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you

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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast, I speak to Claire Turnbull, registered nutritionist about her latest book, End Your Fight With Food. Claire has been a leading voice in health and nutrition for nearly two decades, helping thousands of people rethink their relationship with food, movement and self-care. In her latest book, she brings together the science of behavior change with the lived reality of growing up in a culture steeped in dieting,

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food rules and body image pressures. What makes her work so powerful is not just her professional expertise, but her willingness to share her own story with honesty and vulnerability, from childhood experiences to struggles with disordered eating, motherhood and mental health. In this conversation, we dive into those personal reflections and the practical strategies she's distilled for readers. We talk about how

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our early environment shapes food beliefs, the role of habits in the food environment, and why lasting change often comes down to self-belief as much as knowledge. I really enjoyed this conversation with Claire. She was so vibrant and open and it was so fun and I just love connecting with my nutrition colleagues and we share such similar perspectives on so many areas, but I also love

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chatting about topics that I'm not as familiar with and getting other perspectives because this is how we learn and grow as practitioners and it was a real joy to talk to her. For those unfamiliar with Claire, Claire Turnbull is a registered nutritionist, published author and holistic wellness expert who founded New Zealand based Mission Nutrition and Find Wellness. With a BSc in dietetics, a diploma in positive psychology and over 20 years of experience, she provides expertise in nutrition,

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mental health and healthy lifestyle habits for individuals and businesses. Turnbull is also a regular media contributor, a keynote speaker and has authored three books, including her latest, Your Fight With Food, which explores her personal journey and acts as a workbook to help others connect into what really matters, to help heal their relationship with food and themselves. And I've put links to Claire's website, to Mission Nutrition and to her Instagram account in our show notes.

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And before we kick off into the interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favourite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of Micopedia and it makes literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get to hear from the guests that I have on the show like Claire. All right team, enjoy the conversation.

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Hi, Claire. Hello. Thank you for having me here. Oh, I'm so pleased to chat to you. Do know a funny story I have? And I don't know if you know this, but maybe like 15 years ago, there was a spot came up on News Talks ZB, some Sunday show that Jenny Pierce, think, was doing. then she went to do all of her Jenny things. And I auditioned for a spot to do it. And they're like, oh, you've got a couple of others. And I'm like, yeah, cool, cool, cool.

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then afterwards they're like, Mickey, so sorry, we've gone with someone else. I mean, you're fine, but we went with Claire Turnbull. She just sounded more authoritative. And I'm like, I get it. Totally get it. I don't know if you knew that. I had no idea at all. you know, they were so, when they, they said, oh, do you want to come in and have a chat about radio? I had no idea at all. And then they threw me on. they were like, and I was like, so I talked for an hour. like, I'm not over.

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just going to have a little chat about life. Apparently, they were like, this is the best way to learn. And they threw me on. And that was it. Amazing. you probably got paid about like 15 bucks for your efforts across the years. I think that might have been possibly my introduction to you, Claire.

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Oh, what a great introduction. Why is she still talking to me? Well, to be fair, as we said before we hit record, like you're great mates with someone I know through my running circles and it has always been such an inspiration for running in my previous years Manny. when I saw, and of course you've done amazing things with your career. And I think possibly one of the most, I don't know how you feel about this, but.

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probably one of the most amazing things was actually just to write the book that you just wrote. Like, I think out of all of the things, Clea, that you could have done, this is, I mean, and you've done amazing things to help people. So please don't think I'm dismissing that, but- No, no. This is a real It's definitely a journey writing a book. And particularly, um I'm dyslexic, means that I can actually write but not read. So my younger brother cannot read or write. He's 40.

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and has got the reading and writing age of a seven-year-old. I was lucky enough to just escape with very minor compared to him, but I actually can't read very well at all. I've never read a novel in my life. I can't watch movies. I can't follow the thread of a movie. It cannot follow the thread of a movie at all. So I actually writing the book was really challenging because while I've learned to write, like I've learned the kind of skill of doing it, I can't read back what I write. So they actually had to post me,

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posting me printed copies of the book. Because if I read things with highlighter pens um and circle them and put full stops, whatever, I can interpret it better. But that alone made the book writing a lot harder. Oh, God, I can imagine. And holy crap, this is like, isn't that interesting? Because you see someone out there in like TV, radio, print media space. Because you, if I say you were everywhere.

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I just, what I mean is that when Healthy Food Guide magazine was, you know, was like super prominent and stuff and your name was the name in nutrition. And then of course, everyone, you know, behind all of that, there's just a person doing their best to not get by, but you know, to live their life. And then you just reveal this to us. And we're talking about your book. And like, I can't even believe that. Yeah, well, it's funny. And I think actually super challenging in

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in many ways. But one of the things I admire, I'm going to say how much I love your work and what you do, but I admire you are so incredible, all your academic stuff, your ability to read and interpret research. I literally can't read a research paper like that. It would take me 20 hours to try and read a five-page research paper. I have to translate it into an audio that would read it to me. I've had to learn all these different strategies. I guess that's what you

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This is the wonderful thing is in nutrition in the world and in all of the, everybody's different. We've all got different skills. We've all got different things to bring to the puzzle because we have experienced different things. We learn in different ways and uh together it's about finding the match for the people that we're trying to help because everybody's different and different approaches and styles work for different people. And it's just kind of bringing the best.

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best to the table. Yeah, no, I agree. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because when you are chatting to someone or you're listening to something or you're reading something or whatever, it sometimes takes two or three different ways of saying it or of um receiving the information to land in a certain way that actually uh makes a difference, I think. know, like there's a lot of repetition in what we do in our job. Like we are saying the same thing in a slightly different way, in a slightly different context.

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and you're reaching a different person with the same message, but that is sort of nutrition, I guess. It is. And I think, guess that my approach is probably quite founded on the fact that I am dyslexic because I have struggled my whole life in understanding things that people were trying to teach me, right? So I got an A plus in biology and chemistry because

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I didn't have to really write and I could understand what they were saying. Then I got a D and an E in English Literature and History because I can't flip and read. em I've always gone, how do you help people understand things that don't necessarily make sense to them? I guess that's a lot of my approach and a lot of the work that I do is really funneled through that. The fact that I never understood, so I'm just trying to help people understand in very simple terms.

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I think one of the things I loved about your book, Clee, was not only the memoir side of it, and I always love understanding where someone comes from and just feeling like you just get to know a person a little bit better through something like that. And I didn't actually expect that. I didn't expect your book to be so personal. And of course, we'll talk a little bit about that.

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But what I also loved was the really practical element of it. Like it was like a workbook. was like, hey, it was like 101 start here. And that's actually often where people need to start. And I think just the mix of it was really nice. And you just, really did it beautifully. Oh, thank you. So can I ask, well, I will ask. Yeah. How hard was it to start sharing the stories that you shared throughout the book of your

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I guess your early years, you really went through some quite traumatic experiences before you arrived in New Zealand. And then of course, subsequently just other things that sort of occurred, like that just must have been really hard. Yeah, it was really hard reading, yeah, kind of bringing it all out. Weirdly, I've never, well, more recently, I don't actually mind other people reading it. The hardest thing was actually sending it to my mum. So my mum is incredible at spelling. She proofreads still all of my stuff.

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Like literally, you know, people are like, but you can spell. like, no, my mum can. It's not me. Yeah. mean, luckily now there's way better tools than there were originally. But I basically sent her the entire book to read apart from the introduction. And I was like, do you know what? One day she's going to read the introduction, isn't she? Cause I'm going to have to give her a copy of this book. Shit. And I was like, that was the scary part, you know, saying that to her. I think the thing for me, because I got to the point where I wanted to end my life and I was just so

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like so unbelievably broken. And that's how I ended up in New Zealand, basically running away from my problems, thinking that being on the other side of the world was a better option. I really genuinely believe from the bottom of my heart that every day is a bonus. And weirdly that came from an experience in the South Island of New Zealand. And I was actually in Wanaka and I was at wedding and I was like walking down the street towards the, looking at the water.

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And it struck me through my head. Like honestly, I just like stood there still, the silliest I've ever been in my life, because I talk a lot and I move a lot. And I just was looking, thinking to myself, oh my God, if I had been successful with that life, you know, wanting to end my life, I never would have been here. And I never would have seen this. And I never would have known the other side of very dark spaces with your mental well-being.

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And I made a commitment to myself in that moment that I was going to spend the rest of my life making sure that other people did not experience the pain that I did, or if they did experience that pain, knew how to get out of it. And I think that therefore, if burying my soul is what it requires to get other people to go, oh my God, I feel the same way. Then that's, you I'm prepared to do that. And that's, yeah, kind of how it went. That's amazing. Was it like, with the things that you shared, like,

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Obviously, I your mum is one person, other people I met and people close to you would have known this, have you, like, what kind of feedback have you received? Some people I haven't sent books to yet because they live on the other side of the world. I'm being brutally honest and I'm going back to Christmas and I'm not taking that many books with me. Yeah, so that's probably, I do, I probably fear more for a couple of my friends in the UK. You know, and the person that walked in on me when I was trying to

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do an overdose situation. That is a conversation that I've had with her about it. yeah, but if that's, you know, I think that's sometimes what it takes to shift the needle for other people. yeah, but it was, it was an emotional, emotional time. Yeah. Are you doing an audio book actually? Oh my gosh, everyone's asked me and I wish I could, unfortunately publishers don't do that many. ah

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know, some people do audiobooks and some don't. So I guess because there's quite a lot of practical elements that people work through in the book, it's one of those things where you'd end up referring people back to written material anyway. makes sense. So that makes them less keen, I suppose. yeah, I'd love to do an audiobook if that worked out. yeah. Okay. No, that's it. And actually, as you talked me through that, like, yeah, of course, Miki. I mean, that makes perfect sense. uh Do you know what is super interesting? So I asked you a question about

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how common do you think your story is? And with story, I'm referring to the more the food obsession or maybe the exercise obsession, how common you think that might be with women of our generation and actually particularly women like us who are in nutrition. Because I just, if I like, I remember when I was 18 or 17, when I was telling my best friend that I wanted to study phys ed and nutrition, she's like,

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you're just too obsessed already. I don't know how helpful it's going to be for you to actually go into it as a career. So I'm interested in your thoughts actually. Oh, 100%. Well, I think the thing is that we grew up in a generation where judging bodies and the way that you looked and not eating for wellbeing, not eating for feeling good, not eating for your brain, not eating for lean muscle, eating to change the size and shape of your body was

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absolutely everywhere. was in all of the magazines. It was dieting in the dirtiest term in terms of the cabbage soup diet and really, really suffer to be thin was absolutely, as I said in the book, that's what my mum, I watched my mum do. That's what I watched my friend's mum do. That was

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The content on British television, I'm sure it was the same here, it was the content in magazines and it was the content of all of the books that were published. Change how you eat to be thin. uh Which before our time was smoking and, just smoking black coffee. At least it moved on to cabbage, but it wasn't quite far enough. So I think that growing up in a world where, I guess dieting is such a, how big is that word? It's such a confusing word, but I guess it's that.

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food restriction for body smallening, know, to be thin, skinny. Kate Moss was all the rage, right? So I think that that means that obviously most of us that grew up in that generation have been, you know, there is a subconscious part of our brains that is very difficult to undo. That means that we judge the way that we eat and they judge our bodies in terms of nutrition, working in nutrition.

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I mean, you and I both know this. I look at my, when I was doing dietetics in the UK and all the dietitians that I trained with, I mean, wouldn't say it was all of them. But you know, certainly there's a reason why people get into what they do. I was actually going to do physiotherapy. I was going to do, so I cut, my dad's a doctor. My mom's a nurse. My brother is a pharmacist and an anesthetist, right? So when I was going to do, figure out what I was going to do, I was going to do medicine. I looked at my dad and I looked at my brother and I was like, you know what? They're just literally working all the time.

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irony that as a dietitian, you still work all the time, but never mind. I just don't want to do that. I just think that that's very ambulance at the end of the cliff stuff. I looked at physio, speech and language therapists and dietetics, but because I had been on my own eating journey, my mum has allergies, celiac disease runs in my family, I kind of have that interest in nutrition. I think that's, people get into nutrition because they've got some kind of interest in it through sport, through

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like a couple of our team at Mission Nutrition, one of them has got celiac disease, one of them has had an autoimmune condition. It tends to go in that direction. um But yeah, it's same in psychology, right? If you go through and a psychologist, why do they end up getting into that? Because they've experienced the need for a psychologist themselves. Yeah. If I think about people who work in, I don't know, MEX or

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or other clothing stores, they probably have a really interesting clothes. So it sort of makes sense. I, my, with my read of it, just with the people that I know have done nutrition and all just very, it has been a, the start, definitely sort of fueled a bit of an obsession. And of course, as we age and as we change, things change as well. And we know more and we do more and we change our perceptions. But, um

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Yeah, I definitely felt like, and I've talked about how that sort of begun my journey too. But there is of course that fine line, right, of the professional giving the advice to help people improve their body composition and lose weight, like, you know, actually lose weight, but actually not sort of, I don't know, fueling an obsession as well. Yeah, I think the most important thing when I think about this, you know,

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having done this kind of 20 years, I think the key thing is that different approaches work for different people, right? And I think that that's where it's this like bridging of science and knowledge and what is technically correct with the person. So if I think about my husband, for example, right, he works in IT, super, super type, he's just honestly like.

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really almost debilitatingly intelligent. I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast. He's so clever. It's almost problematic. The other day, he tracks everything. Oh my God. Honestly, the power usage, how many times the washing machine has been used, the lights are all tracked. knows what this is there. Therefore, I guess what I'm saying with that, when he's approaching his nutrition with that personality type,

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know, he wants the yes. He's a black and white thinker. He wants the yes and the no. He's very compliant. He's not going to get screwed up in his mind with his relationship with food if you tell him that he can't eat certain things because he literally just doesn't think like that about anything in his life. Then you get somebody else that was abused as a child. think about some them. I've got friends in this category. They were maybe sexually abused.

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then gain a weight to protect the size of their body and they don't want to be seen as attractive and all these different things. You've got that kind of person who's desperate and wants to live in a smaller body, wants to improve their health and wellbeing for many, many reasons. Clearly, there's so much stuff underneath their story. Then there's people that are super organized. The funniest thing, is when people and cameramen come to my house and they're like,

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you're a nutritionist and they're like, can we look in your fridge? They think it's going to be like all those clear containers with bamboo lids and right? is an interesting conversation and a really good point for people that are listening. The perception of nutritionists is not necessarily a reflection of reality. What we know

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um through science, what we know through our own experience does not mean that our pantries are really, really organized. That's a personality piece. I guess why that's important is therefore, I've got friends that label everything and they know exactly what they're doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That approach, a structured approach where they don't necessarily have a history of a dysfunctional relationship with food, they're going to love that and they're going to thrive on

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really well structured, knowing what the boundaries are. the other side of that, and I guess this is what I see a lot of because it's my area of interest and then you attract people of your area of interest, right, is people that have got these, you know, were called super fat or, you know, I was in the book, you know, told that I was too fat to dance when I was about four. And actually, the other day, I found this photograph of myself in my leotard, not going to lie, my thighs were looking quite, I was like, but I could say, was like, gosh,

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And that formed this whole opinion of myself for my life. And for me, again, with my personality restriction of too much really, really screwed me up. So I don't think there is a right and a wrong. just think that there is, and I think that's super important for everybody listening to know that you've got to find the thing that makes you feel good, which again, for my husband and myself and my friends.

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is a little bit different. no, I really like that. And I think it's also important for people listening who are new to the industry as well, you know, often when you're fresh out of university, or whatever course, you know, you think you know, because you know, you know, everything you've learned to that point, you're like, cool, I'm good. But actually, a lot of the knowledge comes from the person in front of you in the end, in the years and years of having the different, different people in front of you. I'm meeting people where they're And I think

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Now, like a friend of mine has just had surgery and she's just sent me all her blood results and she's got high cholesterol. She's on the verge of pre-diabetes, all these different things. I'm like, okay, right. What I would have said to her fresh out of uni is, do this, do this, do this. I'm like, hang on a minute. She's got a really complicated life, no family support. She's got young kids, high pressure job. What do I need to do to help her? It's like, well, let's

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aggressive with your fiber and focus on a couple of things, get your Omega-3s up, do that. We'll just do that. Then when we've landed on that, we'll move to the next thing. I think that's one thing that you and I have learned over the years is that you can't. It takes time and you've to manage people's expectations because otherwise if people think, I mean, you know this better than anyone else, people think that they can come and see us for an hour and that we're suddenly going to be like...

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sort out years of their entire dysfunctional eating and every nutritional deficiency they've ever had. you can't, someone with a financial who's in, all their finances are rubbish. You can't go to someone in an hour and they'll be like, right, sweetie, mortgage is a pain, you're all good. That's a great analogy actually, because often, really, think a couple of things with this. think one, people expect it to be easy because they eat and they've eaten forever.

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ever since, you know, like, so it's like this thing that I do. So surely I should be better at what I'm doing. Yes. But also they forget that it's a skill. It's like beginning to, it's like driving a car. Like you don't immediately know as soon as you get like into the driver's seat, once you've got your learner's permit, that you're going to know what to do. Yet we expect that it should just come naturally to us. And in fact, if someone gives you your macros or a plan, that's

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relatively easy thing because the instructions are easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's doing it. Yeah, it's doing it. That's the problem. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's where I guess what I'm passionate about is that people then feel that they can't achieve, they think, oh, it should be so easy, or I logically know what I need to be doing, and therefore I can't do it. And this is the piece which I'm probably most passionate about in the world, is the self judgment that comes with that. Because

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That is what destroys people. That is what is keeping people up at night. It's the judgment, God, I ate a packet of biscuits when I told myself I wasn't, and I'm somehow a horrific person, and what's wrong with me? And I just, you know, that was like my literal conversation in my head for more than 10 years, going through every single scenario of why did I eat that? Why didn't I eat that?

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I told myself I wasn't going to drink tonight and then I've drunk tonight and then I'm a terrible person and then everyone hates me at work and I'm a terrible parent and you know. All of those things. I don't want people in their journey with trying to eat better to think that self-judgment actually has a place because self-awareness does, but self-judgment does not. Yeah, nice one. And I really liked how you sort of brought up the self-limiting beliefs.

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section in your book and you mentioned how when you were like a young girl, like someone called you too fat for your leotard or in the gym. And when I remember running up to the dessert table at a birthday party and the parents saying, Oh, I knew you'd be first up. when I was, and even now it makes me feel like you get that emotional response and it really does. That just changed little comments like that, which you, which people might not even be aware of.

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are really impacting how they feel and how they act and what they eat and how they feel about themselves even now. I feel like you did such a great job there of sort of bringing it to the forefront of the conversation about how our upbringing can really influence our beliefs about ourselves and what we eat. Like how are people, what are your steps, I suppose, at helping people uncover that for themselves?

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I think it's so true. I think it's the same with all wounds that we carry. It's interesting, isn't it? For some people, if you were told you were fat in the playground, some people would literally, it would have washed off ducks back, wouldn't have made a difference. For other people, just because of the day and just because of that party that you were at because of the table, that day it landed and it stuck. I think that's a really interesting thing that wounds aren't... It doesn't necessarily that...

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If someone said that to me, that would have bothered me. It just depends on the time, right? But so to become aware of those, what I encourage people to think about is like on those occasions when you are berating yourself for eating the biscuit, whatever it is, you you told yourself you wouldn't eat that slice of bread and then you did. You told yourself you weren't going to drink and you did. Like whenever you eat or drink something, when a part of you just felt, feels shit about that afterwards. What is that? Like it's that...

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that about? Is that because I told myself, where's that coming from? Where's that judgment coming from? It's hard. Again, a lot of these things from your childhood, you might not remember. But in the book, I actually go through a list of questions, which actually helps people think. It's like, did your mom comment on your weight? Did your siblings? Did you have to fight over food? This is a really common one in families where there was a limited amount of food.

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particularly, I was brought up with two brothers. This is still one of my things that I have to work on. Bringing it up with two brothers, if the food goes in the middle of the table, I would over-serve myself because I know that there is no chance that there's going to be any left. So still now, obviously, I don't do this, I feel the situation arising with a shared food situation. My impulse to

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want to make sure that I've got enough on my plate and is still existing now. So this is where going through those questions in the book is really helpful. And the other part of that is, identifying or asking if you're getting bothered by something, stop judging yourself and saying, because you did it wrong. There's always something that's underneath that. Even if it's as simple as not something from your childhood. Did you eat enough lunch? Right? it's not some deep wound. Sometimes it's like,

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Do know what? If you're hungry at four o'clock in the afternoon, consistently every day, and you smash a pack of biscuits, maybe, just maybe, experiment with your lunch. I'm really big on it. know you are as well. There isn't a one size fits all. Therefore, um it's trying something and then being like, okay, well, I'll just go to swap that and see how that... Oh, okay. That makes a really big difference to me, but to someone else, it might not. oh

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you know, while there is, you know, all of the guidelines that we have and the recommendations, I do think it's important that people trust or learn to really trust themselves. um Because I don't think people do anymore. Yeah. And I mean, our environment is such a huge driver of that, right? Like, it's, and I think we, you we grew up where it was like, you had home baking, biscuits were a bit, I don't know for what it was like for you, Claire, but I mean, there were

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biscuits, but we would never really have them. Like they would sort of special, but mum would do some home baking and didn't really have takeouts and things like that. And you wouldn't get food in every single shop you went into. Whereas nowadays it is everywhere. Like you go into clothes stores and they've got chocolate bars right there. my God. The chocolate bars in the petrol station are now double chocolate bars. it's, know, and then if you buy it with your petrol or you get your coffee, you get your free doughnut. It's like that is

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one of the biggest problems of all of the problems. Because I think that has shifted since you and I were kids, right? But the blame that people have has just been taken on by themselves. So it's like, well, I'm such a terrible person that I went to dunking donuts when I was at the airport at 6am or whatever, honestly, the time that it opens. And I'm like, quite frankly, a donut shop should not be open at 6am in the morning.

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When you've probably got over four to get to the airport, what possible position are you in to make a good choice about your food? Yet then it's like you're on the thing, sitting there with your six pack of donuts going like, these are delicious. uh Why did I do that? Why? You were tired, exhausted. They smell delicious. Your brain doesn't know that food's coming tomorrow. That's what is so challenging, this environment that makes

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us feel like we are failing, whereas if something was done or if there's some way that we could make our environment easier to access the choices that are more nourishing and make that stuff even more expensive. mean, it's just basic neuroscience stuff, isn't it? And then, no, this is what frustrates me so much. And I know you'll feel the same here, right? It's like the best brains in the world in like

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addiction and neuroscience are working for companies, for building places and putting the position of different types of food outlets and things to completely override your ability to make choices that are in line with your lifestyle goals. You're meant to feel like the bad person for giving in when there's super smart people.

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from the addictive world of Las Vegas. How are we supposed to fight against that? As you can tell, it makes me quite mad. I totally agree. I remember I was chatting to someone, Tara Fasino, and she's done research showing that the food industry use the same playbook as cigarette companies with regards to their marketing and what they do. It's hard for anyone to really stand a chance.

32:32
in that sort of instance. And I think this is why some of the work that you've got people even just like bringing up this idea of being aware because people just aren't aware. And if you don't bring that level of awareness to your habits and behaviors, so much of what we do is either default or it's just a product of what's around us. Then you'll be trying to solve a problem that isn't there. You know, I get this a lot with people like, I'm starving at four o'clock so I need to eat. Whereas to your point,

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starving at four o'clock. It's not necessarily that you need to eat at four o'clock. You just need to sort of look at what you've done before. And also, were you actually, are you hungry or you're actually like tired and food is actually, you're needing to eat something because actually your sleep is dreadful and you're getting no sunlight and you're not, you know, your relationships, you're like, all this wellbeing stuff kind of plays in to everything else. And yeah.

33:31
We've got a kind of, new lens to look through things. People talk about the deep work. Have you heard of the deep work? um Yeah. And I think this is where it sort of sits because instead of just changing what you do and your behavior in an environment, it actually just sort of requires you to just go that level deeper. And it might mean difficult conversations with people around you, or it might mean changing aspects of your life, which are a little bit comfortable. And I think that's why

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so many people who do embark on efforts to improve their diet and their lifestyle, they often fall short of where they would like to be because it's the deep work that you're encouraging people to do in their book, that's the stuff that they're actually not doing. A hundred percent, because you can, you know, a lot of people can focus on their nutrition and it's good to for a short period of time and get that kind of up and running. And people make changes and they feel better.

34:26
But to maintain those changes, particularly if you've got this deep underlying issues about how you feel about your body, limiting beliefs about yourself, or maybe you work or exist in an environment that's very challenging. I think it's really difficult, for example, when you're trying to eat a certain way and your partner or your stepkids or your whatever else are bringing things into the house which are really triggering for you. And then how far do you go with that?

34:56
those do make a difference. And obviously there's some times where we have to accept there's only so far that we can go with those things. But I think it's good to look at those different things and just explore, you know, and again, I talk about this in the book, what can you control? And what can't you control? And actually part of this is making peace with the stuff that you can't control. uh You know, our genetics plays a huge part in certain, you know, things about the way that our body looks and responds. You know, I have got

35:24
horrific varicose veins, right? Doesn't matter the size of my body, doesn't matter how fit I get, I will have split red veins down my legs. I have since my 30s and it will happen on. I can't, I mean, obviously there's certain things that you can try and do to reduce that, but that's just part of who I am and have to, what I accept. And some people are more apple shaped. Some people have got massive boobs, you know, like there's all these different things where there's a part of us that does need to accept.

35:54
these things, again, mean, God, that's a whole other conversation, but the ideals that we tune into on social media and the images that were portrayed that we're trying to follow, it's just important that that's a reflection of reality, not a reflection of, um you're trying to be who you were when you were 20, because you're not 20 anymore. No, 100%. And I often think this, like, imagine what you could have achieved if you didn't care so much about how much cell you like you have, you know, like all of that brain power put into those thought patterns, like, man, like,

36:23
You could get so many other things done. Claire, you talk a lot about reprogramming habits, which essentially is what a lot of this is because so much of what we do is run on both narratives and just habitual behavior across our sort of lifetime. So can you sort of check to us about the reprogramming of habits from your book?

36:50
awareness we've talked about, but the reflection, that just sort of being more telling about the awareness piece and also the labeling. I think this is really important. You've probably already talked about it, but just sort of to be explicit, I suppose. Yeah, completely. So, I mean, the habit loop is not a new concept. It's been around for long time, but essentially we've got a trigger. So something that tells our brain, okay, there's something happening here, your behavior, and then the reward, which is the positive feedback for the brain.

37:19
So, one of the things I think is that a lot of our eating that we, or our drinking that we do, that we don't really want to be doing. So, that's that, you know, drinking every day when you get home from work. There's a difference between consciously cracking open a wine with your husband, with a friend, and being like, we are enjoying this wine together. you know, drinking wine out of a mug or drinking wine and being like, God, I've just had like, how did I realize that? Or, you know, getting to your third

37:49
cheese and crackers round and being like, man, I just ate a lot of cheese and crackers then. It's those things that happen so regularly and habitually that you don't really want to be doing it, but they seem to be happening anyway. One of the key things to understand about all behaviors that you don't want to be doing, and this extends beyond food. I'm passionate about that. If you have got children and you're often

38:17
really triggered by them and you're shouting at them. If your anger is your default response to those different things. This comes up in work, way that they respond in certain work situations. There are some things about ourselves that we don't really like, and we do, and they annoy us. A lot of the time it's food, but like I said, it's all aspects of our life.

38:42
What we do as human beings is we go, I'm a terrible person for shouting at my children. I'm a terrible person for drinking wine when I told myself I wouldn't. I'm a terrible person for responding in that way. And what I encourage people to do in the book is go, okay, let's just think about these patterns that come up and write them down and notice the ones that come up consistently. And what is super interesting when people start doing this is that

39:12
I've met people and they'll be like, I do this with my food and I'm this and I'm all over the place. Then when you actually whittle it down, it's probably three or four things that they do. They're highly triggered by their boss. What that means is that every time they get into a conflicting situation at work, they eat or drink something. They're like, I've got all these food problems. I'm like, actually all the food problems come back to the fact that you don't like confrontation. It's like, oh.

39:41
So the issue is a confrontation issue, not a food issue. Interesting. And I think that again, it might be that drinking alcohol, for example, is, you see this a lot. drink, drinking alcohol, and there's nothing wrong with, I drink alcohol. But it's about uh people that, I've got friends that regularly drink with their partner. And I mean to excess, that basically the only time that they're ever connected with their partner is when they're drinking.

40:11
and they don't really want to be drinking, but they're like, so actually that's a relationship connection problem, not a drinking problem. So that's what I want this as awareness piece of when you're doing something in your life, food related or otherwise, stop judging yourself for doing it and try and detach yourself from it.

40:37
And then that's what I call labeling. You give it a label. And I guess where a lot of that came from is actually being a parent in the sense that when I was trying to figure out how do I look after these humans and they drive you absolutely mad. One of the things that I learned was the importance of not calling a child bad. What your behavior is

41:06
unacceptable. Kicking your brother does not mean, you know, if you've kicked your brother, it's not like, you are so bad, you've kicked your brother. It's saying the act of kicking your brother, the behavior was unacceptable. You're a good person. And I love you. But you cannot kick your brother. And that's exactly the same. um

41:32
know, with food. And I guess that's where I've kind of practiced it because on a minute by minute basis, because my children are fighting all the time, I feel like I'm constantly saying a hundred times a day, I do not appreciate your behavior. Like, or that is not acceptable behavior. And this is particularly because I have got a neurodiverse child. This is where I've kind of like deep dived into this totally separate topic. But

41:59
He is a very, very black and white thinker. And for him, if I said to him, you know, it's wrong for you to kick your brother rather than it's wrong, kicking is wrong. um He would literally, and he has like takes that absolutely that he's a demon person and he doesn't deserve to be alive because he's so awful. Yeah. Wow. And it's only through watching him and his really like, wow, like the difference between

42:27
like detaching the behavior from who you are is profound. And I've spent a lot of time the last couple of years with him, since we've known, you know, about his diagnosis, really working on separating himself from his behavior. And it's had such a positive impact on his mental wellbeing. Amazing. And it's exactly the same with us as adults, right? We need to stop doing that. Because if we can do it for our children, we should be doing it for ourselves. Yeah, interestingly, like that's such a...

42:55
That is such an explicit example actually of the thought process in action, how you describe it. And of course, how you like, that this is, this is what we do to ourselves almost every day and you know, like, like multiple times a day in different areas. It's a real thought process to stop yourself from saying things like, I'm, you know, I'm so dumb or I'm lazy or I'm, I'm all of these things, which is actually not reflective or shouldn't reflect the, or you shouldn't think about it as a

43:25
of your personality traits, just an action that's of occurred. But that's often sort of the start of it, eh, when it comes to like... A hundred percent. then because, and I guess that here's the other thing that I've learned again from having children, right, is the fact that if I say, if I said to my son, you are, you you've kicked him, it means that you're bad. Do you know what he ends up doing? And I've watched this for years, is he becomes worse because he believes that he's bad.

43:55
He actually has said this to me, is profound actually now I'm reflecting on it. I'm bad, therefore I might as well be bad. How interesting is that? That is actually the belief in action. He was told so many times, again, this was before we knew about his diagnosis, he was told off a lot because his behavior was shit. I didn't understand where it was coming from. just like, mate, just

44:25
you, please." Then that actually fuels the cycle of, don't believe in myself, I might as well be bad. That is, if you believe you have no control over your food, if you believe that you can't make good choices, if you believe that you're not worthy of relationships and love, that is going to show up in your life. That is, guess, what happens is that then almost it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

44:55
that then when you do eat the thing that you told yourself you weren't going to, oh, there you go. There's the confirmation. I'm a terrible human being. And, know, or you shout at someone and then you use it. Well, there's the confirmation because we have confirmation bias, which means that we are absolutely seeking out information that reinforces our point of view. And, you know, that's what happens. And then that

45:22
gives, know, I've lost weight before and I'm never going to lose weight or, and then, then, and this is what happens, you'll see this again, I'm sure, people do lose weight and then they get near, you know, they're kind of like, gosh, I feel really great. And then they start going in a, of like, oh God, I've got to this point before and I wasn't able to maintain it. And then they start self-sabotaging themselves because they have a belief that they're not going to be able to maintain it, even though they're already where they wanted to be.

45:49
Yeah, all the time, all the time. People are a graveyard for a failed diet. That's what that is, isn't it? It's like sometimes people even begin something thinking, well, I mean, I'll give this a bet, but probably it's not going to work because nothing else either has, you know? And it's like you've really taken yourself out of the game. Like, it's just a bit too early for that. Oh my God. Yeah, like we're on week one. Come on now, let's just at least change our mindset. You know, you are what you believe. Like you absolutely are what you believe.

46:18
um And if you're approaching a change in your nutrition and stuff, you've really got to believe that it's going to work. um Otherwise, yes, you will slide back and just confirm the belief that you aren't good enough or aren't able to keep it up. do you know, I feel clear over the last 10 years, we've been super lucky that podcasts have actually exploded. And so you've got loads of places with which to... m

46:43
learn information about mindset, about psychology. Obviously you studied it, like positive psychology diploma. that, have I got that correct? Yes. Yeah. Which is amazing. And I know that not everyone can probably go down the same path as you have. And probably they don't necessarily want to, but like, this is, know, we're actually talking about some pretty deep topics here, which is why it's so great. You've got a book about it. Yeah. But what other places have you found helpful for your

47:11
Like for a lot of the mindset tools that you talk about in the book, like, yeah, other than maybe your positive psychology course, like do you have podcasts you listen to or people who inspire you? Yeah, I listened to a lot of positive psychology talks. Yeah. I mean, I started off doing positive psychology because I was emceeing an event with Lucy Hone, Dr. Lucy Hone, who is a specialist in grief and emotional resilience. And I have to say like her work and the people that she works with,

47:41
are incredible. Denise Quillen, who works with Lucy, they're incredible people that work in that space. I guess once you find them and you see who they follow and you go down that route, it's... I mean, the positive psychology world isn't that big. It's quite easy to find... It's the same as medicine, right? We're trying to move medicine away from this, just solving the medical problems with...

48:08
drugs and actually going like, how can we prevent this? And that's essentially what the positive psychology part of it is. But all this wellbeing stuff plays together and that's really the key thing that I've learned because obviously, so I trained in the UK as a fitness instructor. I went to university, did dietetics, had grown up literally reading my dad's or listening to my dad read the BMJ with most horrific images of

48:33
honestly, I'm like, dad, this is not dinner table material, right? Like put that BMJ away. And actually, total side story, but when anyways, wanted to go and get a tattoo or a piercing, out would come the BMJ, like grotesque. It happened to my brother when he got a tattoo and my dad was like, look, what's gonna happen to you? It's get you infected. we're like, oh, dad, stop with the BMJ. Like just honest to God, like it's a total, oh my God. Yeah, so.

49:02
I grew up in that world and I really focused, suppose, on obviously got into nutrition. I trained as a fitness instructor. Then I guess over the years, you get to the point where it's just not working enough on its own. That's where I had a nervous breakdown, uh complete collapse of my nervous system. I really then off the back of that went...

49:27
Okay, so nutrition and fitness are two parts of the puzzle, but there seem to be quite a lot more. And that's where obviously, and I think in nutrition generally, a lot of us are much more across it. All the interplays with sleep is big, obviously. But for me, this part of meaning and purpose and human connection and obviously how we manage stress is so critical because I think

49:53
One of the main things that I've learned from working with people and from what we do at Mission Nutrition and stuff like that is basically the perception of people thinking, when I live in a smaller body, when I do get to the weight that I was when I was 20, that my life will be better. And yes, your diabetes might be under control. Yes, might be like, some aspects of your life absolutely can be better. However, it's not going to fix your marriage.

50:22
It's not going to make you better at your job if you still have confidence issues related to limited beliefs that you've got about your ability to perform at work. If you don't have really good hobbies or things that make your life feel meaningful, that piece isn't done. So I do think it's really important when people are trying to focus on their nutrition to do it from a place of wanting to nourish their body and nourish their mind, but please oh

50:50
I would never approach improving nutrition or losing weight from the perspective that you're somehow going to completely change your life and then feel disappointed when you get to the other end because it was one part of the puzzle and those other bits need to be worked on. I'm sure you'll see this too. get people that feel like they've won one aspect, but then they're like,

51:15
I'm still, you know, I thought I was going to get a boyfriend and I've still been single for two years. And it's like, well, that's not really a body size thing. It's a how you feel about yourself thing. Because it's your energy when you walk in a room and you've got like F off written over your face to any man because you feel, because of insecurities that have around yourself, which people perceive they will change from the size of their body. But sometimes they don't. And they're disappointed when they are looking.

51:45
shit hot and they are, and they're doing that. And then somehow they didn't still don't get the promotion. They still don't get the positive things. So, you know, it's that. It's huge. it is big. when I was reading the part in your book, when you talked about that nervous system collapse, I'm like, holy shit, Claire, you just took like type, I'm just saying type A perfectionism to the absolute nth degree.

52:13
I can't even imagine the fear that you would have felt when that was happening to you and having no idea of what was going on. Particularly as well because I can't recall whether you had, maybe your mother-in-law was there, but your family's in the UK. I don't know. I can't imagine how that would have felt actually. It was awful because I'm absolutely Taipei. My dad's Taipei, my brother's Taipei. don't become a pharmacist and then a neistist. He's got three kids and he's writing a pharmacy textbook and I'm like,

52:43
James, what are doing?" He's like, oh, I'm just writing a textbook. I'm attached to writing a textbook and building a house. God, honestly. Yeah. mean, so what happened there, and I go into detail of it in the book, but essentially, it was actually post-COVID. I had been working from five o'clock in the morning till nine o'clock. My husband worked nine till five, and then I was working nine till midnight, working all weekend. No family. Dad had cancer. My father-in-law was dying.

53:13
actually, but what it comes down to now, which actually when I wrote the book, I didn't know this because my son didn't have his diagnosis. oh actually what it was, which isn't in the book, is I had developed extreme hypervigilance around managing his behavior because he was so difficult and it was so hard at home.

53:36
that I had basically, yeah, almost become obsessive compulsive trying to manage him to stop every single interaction with another person, every single interaction with his brother, because he would just constantly be just like a complete nightmare. Then you put in COVID and dying people and um then this what?

54:00
was all sorts of... And then obviously, having a neurodiverse child in a relationship situation like that puts a lot of pressure on your marriage. And then that's what it... The crux of what it was where suddenly wonder... And weirdly, I was doing lots of high intensity exercise at the time, like lots, because I was really stressed with my son. And what I had known to myself was how do you manage stress? You exercise. But I was doing full CrossFit style

54:31
extreme high intensity and I was leaving the house at 4.30 in the morning or five o'clock. you know, this was the lesson. I remember waking up every day, dog tired. Like this tired, where you feel better when you do exercise. And this tired when you come home from exercise and you feel like you're going to die for the next 24 hours. Not just like I'm a bit knackered and I have my shake and I eat and I'm good. Like literally feel like I'm going to die and I

55:00
did not listen to my body at all. just kept going. I kept going to the gym every single day. It wasn't to do with my nutrition. It's just my nervous system was going, this is too much exercise for you at this point of time. That exercise absolutely played its part into that. I've had to relearn. I've only just gone back to the gym semi-properly.

55:26
four and a half years later. That's how long it's taken. Wow. And I think, I feel like I see a lot of people in that sort of Taipei sort of spiral where their stress relief is just to continue to drive that sympathetic nervous system. Like it's like, this is what I do. I run, I do my, you know, F45, my CrossFit. This is how I feel better. And I totally appreciate that. But I just think anyone who feels like they're sort of in that spiral, I mean, everyone should read your book anyway, but when they read how you describe it,

55:55
I felt like you brought a lot of life to the experience. You could almost feel it yourself. Like, oh my God. And then just the journey out of it. like, was almost- Because it is so different, isn't it? mean, gosh, I couldn't run for anywhere. When I watch you do your running things, I'm like, oh my God, look at that. But you know what, you do that and yeah, you might be exhausted afterwards, but once you've had your food, an hour or two later, you're good. It's so different to-

56:24
not feeling good. You shouldn't be doing exercise to the point where you don't feel better at some point during the day after doing it. That's a distinction that I didn't really, I mean, it's so ridiculous as trained fitness structure. Sometimes we have to learn things the hard way. Yeah, totally. We're not perfect and that's how we share what we do.

56:51
that we learn through our mistakes as much as anything else. And Claire, think that we're really fortunate that you've got a platform to share all of that with us actually. Like the ability to help so many people by being so honest in your book. And also, as I said earlier, just providing people with some really simple starting tools.

57:15
to help them examine a lot of the things which you've had to examine over the years. And we all do, right? But it's actually just accepting that you need to do the work. And I think that's probably the sticking point for a lot of people. Like it's really easy to go through life and just be a little bit dissociated from what's actually going on and a little bit of denial, I guess. I think probably the- I think the work doesn't have to be hard. No. It can be-

57:44
confronting. And it can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be hard. I think that's a, the growth that you get from working through difficult things is amazing. And that's where I would encourage people to think about that. Like if you've gone, anything that you've gone through in your life, the study that you've gone, know, even relationships, like relationships are such hard work, but you get something, you,

58:13
there's positive benefits to that. you do the work. And if you do the work, you will reap the benefits. That's really the thing. It's not like you do the work and it's going to be small change. You can get big changes. The other thing that I'd really encourage everyone listening to think about is if you do have a family, if you have children, stepchildren, grandchildren, thinking about having children, they are watching you.

58:42
and the way that you talk to yourself, the way that you think about your body, the way that you cook, the way that you act, the way that it's not what you say to them in your best parenting or grandparent moments that they're listening to, right? It is what you are subconsciously doing every day that they are watching. And if you want to help your kids, teenagers, whatever, friends, improve their relationship with food, make sure that they don't

59:12
get screwed up about things, then it's well worth reading the book to help them as well as yourself. A hundred percent. And as I said at the start, like I just bloody loved it. It was so good. So, and I was really so pleased that you were so open to come on to the podcast to talk to me about it, Claire. So, I mean, I have a sense that everyone in New Zealand will know how to find you, but we've got international listeners as well. And of course, I mean, you've got a whole crew in the UK.

59:40
Can you let people know where they can find the book and of course more about you and the things that are going on with you and admission nutrition and everything like that? So ClaireTurnbull.co.nz is where you can get the book from. It's also a bookstores. And on Instagram, I'm Claire.Turnbull. You can also find me on Facebook. And Mission Nutrition is the private practice which covers all aspects of nutrition.

01:00:10
Like you said, if you put my name in Google, Claire Turnbull, uh you will find me somewhere. Yeah, awesome. Claire, thank you so much. I really appreciate having this chat. Oh, thank you so much too.

01:00:36
Okay, hopefully you really loved it and it was so awesome to connect with Claire and hear her story firsthand after reading her book. Highly recommend it. I've also got a link, of course, to the book in the show notes. Next week on the podcast, I speak to Dr. Catherine Crofts, all about insulin. It is part one of part two. We nerd out and it is just awesome. uh Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and X @mikkiwilliden .

01:01:05
Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden .com and book a one-on-one call with me. All right team, the best week. See you later.