt-mindset-coach

https://www.instagram.com/freetobenlp/

And you can download Caroline’s free Christmas Mindset Tips ebook here

https://mindsettips.co.uk/xmas-ebook

Kate and Caroline would love your feedback on their episode – because Midlife Unlimited® is all about you!

Here’s to being fabulous and flourishing – together!

And to living Midlife Unlimited® 

Merry Christmas from Kate and Caroline.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Hello and welcome to Midlife Unlimited, the podcast for women who want more. I'm Kate Porter, the midlife metamorphosis coach, and I know what it feels like to feel stuck navigating the midlife maze. I've been there. I've looked in that mirror and thought, who the heck is that woman? So Midlife Unlimited, the podcast, is inspired by my mission to let extraordinary women everywhere 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 with raw and real conversations, smashing stereotypes, Busting myths and misbehaving because our second spring is our time to shine our way. So. Welcome to today's episode. And with the festive countdown in full swing, I am delighted to be joined today by Caroline Tyrwhitt, best-selling and award-winning author of The Mindset Diet and Food Relationship Coach, to get raw and real discussing how to enjoy festive food on your terms. So welcome, Caroline. Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

Merry Christmas to you too. Full swing here. Thank you for having me here. I'm really excited because me, I'm on a mission too. Now my mission is also triggered by midlife. But I'm all about ditching the diet mindset and ditching all that guilt around food. So what a perfect time of year to talk about this because we are so triggered at Christmas time of year with the guilt or that toxicity around food really comes out to play along with all the other stresses that are involved around festive time of year. So really looking forward to today's conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 2:10

Oh, it is. That guilt. You're absolutely right. I mean, I don't know. Well, you do know me quite well. We've been connected fabulously for quite a while now. But I turn guilty pleasures into not at all guilty pleasures. And mine, mince pies. I've been trying to resist the mince pies since September. They've been calling to me. And brandy butter. Now, I don't drink brandy. But I give myself permission over Christmas to have food like Christmas pudding and brandy butter. Because even though it is kind of boozy food, I still don't think technically it's booze. So if my stomach starts to apologize and starts rumbling, I apologize. Because all this is delicious, isn't it? It's like there's food everywhere.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

Absolutely. And you've triggered us to go looking for things now. So you're saying with the mince pies, you've been thinking since September. That's because they landed them in the shops in September. And then you notice how they come in those nice red boxes. So you can't fail to see them. And red makes you feel hungry. And they're stacked on shelves, often end aisles and things like that, aren't they? So you can't resist them.

SPEAKER_00: 3:30

Yeah, it's so true. You've just nailed it there because... You're kind of doing your normal shop and this, okay, we're going back a few weeks now, quite a few weeks. But I must admit, walking down the Christmas food aisle, even though it was September, October time, I started feeling different. I started feeling, ooh, ooh, look at the Stalin. Ooh, look at the, and I found myself, what are you doing? Why have you stopped? You came in here for milk and cheese and now you're hovering around the Christmas puddings.

SPEAKER_01: 4:08

Yes, no, absolutely. And it does have that effect on us, doesn't it? So personally, I manage that by I do mostly my groceries online shopping. And when I go in, I keep to the fresh food end of it. I avoid... the packaged end of it, because I know that's coming for me. So I've trained myself to stay at the other end, really. And it's very rare. At Christmas, I will be going down that aisle and I do my Christmas food shopping as late as possible, really. I'll be doing it around about the 20th, 21st of

SPEAKER_00: 4:46

December. So you're heading off in the next couple of days. Do you make a list? Are you a list maker? Because I'm a moocher. Oh, yeah, yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 4:54

absolutely. With a list. It's interesting because I will go in with a list and my other half likes to come food shopping at Christmas. He doesn't care most times of the year, but he wants to be there because he knows. For example, I will buy one pack of mince pies because I think one pack of really delicious mince pies, I'll pick the best there, is adequate. then I'll look around. There's two more boxes in there because for him, he'll live on mince pies. It takes you back to shopping with

SPEAKER_02: 5:29

toddlers.

SPEAKER_01: 5:32

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, but I take the list to one, make sure I've got everything that I want. I plan for, I cook around recipes. So I make sure I've got everything that I want there. And I have trained my other half over the year. No, we don't need every variety of cream that they sell. and we don't need five of each type. so he's learned gradually to reduce to actually like not denying him I don't want to deny him because that would come in to the toxic but what I found was he would overbuy because he's buying with his mind because he's doing it all triggered whereas I've planned what I think we would like to eat over the Christmas period thought about all the days whereas he's going oh I love that love that and he's buying one of everything of all of these packages. And then, oh, what if the kids come over? Oh, I better have that. And what if someone else comes over? And I'm just like, well, the shops are open. We can go out and buy stuff if we need it. Yeah. So it's about the mindset we take with us when we're shopping. And I find planning helps me buy what I actually want. Again, there's no way I'm not having stolen for Christmas.

SPEAKER_02: 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:51

And there's no way he's not having mince pies or Christmas pudding. I buy one Christmas pudding and I look and there's three Christmas puddings in there. Like, how much Christmas pudding are we eating? I'll eat it all year.

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

Yeah. Oh, I could. I could. So as you say, I mean, everything you've just said, it just... Proof in the pudding, if you like, that maintaining a healthy relationship with food over the festive season, that it literally is as difficult as avoiding Mariah Carey, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 7:22

It certainly is, yes. It's absolutely everywhere around us. And so we end up, as I've said, being triggered to eat. So we're not actually hungry, but when our brain sees food, then we start... salivating, we get ready to eat. Whether that's on all those recipes in all the magazines at this time of year, whether it's all the Christmas ads that are now launching on the TV for food as well as gifts. So one, it makes us... start feeling, oh, we need that. Well, I must have that, you know, the latest in whatever dessert they've come up with somewhere, isn't it? And then all, as I said, all the packaging is around red and red and yellow. If you look at it, fast foods are all red and yellow, aren't they? They trigger our brain to think we're hungry. So once we know how we're triggered, then we can start managing that triggeredness, but it genuinely does start the hunger process off for you. And

SPEAKER_00: 8:28

I think food can almost become the elephant in the room, can't it? So I know we're going to go deeper into your... We're going to get raw and real with your top tips later on. So I'll give you a taster. Do you like what I did then? We're going to examine your food habits, identify small, powerful changes you can make, and then you're going to give your advice, share your expertise for creating... a festive plan. But I don't, you know, I like a bit of a survey. I think it's the old journalist in me. And Good Housekeeping have announced their 2024 Christmas survey. And I thought you'd be interested with some of the results they've come up with. So 47% of readers are feeling anxious about the need to be social over Christmas. And two in five eat and drink more than they'd like, which ties in with everything you've just been talking about. And I know that one thing we mentioned previously was there's a big move, which is good news, towards a hate of waste, reducing food waste. But you had a very interesting point about that. I mean, eight in 10 readers are concerned about food waste, but that can lead to even more issues, can't it?

SPEAKER_01: 9:49

Yeah, no, absolutely. So when I work with clients, I will look at our values and our beliefs behind food. And one of them is so many of us have grown up that you need to eat what's on your plate because there's people starving in Africa. So therefore, we've learned not to waste food. Now, that was fine in days when you only had small plates and when it was all freshly cooked food and not with all the stuff from UPFs in it and not the giant platters that we have that are heaped high at Christmas as well. So it's about rethinking that. So how will you do with the food waste? So don't eat food. the food waste yourself because a lot of the time there's like people pushers are in full swing at Christmas and you know oh you know who wants seconds and all of these things and oh but I've spent all that time cooking it um and oh we don't want to waste it and oh it was so special and la la all these guilt things that people put on us how do we stay um secure around our boundaries. So create those and decide beforehand so that you do not start eating more than you wanted to eat. How much is that? And pay attention to your food because satisfied is good enough. And at Christmas, people tend to get so full, they actually start to feel ill, like sitting around. Can you imagine? That actually ruins your whole day. If you feel so ill, you're collapsed on the sofa and can't do anything, isn't it? So it's about how do you want your Christmas to look, isn't it? And staying true to yourself with your decisions around that and get plenty of I was going to say Tupperware, but, you know, using it lots so it doesn't become waste there and store it. You can freeze it for later for some of it, can't you? And again, if we plan, then we won't have too much waste either. What do we really want as opposed to being triggered by everything as we wander around that supermarket?

SPEAKER_00: 12:05

No, I love what you're saying about the trigger because it's so true. It's like that, that, exercise that i use about imagining a really juicy lime and just picturing it and smelling it and holding it and of course your brain triggers you you start salivating because of it

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

yeah absolutely and yeah you actually think you can taste that lime don't you so you can imagine it you can visualize this whole scenario once your brain is triggered into that and And then if you haven't actually eaten something, then you think you have you need to. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 12:46

because I love everything you stand for as well, Caroline, about enjoying food on our terms. Yeah, because I know I'm not going to get medical. I'm not medically trained, but I know personally my tastes from perimenopause have changed hugely. I went off meat. And not necessarily for ethical reasons, just went off the texture of it. So I eat fish still and bread and pasta just bloat me up like anything. I stopped the booze because it was controlling me. So I'm in my fifth year now and I feel like a different person because of it, because everything that came with that. So my go to is hummus. I have hummus o'clock.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

And it's so good for you, isn't it? Because it's protein, pulses with olive oil. So everything that's in it, it's tahini, which is seed. So I would go maybe it's a superfood even. Again, I'm not a nutritionist either. I just read around it so that I can make the choices that I want for me.

SPEAKER_00: 13:55

I don't know if it was just a funny line, but I was watching Sex and the City 2 the other day, as you do. And Samantha was talking about hummus and she claimed it was a natural source of oestrogen. Now, whether that's just something the scriptwriters threw in, and I've done no research on this, but bring it on, right? You've just encouraged me. I don't need to feel any not at all guiltiness about eating my hummus.

SPEAKER_01: 14:21

I'm going to look that one up. when we're off here, because if it is, then we should be eating even more of it, shouldn't we? Because I

SPEAKER_00: 14:30

don't think I could eat much more of it. Do you make your own? We have done, but I must admit it was delicious, but it was a bit of a faff. So perhaps we were doing it wrong. I'll have to get you a recipe

SPEAKER_01: 14:46

then because I make it myself all the time.

SPEAKER_00: 14:49

I do love it. But no, you probably guessed I'm a grazer. I'm not a picky eater, but I love picky bits. So Christmas to me probably is the time of most temptation, especially like a Boxing Day buffet. So it's knowing when to stop, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 15:05

Perhaps you could reframe grazing into a small eater. Yes, small and often eater. Because grazing implies just wandering aimlessly around and picking off things, which is highly dangerous to have food all around you because you're going to be permanently triggered to eat. Oh, I'll have one of them. And you'll do it on autopilot and not even realise you've eaten a lot of the time. So that's the trouble with grazing and snacking even. is you know if you can reduce snacking because it's about having the right amount of food for you at the right frequency so what I would say is you're probably if we looked at it you're probably a small portion eater often through the day rather than eating big meals at any time so that's about just eating until you're satisfied and then just put it away so I do not have foods sitting out at Christmas. The only foods sitting out for grazing in our house. I put all the chocolates away. They're all in the cupboard, etc. And it's not that we don't have them. They're just not out. And I make sure they're the best that I can have. I go and have exactly what I want. The only thing out is a bowl of... satsumas or clementines and nuts with the nutcracker is sitting there so I figure that by the time you crack the nuts you've more than burned up the calories of the nuts I love that and they're perfect fats and proteins so they're a healthy food to be eating and actually it's quite fun to sit around you know, cracking them, but it stops the grazing because you have to be present to do that and to actually crack the nuts and to peel the clementines as well. And they smell so gorgeous. Exactly. Oh, yeah. Yes. And I like buying them in the box with the little stems on them as

SPEAKER_00: 17:19

well. Oh, I'm feeling, I thought I couldn't feel any more festive and I am, but I like the idea as well of actually making an event of bringing out the box of chocolates. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

Let's have that now. And so if you think ahead. So it's about curating your Christmas. How are you going? How can you make your Christmas Day, your Boxing Day, your Christmas Eve? I sort of do all the things that I want to do over those days. So Christmas Eve is about Rudolph Bogus in our house. What's that? We buy venison mince because it's so much healthier. And I make burgers out of those. We call them Rudolph burgers. So good, healthy food. I do have baps with it, though, because that's what I like. That's our Christmas Eve with whatever drink we want to have with it and whatever dessert we want to choose. So, you know, whether it be Stollen or mince pies, I don't open the Christmas pudding before Christmas Day, though.

SPEAKER_00: 18:23

I get individual

SPEAKER_01: 18:25

ones. And that's great, isn't it? That that is there so that you don't have more than you want to

SPEAKER_02: 18:33

have.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

How many do I want? When will I have them? And then you can buy the

SPEAKER_00: 18:38

right amount. No, absolutely. Because going back to what you were saying about plates and me being not a grazer, then I'm going to reframe that. I like that. But in midlife, as a Gen X woman... And I don't know if I'm alone. Let me know if I am. Let me know if you're with me out there. If you present me with a big plate of food for a meal, I find it overwhelming. I almost find it off-putting. And

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

I don't like sitting with other people who are doing that either. Like I won't go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. I don't like sitting with people with it all piled up. And I don't want to keep going back. I'd rather pay for a beautifully designed meal. plate of food. So yeah, one of the things that I talk about with clients is how can you make the food look gorgeous? So rather than focusing on how much to eat, but how beautiful can it be? So, you know, arrange your vegetables, although, you know, Christmas dinner is perfect nutrition anyway it's a great meal to eat but how can you make it look lovely too so that you eat slightly less of it and just you know talk while you're doing it and put your hands your knife and fork down in between mouthfuls and enjoy the whole process of eating because it's a fabulous thing isn't it to break bread is one phrase that's used of how importance of eating with others are or even and even on your own to make that occasion special I'm grateful for you know all the sun and the rain that grew everything and the farmers that helped make the food and yeah appreciate it rather than often when we eat Eating too much, we're just, well, I have a habit of inhaling food. Yes, I haven't chewed it properly. I haven't even noticed I've eaten it sometimes because I will eat on the go. I don't know. I trained myself out of that to be present when I'm eating. And that's such an important thing. If you apply that around your Christmas eating as well and remember to enjoy it as opposed to focus on eating everything. just have as you would have small amounts of each food isn't

SPEAKER_00: 21:08

it no that makes so much sense because it's it's a marathon not a sprint as well isn't it but I know lots of people may well have three courses and it's it's as much to me it's much about the company yes um because I'm I'm not but just not that interested really in food anymore. I'm far more interested in the conversation and everything that comes with it. And mindful eating as well. Like you said, actually savouring and concentrating on the tastes and the flavours, which maybe sometimes is better to do when you're on your own rather than when you're surrounded by, well, we're only a small family. But I want to know more. I want to know more about... your backstory, what is it, Caroline, that brought you to write the Mindset book? Because I know already, I mean, was it this summer? When did it launch again? Remind me. February. What was it? No, don't say that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:09

No,

SPEAKER_00: 22:09

absolutely. Oh, my goodness.

SPEAKER_01: 22:10

The January launch, because it would have been ready to do that. because I didn't want it to come out with the new year diet that everyone is always so focused on. And that just makes, it wastes an opportunity to think about what you want for that year. by focusing on deprivation, isn't it? So I avoided that one and I actually launched it in February because February is when people give up on their resolutions most commonly.

SPEAKER_00: 22:41

I've got a whole episode coming up on that because I don't do New Year's resolutions. Yes, I don't

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

either. No, they're a waste of time. So it's about setting whole goals. And focusing on what's important to you, what you really want and looking at intentions and various things behind it instead. So, yes, I launched it in the February to help people actually make the most of their year in February when they've got over this resolution thing and realised it's not working because it doesn't work. How many times have we made resolutions to lose weight, to go to the gym more regularly? All of those things. And we haven't actually looked at what gets in the way. So my story was like so many women. I learned to diet at a very young age. I was told by a doctor that I needed to go on a diet when I was 11. That's complete rubbish. I ate healthy foods at home. So I ended up after that copying my mum, who was always on a diet, who also never needed to go on a diet. She'd just been stuck in corsets as a very young child. So her stomach muscles had never learned to work properly. And so when she had children, they couldn't go back to normal. But her arms, her legs were all slender. Yeah, all of her was slender. She just had a bit of belly. She should not have been on a diet. So I copied that. And then, of course, you get into diets always focus on how much weight someone lost and how quickly isn't it drop drop 10 pounds overnight that kind of yeah yeah lose the dress size by next week just trying to sell us miracles as opposed to looking at fundamentally what's wrong so I went through that would I did all sorts of diets my favorite was the hospital diet like I can even tell you now what we ate every day. I did it so often. What's that? But it's not a hospital diet. Oh, it was, you have day one is only vegetables and that doesn't include potato or corn. Day two is only fruit and that doesn't include banana. I couldn't do it that way around. I always did the fruit day first. Third day... Ending the

SPEAKER_00: 25:10

rules, I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 25:12

Yeah. is the combination of the two. The next day is beef and tomato. The day after that is milk and banana. And then I think it's chicken and rice. And I don't know what day seven is because I never made it to day seven. And I rarely made it to day six. I could do those five days. There's some balance in there, but it's really not helpful. And each time we diet, and I never knew this, Although I'm sure someone must have mentioned it somewhere along the way, but I paid no attention because it didn't fit what I was being told elsewhere. And it was easier to believe the miracle diet story than the fact that each time you diet, your metabolism slows down and you will gain that weight back and more. And that actually is what happened gradually. And then I got to about I think I would have been about 40 and I was very focused on career, worked 90 hours a week and teaching teenagers and I couldn't be bothered to die anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 26:23

I love that. It was

SPEAKER_01: 26:24

just, oh my God, I don't have the energy for this. It's not the most important thing around me. But because I was diet focused in my mindset, I didn't change anything. So I went, during teaching from age 35, I went from a size 8 to a size 18 because I wasn't changing anything. There were some other things that happened in there. I started to not drink more, but change my drinking patterns in like having wine while I marked my books. My other half would be doing more of the cooking. He likes sauces. We would buy more ready meals. We would go out to eat more because we didn't have time. So I suffer with a time poor narrative. And my stepdaughter wanted to buy mussels. And so we bought these large bowls to put mussels in. And it turns out my other half likes eating out of bowls. So suddenly... But remember what I was saying earlier about the, it's all okay to eat everything on the small plates when we were young. Well, suddenly I was faced with these giant pasta bowls and that was full of food. And if I said, oh, I can't eat all of that, he'd be like, oh, but I cooked it specially for you. Guilt. Yes. So I ate it all. And so my weight increased. And then it was, I just happened to learn NLP for a completely different purpose. And while you're learning it, you apply it to yourself. And what I realized is I was using it around weight loss. And now I was losing weight without dieting, but actually looking at my fundamental habits and looking at my thinking and what was being triggered, what decisions I was making, what beliefs I had that were driving my habits. And once I started to change them, that's it. I started to lose weight. I changed my lifestyle because part of it was I did some research. to help year 11 with their revision. So I've discovered actually some foods help our brain and some foods don't. Plus I need more sleep or I'll get Alzheimer's because I wasn't sleeping properly at all. I would survive on average four hours a day, sometimes none. So I, and stress, I just addressed the stress. And that's part of the time porn narrative for me. So all of those things, there were so many things I worked at it over time. So it's not a miracle cure what I'm selling. It's change one thing and then change another, add to it. And that was, oh gosh, six, seven years ago. And yeah, I've managed to, and what's key is maintain that weight loss.

SPEAKER_00: 29:12

No, I love that. I love that. It literally is. And as you say, a new way to think about food, a new way to bust the whole dieting myth and take that pressure off. And the guilt, that's a phrase that you've used again and again. And I completely get it. I completely get that feeling of how can you enjoy something? Like one thing you said about cream at Christmas. If you want to have cream... Get a nice cream. Don't piddle around getting the low-fat one that doesn't actually taste any good.

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

And actually, it's probably got more sugar in it because if they take something out, they put something in. And that's a whole myth that's been out there about fat's bad for you. Well, fats, not all fats. I don't even like good and bad around food. Either it's helpful to your body or it's not helpful to your

SPEAKER_02: 30:05

body.

SPEAKER_01: 30:06

Yes, please. because it's fuel and we need glucose for our brain. So don't have no sugar. It's about balance, isn't it? And getting rid of good and bad and looking at foods instead of what should you have eat all the time. So that basic nutrition, what do you need to eat most of the time, sometimes, rarely, that sort of thing. And think about it in terms of how it helps your body or is it a luxury, you know, choosing foods, what foods might you want that are organic, that sort of thing. So really... Be more mindful of how you choose your food. And yes, don't go, we've been so programmed for that low fat. It's quite scary. I will even find myself now, years later, when I know this for sure, standing there thinking, should I have the low fat mayonnaise? That's what I do. I get the lighter, the light one. Yeah, no, I go full because... It fills you up. Fat fills you. It makes you feel full. So if you take the fat out and put sugar in, sugar doesn't make you feel full. Then you're actually not giving your body what it wants. So go for it. Have the full fat.

SPEAKER_00: 31:29

I'm loving this. I'm learning so

SPEAKER_01: 31:30

much.

SPEAKER_00: 31:32

Because another thing, we're talking about guilt and a lot of the time over Christmas to... assuage the guilt you might be tempted not you one might be tempted to think oh well if I if I don't eat until three o'clock then then oh then I can not binge I won't use that word because that's got connotations but then I can oh I can eat this I can eat that so you end up hangry yeah and and again by skipping meals and starving yourself Surely that can't be a good way around it. No. So what

SPEAKER_01: 32:13

I encourage people to do is actually listen to your body. What does your body want? What does your body need? So eat when you're hungry. So... Like, for example, people talk about skipping breakfast. So do you skip breakfast? So if you're denying yourself something when you were hungry, you've skipped it. Whereas if you don't eat breakfast until... Like, I don't normally eat it until about 10.30 because I'm not hungry until then. So I'm making myself eat because someone told me I should have breakfast. So if you can reduce your eating window so that your body can learn... do what it needs to do of digest. That's great. But that's not the same thing as denying yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 33:02

no

SPEAKER_01: 33:02

that's knowing that's listening to your body so it probably didn't want that whatever you were going to eat at nine o'clock at night for example that was you sitting there bored on the sofa thinking oh what should i do oh i'll go and eat something yes and or you saw an ad on the telly that triggered you um or you sat down in the same chair that you always sit in and when you sit in that chair you think oh chocolate

SPEAKER_00: 33:28

yeah yeah so or they were there you were happy you were We're all watching a film together and everyone was just handing and the tubs. Yes, they get bigger. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 33:41

I remember my shock years ago when I moved to Canada and they're small of like a soda pops in the cinema and they're small for popcorn was our large.

SPEAKER_00: 33:56

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 33:57

But I think now that sizing has made its way to this side of the Atlantic. So people are, and again, it's there. And if you're not paying attention to the food, you finish it, whether you were hungry or not. Yeah, even though you were already satisfied. So we're having what we need.

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

And it's almost autopilot, isn't it? It is autopilot. To be honest, sadly, I don't go to the cinema that often anymore. But I love watching films. But as you say, it's that kind of dip your hand in. And it's almost your mind isn't even focusing what you're doing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 34:40

And so the whole thing's gone and you can't remember eating it even. Yeah. How did that happen? Yes, absolutely. So that's really not helpful at all. way to eat so how can you do that by paying attention to it so I I don't eat while I'm watching a film anymore because of that because I'm neither honoring the film if I pay attention to the food nor honoring the food if I pay attention to the film isn't it so I split them up

SPEAKER_00: 35:14

yeah I love that I love that now another thing when we were chatting the other day that I really made me stop and think when we were talking about losing weight. And you just made it so logical that it's not about, as you just said, you know, dropping the dress size. It's about why, and I'm all about the big whys, it's why you want to do it. So goal setting does play a big part in terms of When you say, oh, not you, but when one says, oh, I want to lose a kilogram, it's what that will enable you to do. So almost giving it a context, giving it a purpose, because I know from my coaching with goal setting, if you have the end goal, it makes you more motivated if that is the Does that make sense? It's about the

SPEAKER_01: 36:14

feelings underlying it. Yes, because we're all about feelings. We're feeling beings, isn't it? So what is it that we want to feel? So when I work with clients, one, we don't set goals straight away. It's not like when you go to Slimming World and they tell you your goal is to lose 10% of your weight, whatever that is, and that Off you go. One, the brain doesn't like losing anything. It wants to. It will help you get it back. And two, the body's not programmed to lose weight either. We're still, you know, Neanderthal beings.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

I was going to say cave woman mentality.

SPEAKER_01: 36:49

Exactly. And the body is trained to protect us from starvation. So it will store things as fat and fat. there's also a set point theory that says that our body will go back to what we had before if we do this dieting malarkey so it's not helpful mentally it's not because that's all a deprivation model isn't it of what I can't have so that I can lose weight what do I need to stop doing and it's all about deprivation on equally it's about doing a complete 180 in your life as well I'm going to go to the gym three times a week when you never used to go before I I'm going to do X, Y and Z and try and change everything at once. And that's not sustainable. It's very rare. I think maybe if you had not dieted before and you just realised actually life is not how I want it to be and just said, right, this is what I want. But actually, that's about your feelings as well. Then you can make changes. all those changes at the same time and sustain them. If you changed everything about your work, like there's so much of your lifestyle that you would have to shift and change to be able to do that. Whereas I work with clients look at how come we've got to where we are now so that we can start unraveling that. And then when we've looked at all the beliefs and the thinking patterns and the habits that have got us to where we are now, then I will set a goal. And it's about visualizing that future. What does that look like? So it's not, I want to be a size six, or it's not that I want to weigh X amount of weight. It's about how do I want to present to the world? Who am I? So one of of the things uh before I started on this journey is I didn't even want to I didn't even look at myself in the mirror and god forbid you wanted to take a photo of me because I couldn't stand beside myself I didn't recognize myself

SPEAKER_00: 38:50

really

SPEAKER_01: 38:50

no I used to love trendy clothes and you know I was quite body confident and now I wasn't if I look back

SPEAKER_00: 39:00

at photos I was there

SPEAKER_01: 39:02

Yeah. And when I look back at photos now, I see that primarily I was miserable. I was unhappy because my life was wrong. It was out of balance and I wasn't honoring me anymore. Once you address that and look at the big why and who are you and what do you want? Then we have a real goal. And really it's about our wellbeing, isn't it? So it's not about weight loss. It's about feeling good and finding ourselves again what is it that has got us to this place that we're not happy in and how can we look at our life differently and start to make small changes so that we can sustain sustain them and get to where we want to be

SPEAKER_00: 39:45

yeah no god you got me there because I can resonate completely with that it is it's that losing sight of Caroline of Kate it's like where and we're not we don't want to go back we don't want to

SPEAKER_01: 39:58

go back

SPEAKER_00: 39:58

No, it's moving forward, knowing that you feel good. And when I say feel good about yourself, I don't mean in a big headed way. I mean, in a way that, yeah, I've got this.

SPEAKER_01: 40:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 40:13

And on our terms.

SPEAKER_01: 40:16

Yeah. Accepting ourselves and loving ourselves for who we are. And yeah. whatever we look like in the mirror, from that place, we can make much bigger change because there's lots of research shows that we learn more and we make more progress with praise and positivity. So if we're looking at ourselves and disliking ourselves and coming at weight loss from a negative point of view that we're not good enough, then that's not motivating, is it? That's not encouraging. So it's about accept ourselves and then we can nurture ourselves into the habits that will sustain us with the body that we want. Because most people, if we talk to them about the overeating, when we're overeating, It's compensating for something. It's feeling not good enough about something, isn't it? Not being able, not confident enough to say, no, thank you. I don't want another portion. Yes. No, thank you. I really don't want to eat that piece of cake. It was very kind of you to bring it over. And I can save it till later and eat it when I want to. But that confidence, isn't it? And that confidence to make those changes. to your life that are going to support you so I changed my sleeping pattern no I just decided I'm going to go to bed earlier and I'm going to have eight hours sleep a night and that meant I was working less

SPEAKER_00: 41:54

no it's just as you say it's balance is a word that's used so much but it is and there's no right way either no

SPEAKER_01: 42:02

no no because we've all got there for different reasons and therefore we're going to rewind, not rewind, but undo and create what we want for the future, isn't it? Whereas at that moment when we're looking in the mirror and thinking we don't like that person or who is that person, we're actually comparing ourselves to our past, aren't we? We don't recognise ourselves anymore. So it's that moment that we can grab, isn't it? And say, well, who do I want to be then?

SPEAKER_00: 42:33

Yeah. And the opportunities are out there. We can be The woman we deserve to be. That's the phrase I like, which I think leads us nicely onto your three top tips, Caroline, for food freedom, not just over the festive season, but beyond. And we're not talking New Year resolutions because we don't do those. And I say, watch out for a forthcoming episode on that. But first tip, and you've spoken about it, but I just thought it'd be nice to actually bring it all back together. So, Visualise what you want it to look like. Now, I know mince pies came into this, but I'm obsessed. I'm a woman obsessed. Visualise what you want your festive food experience to look like.

SPEAKER_01: 43:22

And make it more than food. Visualise your whole Christmas. So what are you wearing? How does it feel? Who do you want to be surrounded with? And visualise all. what you want so is it you know it doesn't have to be lots of mince pies do i want a mince pie mountain kind of thing you know like i would stack them up so that they look pretty

SPEAKER_00: 43:46

bit of icing sugar

SPEAKER_01: 43:48

yeah exactly and drizzle a little bit of cream over it or something so visualize so i'm a quite a visual person i

SPEAKER_00: 43:57

am

SPEAKER_01: 43:58

yeah and i think probably the majority of people are visual so make it look good

SPEAKER_02: 44:05

And

SPEAKER_01: 44:05

what does your table look like? Like I plan my table. I make it look pretty. What colors do I want on my table? I like lots of gold around on my table. You know, I like, I choose different serviette rings. I buy, have serviettes for Christmas, placemats. I have like gold.

SPEAKER_00: 44:31

Oh, lovely.

UNKNOWN: 44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 44:32

placemats yes so I correct curate it all and put ribbons around things and go and pick some holly because I have a holly tree in the garden and I put that on the table and go and get some berries and yeah I just make it it's

SPEAKER_00: 44:47

the whole experience isn't it yeah

SPEAKER_01: 44:49

yes

SPEAKER_00: 44:51

I love that I love that so The other thing, and again, we've alluded to it, but I think it's something that's so important, especially, I mean, I'm a recovering people pleaser. So this is something that really resonates with me. Decide you're not going to eat things just because other people want you to.

SPEAKER_01: 45:12

Yeah. So part of your visualising it then is like decide why. what your rules are going to be for you. So I don't mean someone else's rules. I mean yours. What do you want to do? What do you want to think? What do you want to feel? And what choices will you make? And decide ahead of time. And then don't negotiate with yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 45:37

Set those boundaries. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:38

Yeah. So decide that was important to me and I'm going to honour me over the Christmas period.

UNKNOWN: 45:47

Well,

SPEAKER_01: 45:47

over any period in my book but for christmas honor me decide what does that look like for me and plan how what you're going to say so if you know that um a particular person is going to be a bit pushy around food

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

there's always one

SPEAKER_01: 46:08

yeah yeah don't use the word no thank them for whatever they've done and acknowledge how thoughtful they've been and then tell them what you want to have happen instead.

SPEAKER_00: 46:20

I like that. I like

SPEAKER_01: 46:22

that. So saying no without saying no.

SPEAKER_00: 46:25

That's brilliant. And that ties so beautifully with your third point. So food freedom is all about being true to your values. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 46:37

Yeah. Curate your Christmas. So I've actually been quite big on this. My Christmas day, I go nowhere. It's just me and my other half. I don't have anyone round. It's possibly, yeah, it was about creating time for me and the mood that I wanted. Because Christmas is woman's work. Yes, absolutely. I don't care what they say. It still is. It's most houses. It's the women doing the cooking, who've done the shopping, who've created the Christmas that everyone wants, isn't it? So I stepped back and said, what do I want my Christmas to look like? And that is when I get up Christmas morning, I don't have to go anywhere. I get up when I want. I have the breakfast I want at the time that I want it. And I have dinner at when I want it. I don't have to get it ready for two o'clock because that's when people are coming around. There was one year where we forgot that to even start cooking Christmas dinner. We ended up eating about eight, nine o'clock at night. It was absolutely hilarious because we were just enjoying our day of the fact that we didn't have to go anywhere. The phone wasn't particularly ringing. Nothing was open. So there were no demands. That was so precious when you've got a demanding job to be able to create that time. You know, if I had children, it would still work like that. It's just our family Christmas. I think maybe it comes from the North American model because Thanksgiving, where I lived there for so long, Thanksgiving is way more important than Christmas. So Christmas, they tend to have like a family do on Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day, everyone stays at home. So that's what I did. Parents around Christmas Eve. That doesn't happen now. I go to my parents' Boxing Day because we've got a different age now. But yeah, Christmas Day, ours.

SPEAKER_00: 48:39

It's like your present to yourself, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 48:41

Yeah, we actually don't exchange presents. We don't do gifts because we discovered that they ended up under the tree and were still there in the new year because we hadn't opened them. So what's the point? And

SPEAKER_00: 48:55

that's another pressure.

SPEAKER_01: 48:57

Yes. Yeah, why spend the time going and having to look for the gifts and spending money on it? And when it clearly wasn't an important part of our day for us to open them. So then let's not buy them in the first place.

SPEAKER_00: 49:14

I love that. You just breathe the whole breath of fresh air into the whole Christmas experience. And I think hopefully our fabulous listeners will, Well, take some little gems, if not a hundred gems from what you said, because it's all about blinking, enjoying what we eat.

SPEAKER_01: 49:37

Absolutely. Instead of having everyone else's Christmas, what do you want for you? And curate that and make it your magical time. It helps take the stress out of Christmas. And people will find it a little bit... What do you mean? When you first... Let them. So this year might be a little bit late to put those plans in process. I don't

SPEAKER_00: 50:04

know. Never too late. Never too late. I love that. I love... We've shaken things up a bit, which is what I planned to do. I think there was some raw and realness there. But now I'm going to put you on the spot a bit, Caroline. Go on then. I have three probing questions for you. So the first one... because we like a bit of music at Christmas, but it doesn't have to be Christmas music. Could you share with us your midlife anthem, your go-to song or piece of music that lights you up? And what I love is not just when you play it, but when you're somewhere and you suddenly hear it. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

So I don't do Christmas music particularly. I don't mind it, but it doesn't fire me up. No. So I haven't picked anything around there. I actually have a whole playlist that is my happy playlist that I use. It's all stuff that do exactly what you've said that just take me to that place no matter what mood I'm in. I don't have to do anything to add to it. So there's one that just does that, but it's not. one that I'm passionate about, and that's Billy Ocean, Red Light Spells Danger. I will just automatically just start dancing around the room. But the one that I really love lyrically and the song is You Don't Own Me. Yeah, by Leslie Gore. I love it. Like, you don't own me.

SPEAKER_00: 51:39

I'm not one of your many toys.

SPEAKER_01: 51:41

That's the one. Yes. I like that. All sorts of contexts. Yeah, rather than a particular person, but just about context. And I particularly fell in love with it when I decided I was quitting teaching. And when I made that decision, it was just like, yeah, you don't own me anymore. Like the freedom I felt from that. So the minute we start making choices for ourselves, not what we think we should do, then we get that sense of freedom.

SPEAKER_00: 52:14

Yeah. Ditch those shoulds. Yes. Which brings me, I want to know now, question two, what is your midlife mantra? This is going to be a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 52:26

Just do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_01: 52:28

Just do it. Actually, the JFDI, but we won't, it is part of the JFDI club. Yeah. Yeah. is very important because we tell ourselves stories and hold ourselves back from doing things and people will say, oh, you shouldn't do that. Let's not listen to naysayers and yeah, let the drains go around us and just live your life. Dare to be you. So JFDI.

SPEAKER_00: 53:00

Perfect. And the third question, I'm quite excited now. What would be the title of your autobiography?

SPEAKER_01: 53:10

Oh yeah, I thought about this and it would be completely, I couldn't decide how I would approach retelling my life. So I think maybe Against the Grain

SPEAKER_02: 53:21

because

SPEAKER_01: 53:24

I've lived myself, I've refused to do things just because I'm supposed to do them from the you know, being at school and we weren't allowed to wear trousers. So I got trousers put on the uniform list for girls. It was an all girls school. When I started working in banking in the eighties, Women weren't allowed to wear trousers. So I went out and bought myself a trouser suit, a very smart one. I got hauled over the coals for that. I refused to do marriage. My other half asked me practically every day to marry him. It's not about my feelings for him. It's just, it's a patriarchal construction. And so I avoided it. I decided I didn't want children. that I just were kind of put down that route without thinking, avoided, you know, not having motherly feelings or whatever it is and the guilt. Well, what about when you're old and all the nonsense that people tell you if you don't have them? I wanted to teach alternative curriculums in school and was always in trouble for trying to do what I thought was important for young people for learning rather than what comes from the top who haven't got a clue about the children in my classroom.

SPEAKER_00: 54:54

Yeah, I love that. I love that. You epitomise everything that Midlife Unlimited is about. Smashing those stereotypes, rewriting the negative, negative, negative even.

SPEAKER_01: 55:05

Right,

SPEAKER_00: 55:07

I know. Yeah. Yeah, I meant that. And I'm not going to edit it because this is all about being raw and real. Absolutely. How can those extraordinary women listening contact you, Caroline? Because I know they're going to want to.

SPEAKER_01: 55:24

So let's just keep it simple. So my email is caroline at free to be nlp.co.uk. My website is free to be nlp.co.uk. So nlp You can contact me or look up more there. And what I would love to share with your readers is I have a free e-book that they can get from me either by emailing me or we'll put the link in there. And that's for 10 mindset tips to survive the Christmas eating.

SPEAKER_00: 55:56

That sounds beyond fabulous, actually. I love that. And if anyone would like to get in touch with me, you can email me, Kate at SecondSpringLifeCoaching.com. I'll put details of the Midlife Unlimited Facebook group as well in the links. And connect with me on LinkedIn if you fancy it, Kate Porter Second Spring. Now, I'm feeling mega festive and I feel a mince pie coming on, Caroline. So thank you. for joining me today. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Thank you for listening, ladies. Merry Christmas. Here's to being fabulous and flourishing together. Thank you so much, Caroline. I've loved it.

SPEAKER_01: 56:44

Thank you. And Merry Christmas to you too.

SPEAKER_00: 56:47

Merry Christmas. Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 56:51

Bye-bye.