Inside the daily routine of the world’s best nutrition doctor - the 6 things you need every day to cut your risk of cancer & dementia | Dr Federica Amati
from ZOE Science & Nutrition
1h 1m 29s
The episode challenges the myth of rigid, influencer-style morning routines by showcasing the real daily habits of Dr. Federica Romati, a top nutrition scientist and busy parent. Rather than extreme practices like early wake-ups or cryotherapy, she emphasizes consistency, real-life balance, and science-based health pillars. Her routine centers on predictable sleep, balanced meals, and stress management, with a strong focus on nutrition—particularly fiber-rich legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods—that support gut health and satiety. Breakfast is flexible and enjoyable, often followed by a nutritious lunch made with pre-cooked or ready-to-assemble components, ensuring variety and ease. She avoids processed foods, red and processed meats, and sugary snacks, opting instead for plant-based, high-fiber meals that stabilize energy and reduce cravings. Snacking is minimal and aligned with hunger cues, while evening meals are early to support metabolic health and sleep. The core insight is that health isn’t about perfection or discipline, but about choosing habits that fit one’s life—like family routines or work schedules—while maintaining evidence-based principles like gut health, sleep consistency, and stress reduction. This approach makes wellness sustainable, joyful, and accessible for most people.
Welcome to Zoe, Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their
research can improve your health.
It's four in the morning.
It's time for me to rise and optimize.
First I do 10 minutes of meditation, then 10 minutes of gratitude practice, followed
by weights and then a cold plunge.
I eat breakfast at five in the morning, which consists of a formidable supplement stack
washed down with a frothy green-pounded beverage.
Before bed, I avoid screens for an hour and a half, have 30 minutes of red light therapy,
and end the day with a coffee animal.
Okay, none of that is true.
It all sounds utterly miserable, and if I get up before seven in the morning, I complain
about it for the rest of the day.
One I describe seems to be the routines claimed by every influencer and CEO on the internet.
For the vast majority of us, they're unachievable, and honestly they feel like they've sucked
the joy out of life.
Often this type of content can leave us with a bang of guilt, though.
We ask ourselves why we're not as dedicated to health and wellness as we should be.
But the important question is this, are those intense morning routines really how we should
all be living?
And if not, what kind of daily routines should we keep?
What about if we discuss the routine of a real expert, one of the world's top nutritional
scientists, who's a busy working professional and a parent, and how they adapt the latest
science to the realities of their busy life?
Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Federica Romati, nutrition leader in Imperial College,
and Zoe's head nutritionist, and she's here to share her daily routine with us.
So if you've ever wondered what a world leading expert in health and nutrition actually does
each day to stay healthy and happy, you're in the right place.
By the end of the episode, you'll know what she does from morning to night, and whichever
habits might make sense for you in your busy life.
Federica, is there one single perfect daily routine that everyone should follow?
No.
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day?
It can be, but not for everybody.
Shall we all try to give up snacks?
No, is it possible to stick to a healthy routine, even when your day is chaotic?
Yes.
And the weekends, is it best to have a big lion to catch up on sleep?
Not all the time, but there's always wiggle room.
Today, what we wanted to do was talk about you, Federica, and what you actually do.
And that's because pretty much every influencer out there on the internet has at least one
video at the moment where they explain what they do in the morning and what they eat each
day and how, if you follow their routine, you can be as successful, rich, beautiful as
they are.
And there's a whole bunch of people with whole books laying out their protocols for how
they live that day.
But as always, on the internet, the real question is, who's advice should I be following?
And actually, can I trust any of this?
And as one of the world's leaders in nutrition science, I'm really keen to know what your
daily routine looks like.
And also because I know that not only do you do all of this incredibly impressive science
at work, but you're also a mother, you have a family, you have a real life.
And so you're actually having to make all of those things happen without a huge entourage
to follow behind you make everything happen.
So maybe we could start chronologically in the morning.
I'm assuming that like most influencers, you wake up at four in the morning, you have
a fistful of supplements, and then you do half an hour in your cryotherapy chamber.
None of which sounds like much fun.
Is this a good description of your morning routine?
Thankfully not.
If I'm up at four in the morning, something's gone terribly wrong with my, either one of
my children is ill or something's happened.
No, I wake up around six to six thirty, which is around the same time I make children
wake up.
I think anyone who has a younger children understands that waking up time is not really
up to us anymore.
It is entirely dictated by the small people in our lives.
So I wake up around the same time as them, they'll wake me up or I'll wake up just before.
And my day always starts with actually just getting up and going downstairs and having a big
glass of water, brushing my teeth, it's actually important to drink when we wake up because
a lot of us lose quite a lot of water overnight, we tend to breathe through our mouths.
And if we have a dry environment, if the heating is on for example, you can actually
lose quite a bit of water, how important for you is waking up at a consistent time.
So we wake up pretty much at the same time every day, regardless of whether it's a week
or a week and I actually find that I wake up naturally around that time because my sleep
schedule is pretty consistent.
So I go to bed around the same time and I wake up around the same time.
Why do you care about consistency?
What I've learned and what is pretty clear is that our bodies like predictability.
So if you think about our day, we have this 24 hour cycle circadian rhythm.
So there's this really elegant set of hormones that fluctuate throughout the day.
And so before you wake up, for example, there's this increase in cortisol which helps to raise
your blood pressure so that when you get out from your bed, you're just flocked to the floor.
Very important.
And then your insulin follows the cortisol and it's primed to absorb as many nutrients
as possible from your breakfast, right?
So there's this really elegant balance that happens throughout the day.
And if you work with it, actually, it helps to maintain what's known as this metabolic
flexibility.
So this ability of our body to shift and adjust throughout the day according to what
activities we're doing and what we're eating.
And consistency really helps to build that metabolic flexibility in because our body receives
the inputs it's expecting from its outputs.
So your cortisol is rising to rise your blood pressure to get you out of bed.
And if you get out of bed, it will make sense.
And then your cortisol goes back down as you move and you eat something.
So you see it, you're helping your body do its job more efficiently if actually your routine
is pretty consistent.
This doesn't mean you have to do exactly the same thing every day.
But certainly what we see in the data is that if you wake up around the same hour every
day and you have breakfast around the same hour every day and you go to bed around the
same hour every day, your metabolic health tends to be better over time.
Now, of course, there'll be times when like we've had Jonathan, you're traveling, you're
jet lagged, it doesn't really work out.
That's where the metabolic flexibility comes in so that you can still feel good whilst
you're doing those more irregular periods.
But that can only be built in if you're consistent most of the time.
So consistency, most of the times, helps to build resilience when that consistency isn't
there.
So I think one thing that listeners are already picking up is that you're very thoughtful
in fact about your routine, even if you aren't in your cryogenic therapy at the fore in
the morning.
Yeah.
And that's because what are the actual things that change our health?
It is not the cryogenic chamber and it is not the handful of supplements, right?
What's really clear from all of the evidence is that the major levers for good health and
when I say good health, I really mean like 80% of risk for chronic diseases to type
to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, about 80% of the sort of risk that we can help to
reduce are all related to what we know as lifestyle medicine pillars.
So this is really nutrition, it's a big one, sleep, movement or exercise, how you deal
with stress, social connections, so are you spending time with people you love and how
are you reducing your stress?
So stress is external, we can't stop it from happening, but how are you dealing with
that stress?
What are you putting in place to make sure that when stress happens, you can actually respond
to it in a way that's helpful instead of unhelpful?
Those six levers predict 80% of risk, 80% and if you can get four of them right, because
getting more six is actually quite hard in this day and age, if you can get four of them
right, you can reduce your risk of chronic disease by around 60 to 70%, which is fantastic.
That is the entire principle of preventative care, prevention, lifestyle medicine, which
underpins how we think about helping people reduce their risk.
Then of course, medicine is incredibly helpful to intervene when something goes wrong and
then there are things like supplementation and cold water swimming, which have a fractional
improvement, but if you don't have the sort of base done, then the rest can't really
follow.
And I see this actually in clinical practice, Jonathan, people who are trying to squeeze
in a lot of those biohacking culture things end up disrupting their sleep, or perhaps they
wake up early and leave their family and don't spend time with their kids so that they
can go and do some crazy workout and then spend some time in a freezing cold bath.
But you've just removed a really cool part of your social connection and your sleep.
So you have to weigh up what's actually worth doing.
Do you have a friend who's committed to building healthier habits?
Maybe it's an earlier start, a new breakfast, or a walk-off to dinner.
If so, why not share this episode with them?
One of the world's leading nutritional scientists walks us through her real routine from breakfast
to bedtime.
I'm sure they'll thank you.
I think one of the things that I've really changed my mind about since being involved
in Zaria is sleep because I've sort of come to the conclusion that I really need eight
hours in bed with the light off in order to function, you know, a CEO and as a parent
and these sorts of things.
And it doesn't make any sense to wake myself up early to go and do some exercise to then
wreck that.
sleep and it sounds like you have a very strong view that this sleep is one of the pillars that you are not willing to negotiate over really.
I mean, yeah, it's my view but it's also massively evidence-based, so we see that people who have chronic lack of sleep are much higher risk of diseases like Alzheimer's but also heart disease, high blood pressure.
And there's some really interesting studies that look at what happens when the clocks go back.
A lot of sleep scientists really would love everyone to stop doing that because when the clocks go back, there's a huge spike in heart attacks, strokes, and car crashes every year.
Just that one hour shift, so people are just waking up an hour earlier than usual, so this is the one that clocks go back, right, in October.
There's this massive spike in the data because our body isn't ready to get up yet and especially if you're ready at risk, so if you already have hypertension or perhaps you already have cardiovascular disease,
just setting your alarm an hour earlier is enough to trigger a catastrophic event and car crashes because you're not quite as alert as you should be when you get into your car to drive.
There's a spike in car crashes globally. There's things that happen when we sleep that can't happen at any other point in our day.
So you've had your sleep, you've got the kids ready. I did hear you mention that you want to try and deal with stress.
I personally find trying to get them, particularly yours is still quite small, like out of the door successfully for school, possibly the most stressful thing I ever do in a week,
like being the CEO of a company seems very easy compared to negotiating with a young child to sort of successfully get out of the house.
So have you already undone all the good things with like the stress that happens here?
When I hit 40, I started feeling tired and sluggish. I remember thinking, great, this is it. It's all downhill from here, but I was completely wrong.
It wasn't my age, it was my diet, it was literally sapping my energy. I was trying to juggle kids' work and exercise and back then I just grabbed whatever food was nearby.
I still have that crazy schedule, but what's changed is what I put in my body.
Our own research at Zoe has shown that if your digestion feels off or you're regularly feeling exhausted, it's often because your gut bugs are starving.
They thrive on a huge variety of plants, at least 30 different plants a week, and the more the better.
But if yours stretches me, it's not always easy to achieve this, and that's exactly why our scientists develop daily 30.
It's a great tasting gut health supplement with over 30 plants in every single scoop. I take it every day without fail.
And because we're Zoe, we don't just guess, we test, we put daily 30 through a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard of testing.
The results absolutely blew us away, proving it's good for energy, digestion and gut health.
That trial helped us develop the formula that we have today.
So if you're not feeling like yourself, don't set all for feeling sluggish. Head to Zoe.com/daily30 and try it for yourself.
I don't know, I think, no, it sounds silly, but get the uniforms ready the night before, and make sure they're actually creating a calm environment in the morning.
It's quite a big part of what I do. So relaxing music on, go through it as peacefully as possible.
There are obviously mornings where I'm like, we're already late, get in the car, go, go, go.
But actually generally, we have a pretty steady routine. We know what works and doesn't work.
So for example, no amount of TV in the morning works at all.
You know, if they're working up early, just don't do it. I actually enjoy that time with my kids, because it's often that time when I've got protected, uninterrupted time with them.
So I try to frame it as an opportunity to really spend time with them, and that helps me deal with the stress of it potentially.
For me, it's a privilege to be able to do the school run for them.
It's lovely. So tell me about your breakfast.
I don't have a breakfast I have every day. I love variety in my diet. I love food, and what I feel like eating day to day changes.
So some days I love eggs, and I make some eggs and rye bread, and maybe some avocado with that.
Other days I couldn't stand the thought of eggs for breakfast.
So it depends on what I feel like, but I do know that having a good breakfast in the morning really helps me to work at my best,
and be able to feel good for the rest of the day really.
So I make a point of having breakfast.
If I'm not feeling as hungry, then it might be a smoothie, because it's just a bit easier, and it's less fath.
But I always have fresh fruit. I have yogurt or kefir. I have eggs and rye.
I really try to mix up plenty of fibre with my breakfast, and make it something that I really enjoy.
And I also do make a point of like actually sitting down and eating it.
I do have my cappuccino before I eat anything, so there's quite a lot of myths about not having your coffee or an empty stomach.
It's not evidence-based. For some people, it can trigger like more IBS-like symptoms if that's you don't have it.
But I have my soy cappuccino on the school run, so I take it with me and have it before I eat.
So you're having breakfast, but you're not having it like the first thing you do is you wake up.
You've actually already gone and like taking the kids to school, come back, and then you're having your breakfast.
Yes, so for me, my breakfast is a bit later than the kids. I'm just not that hungry when they have theirs.
So that works for me. Then some days, if I know that I've got to go straight from school drop off to a meeting,
then I might bring something with me and have it. I mean, our gut health bars are amazing for this to be honest,
because I just put that in my bag, a piece of fruit, and I'm out the door.
During the week, I always have the same breakfast, and I think it's because I have so much control over what I have for breakfast,
and often I'm a lot less certain about what control I will have over lunch and dinner.
And I really want to be basically position where I won't be hungry until lunchtime.
So I always have Greek yogurt and kefir, because you taught me that if I mix the two together,
I get like the bonus of like all the fermented food and the protein and everything.
Always a bunch of fruits, like berries, all these things that like have a lot of fiber,
because I remember Tim explaining to me, like lots of little seeds in his goods.
So I go for all of that. Always daily 30, always add nuts on top.
Is it bad that I don't vary that?
No, it's not bad at all. So I think it just depends on on your life and what you can do and how you experience it.
So if for you having something different would bring in stress, because you have to vary it,
then it would be counter-intuitive and counter-active to you just having a healthy breakfast.
The breakfast you've described ticks all the boxes. It's a fantastic breakfast.
And if it works for you great, most people sort of want some variety,
because they might find like, I don't want you'll get again today.
But if it works for you and it's nutritionally balanced, then that's the most important,
because consistency is king.
At the weekend, often I might do something different.
Like I like eggs. I might do eggs on ribreads.
I do ribread because one of the things I discovered is like my blood sugar control is really bad.
So like sourdough whatever, like my blood sugar goes through the roof, whereas the like proper
rye, like 100% rye, like I've much less. And then my children would really like to do pancakes.
So we do whole wheat pancakes. And basically it's eggs, it's milk, it's whole wheat flour,
it's a bit of olive oil and a bit of salt. So it's more like a French crepe style.
And the kids really think about it as a treat, but it's whole wheat flour.
So it actually scores pretty well. And then I put lots of fruit on it myself.
The kids will cover it in maple syrup. That is something that is delicious.
And but clearly not something I'm going to do during the week.
Yeah, fine. Whatever works for you and brings you the nutrition you need.
So you feel good for the rest of the day.
Most of us have say three meals a day, four seven days a week. That's 21 meals a day, a week,
right? And so what you want is a variety across the 21 meals.
If your breakfast works for you to be one meal every time, that's fine.
As long as you see variety throughout the rest of your day and don't forget most of us snack.
So you also have an opportunity to bring more variety in your snacks.
And then you get the strawberry graph over the whole week and you can see how many different foods
you've eaten. And that's that's the way to think about it. So don't worry.
If your breakfast is the same and you just vary the nuts and maybe the fruits, you're still getting
variety. And Federica, if somebody's listening to this and they don't have any time to prepare
breakfast on the days that they're working, are there any quick, healthy options for them
where they can still have breakfast? I mentioned that there's, you can make a really healthy smoothie
in a few seconds in a nutribullet, hemp seeds, frozen cherries, kefir, yogurt, and some chia.
High in protein, high fiber, and it has that lovely combination of kefir and yogurt.
You can add some cacao powder as well. Extra fiber, extra micronutrients and tastes delicious
with the cherries. The other thing you can really do is actually get some rye bread or some healthy
whole grain, maybe it's sourdough, whatever your preferred bread. I do think rye is really good.
And then put some nut butter and some berries on top. Make it into a fruit sandwich. I call it
sometimes. Take it with you. Or you can just have it open if you've got a couple of minutes.
So the only time needed there is to lightly toast your rye, spread some nut butter,
few berries on top. Good to go. I think that's a really good light, easy, portable breakfast too.
And when you say nut butter, that means it could be peanut butter or almond butter or whatever.
Yeah, I've actually started experimenting with mixed nut butter. So now you can buy nut
butters that are made like cashew and almond, and you will not. So that you can get mixed nuts,
even better, whatever you like, in terms of, you know, change it up, see what you like, just make
sure you're adding a bit of fruit. And then if you want to add some deity thirties or some
mixed seeds as well, then you'll be increasing the nutrients there. They all sound delicious.
Maybe I'll move beyond my one breakfast, but we'll see. Let's move on to lunch. You've done your
work. And I think lunch can be more challenging because you don't necessarily have all of the control
or things start.
to go awry, so what does your lunch look like?
- You know, lunch is one of those things
that's so easy to not have lunch
because maybe a meeting gets put in
or you actually need to finish that document.
And I'm guilty of this.
Making time to have lunch is such an important part
of having a break from work
and making sure you're nourishing yourself a lunch.
It's another opportunity to get the foods
that help you stay healthy.
So, you know, maybe 20 minutes is all you need.
You don't need to take a full hour,
but 20 minutes to make a nutritious lunch
and eat it away from your computer
is really helpful also for helping to regulate stress.
So, take a break.
And actually, I've become the queen of quick lunches
because certainly I try to have lunch at home.
I find it, if you're eating out,
it is harder to find something healthy.
So, when I'm at home, I have a bowl
and I will literally put in some beans.
I'll put in some whole grain.
So, whether it's barley or rye or spelt, put that in.
It might be a slice of rye bread as well.
And then, I'm a big fan of tofu.
Not everybody is.
You can have a couple of boiled eggs.
I also love tinned, oily fish.
So, that might be sardines or mackerel, put that in.
And then some veggies, some chopped tomatoes.
It might be some greens in your fridge
or some leftover veggies from yesterday.
You can warm that all up in the microwave
in about a minute and a half
and you have a warm, satisfying lunch.
In the summer months, it's more of a salad
but it's very similar concept
where you bring together food groups
that are already ready to go.
So, it's an assembly lunch.
I'm not cooking anything.
I'm literally just taking things out from my cupboard
that come together, sometimes it's frozen peas
and then you just warm it up
and you've got a really nutritious lunch
ready to go in minutes that you can eat.
- And so, you mentioned both beans and whole grains.
Is that mean you've already cooked them earlier?
- Yeah, so you can buy beans in jars or tinned
and they're already cooked.
You don't need to cook those.
Similarly with whole grains.
So, sometimes it's actually my lovely mom.
She likes to batch cook barley
and she'll just bring me some
or I buy the ready-cooked spelt sachets and use those.
So, there's actually ways where you can buy foods
that are really easy to assemble
and you reduce the cooking time.
- And is that healthy?
'Cause I think I always sort of grew up a little bit
this sense that like, well, if it's like pre-cooked
or if like a lot of those like sachets
and like it's sort of in a plastic.
- They are in a plastic bag.
- Like what you're describing.
And I've just got a few now of these like quinoa
or spelt sachets.
That is actually healthy.
- Yeah, well, so I would opt for the unflavored ones.
So, the ones that are literally just par,
but they're just parboiled or boiled.
So, they're just cooked quinoa or cooked spelt
or sometimes they're cooked mixed grains.
I don't like the flavored ones, I have to say.
So, I would just do that.
And they are absolutely healthy.
Don't microwave them in the plastic.
Put them into a bowl.
'Cause if you heat up food in plastic,
you do get some of that plastic migrating into the food
and more importantly, the plasticizers,
not migrating to your food.
So, that's the only caveat is to try
to take them out of the plastic to heat them up.
There's a quinoa one, which is like black red
and white quinoa, I feel so fancy.
I buy that as well.
And it just means you can make a healthy nutritional
slants in minutes.
You can maybe add some harissa paste, extra virgin olive oil,
squeeze of lemon, done.
And it tastes amazing.
- Can you talk me through why, like that's the combination
then when you're at home, you're putting together.
So, help me to understand.
'Cause you're obviously a nutrition scientist.
You're thinking about this.
- Yes.
Well, so what I'm trying to do is make sure
that I'm getting a variety of plant foods
that deliver a variety of fibers,
which are really important for a gut microbiome.
They're important for satiety, so help me feel full.
And they're also important to help regulate
the movement of my food through my bowel, right?
So, that's where the beans or lentils,
the whole grains, a sprinkling of nuts and seeds in there,
using herbs and spices, that all contributes.
The whole grains specifically and legumes
are two food groups that are incredibly important
for good health.
They are two food groups that are found
in all the healthiest diets.
When we look at any sort of centenary and research,
they eat whole grains, they eat legumes.
So, including the manioli is a really good way
to help improve your health.
- Legumes is the beans.
- Is the beans or the lentils, chickpeas, green peas.
Green beans are also legume.
People think it's a vegetable, it's actually legume.
So, eating a variety of those is really great.
And there's some brands that are now making them delicious
and easy and you can buy the jars and they look pretty
and it's, they taste great.
So, get those in.
If you buy kale or cavalone or broccoli,
you can very quickly flash boil them.
So, you can either literally boil the kettle
and just pour the boiling water over kale,
for example, in a colander, and then you've steamed it,
basically.
There's lots of easy ways that you can make that
a quick lunch, part of your lunch,
or leftovers from dinner, very often.
And then you have like the flavor bombs, the tomatoes,
you want to have maybe some like chopped red onion,
the things that just bring extra zing to your plate.
Lemon, the other thing to think about is adding some ferment.
So, I very often add sauerkraut to my dishes at the end.
Don't put those in the microwave, if you can help it,
but that adds texture, color, flavor, and fermented foods.
- Why not in the microwave?
- Well, when you microwave ferment,
it kills off the live microbes with still beneficial.
So, a lot of the data we see actually shows
that even when live microbes are pasteurized or killed,
you still see a benefit.
But if you got them live, keep them live.
Probably the biggest single thing now I think
that has changed is that I try and eat a lot of beans.
And that is because I've been convinced
they're incredibly good for me in terms of,
they have all of this protein in there,
and this incredibly high amount of fiber
that is feeding my gut microbes.
But I think the other thing that's really interesting is,
basically you can swap them for what you might have had
in rice or pasta, and suddenly the score of the meal shoots up.
But interestingly, the thing I really notice is,
you have this wonderful sense of being full
at the end of the meal, which I don't think is a way
that I was used to ever really feeling
after eating honestly in the way that I ate growing up.
And it's not just at the end of the meal,
I'm still full two hours later.
Does any of that surprise you?
No.
So let's touch on a few things.
So yeah, they are a fantastic source of plant protein
and fiber and other nutrients as well.
Some of chickpeas, for example, are a very good source of iron.
You need to combine them with vitamin C containing foods,
whether that's a squeeze of lemon or some tomatoes or peppers.
So they're very nutrient dense.
When you combine these legumes with whole grains,
you actually get the perfect amino acid profile
in times of protein.
So because legumes have slightly different,
essentially amino acid levels compare to whole grains.
When you put them together, they get this beautiful,
even distribution, very good.
So if you put both, it's like if you have beans
and a whole grain, then it sort of gives you
all the amino acids in their right combination.
In the right combination.
Yeah, it's really good for that.
And now beans themselves, especially,
they are very fiber rich and they have this quite dense.
When you eat them, the texture is quite filling.
And what happens is as you eat them,
they have this volume about them,
especially if you're like butter beans,
they actually fill your stomach that helps to
that feeling of fullness.
But later, after you eat in like half hour and hour,
two hours later, as they make their way
through your gastrointestinal system,
they're triggering more satiety responses
because they're nutrient dense.
And then because they have so much fiber,
your gut microbes break that fiber down,
release short-chain fatty acids,
which then trigger the release of GRP1,
GIP, PYY in the gut, later in the colon.
So two, three hours after you eat in these beans,
you have these little messages saying,
"Hey, we still have great food here."
So beans are a fantastic way to feel satiated.
And in countries that eat a lot of beans,
so Italy, Japan, Spain, when we eat,
we say, "One appetito to start,"
which is like healthy appetites or good appetites.
And at the end, we say, "I'm sort of satsur."
I'm satiated.
I think a lot of the time,
the standard American diet has completely lost
the sense of satiety because we don't eat the foods
that actually result in that long-term satiety,
like long-term feeling of not hunger.
We used to feeling full temporarily in our stomachs,
but you need foods like beans to be satiated.
- Now, what you've described is like great you're at home,
and you've got time to make something,
but lots of us are not at home at lunchtime, right?
We're out and about, maybe we're at work or wherever,
and this happens to you as well, right?
So what do you do then, Federica?
So if you know where you're going and you're gonna be there for a while,
so for example, if I'm coming into the office,
I'll bring packed lunch, and I will just have it,
and I'm excited about that, great.
If you rushed out the door like I had this morning
and didn't have time to pack anything,
then it's about finding solutions
that can help to combine some of these food groups.
So you can still go out and see,
can I buy like a nice bean-based soup,
and then can I add a piece of fresh fruit to that?
So there's ways that you can combine foods
even from the supermarket.
I would sort of walk past the meal deal, 'cause honestly,
that's not a good solution most of the time.
For example, if you go to the supermarket,
you might be able to buy some rye bread,
buy some hummus, for example, spread that on top,
perhaps you buy some feta,
or maybe you get some sardines, put those,
so you have to sort of get a little bit creative,
or you can go to outlets that specifically
let you build a bowl of healthier foods,
and there's a few of them, certainly here in London.
You can get more choice, more access.
If that's not possible, then I would actually recommend
eating a piece of whole fruit, some mixed nuts,
and then waiting till you get home,
or buying like a plain yogurt,
putting some nuts in there and some fruit,
and waiting until you get can have a healthier meal,
because otherwise, you might buy something
that won't actually feel make you feel satiated
and made just impact your energy levels later.
- I think a lot of people listening
are gonna be thinking, well,
why don't you just get a ready-made sandwich?
- Yeah, well, you know,
Ready made sandwiches isn't going to make me feel great.
And some sandwiches are better than others.
You can buy a sandwich perhaps that has, as I said,
you can get like a homeless and roasted veggie sandwich,
maybe on a brown bread.
I wouldn't not buy that,
but a lot of sandwich options can be completely devoid of fiber.
And so they won't help you feel energized
and satiated an hour later.
So for me, it's like a waste of money.
I'd rather buy something that's gonna help make me feel satiated
until I can get somewhere that has good food.
And so what is it about the standard ready-made sandwich
or, you know, I think in the States,
often maybe it's not ready-made,
but you get somebody to make this for you
that you're like, well, I'm not going there.
- So often these sort of sandwiches are made
with highly refined flour.
So it's like a white bread sandwich.
And then perhaps there'll be some mayonnaise,
perhaps some cured meat or lunch and meat.
And then there might be a pickle or a salad leaf,
but not much in the way of plants.
And that will deliver some fats,
but they're not really the type of healthy fats
you're looking for.
And it will deliver some protein,
but not really enough to help you feel satiated.
And also actually processed meat
is not what we want to be getting our protein from.
And not enough fiber to help with satiety
or to help you get microbiome
or to regulate the absorption of that very white bread sandwich.
So you're more likely to have like a more elevated
and persistent increase in your blood glucose level
that then might in about 30% of people result in a crash.
That makes you feel really hungry, really tired about
say an hour and a half later.
Now listen, sometimes that is the only option.
I've been in situations where the only option
is like a tuna sandwich from the petrol station.
Fine, you buy the tuna sandwich from the petrol station,
you find some mix nuts and you add an apple.
You can make it work.
I'm just saying if you have a choice or an option,
you're best off sort of having a healthy stack
and then wait until you can have a proper meal.
I realize I'm really lucky in that
because not everybody has that level of choice,
but it's also because I've been doing this for a while,
I know how crap I feel when I don't do it.
And so I think oftentimes is when you make this change
in your diet, you're like, oh, I don't want to break that
because I know I feel rubbish afterwards.
So it's very much something that I'm lucky
to have a choice to do and I've found out ways
to work around it if I need to.
And healthy snacking is a really nice stopgap
if for whatever reason you can't get the kind of lunch you want.
What about the weekend?
What would your weekend lunch look like?
- Yeah, so weekends also got the kids.
I love to get them involved in cooking
and they love to get involved.
And that really depends again on the season and what we're doing.
But for example, they love spaghetti vongole
in the summer, they obsessed with it,
they have a vongra song.
And so we might make a seafood pasta.
If my indoors are coming over,
I'll make a traditional roast chicken for them
with all the trimmings, all the vegetables,
just way more vegetables than you'd expect
and my potatoes are roasted in olive oil.
- We like to have family meals on the weekends.
I'm from Rome, Jonathan,
pasta with beans is like our everyday food.
So like a really delicious, so-cooked pasta
with ballotty beans, they love it too.
So it just totally depends on the weather and what we're doing
and what they feel like.
They do get to dictate a little bit.
We're like, okay, at least one meal.
It's like, what do you guys want to eat?
- You mentioned pasta.
One of my big swaps has been to move to hallway pasta
instead of like the white pasta that I grew up with as a kid.
And I've actually grown to just genuinely really like it.
So it's one of these things that I'm not feeling
that I'm missing the white pasta.
In fact, to be honest, I now prefer the whole wheat flavor
because I guess I just got used to it.
It's also interestingly, the kids never mind about it.
So I found with lots of things,
it's a real struggle to get them to eat interestingly.
They think whole wheat pasta is delicious.
They always had, I've never found that difficult.
I'm looking at you as an Italian.
- Yeah, yeah. - What sort of pasta do you eat?
- There's actually quite a big difference in pastas, okay?
So if you buy like a quick cook pasta,
it's a very different nutritional profile
to like a slow-air dried during wheat pasta.
The protein content is different.
The micronutrient content is different.
The texture is different.
So how slowly you chew is a very different food, Jonathan.
It's not the same.
I buy the very good Italian pasta.
- Which is therefore still white, not that whole wheat.
- I do buy whole wheat, but the point of pasta
is it can be an extremely healthy vehicle
for all the things you have with it.
And actually, if you buy a really good quality high protein,
so the slow-dried pasta and you cook it al dente,
so don't over-cook it.
It can be a healthy food.
Like it's a low glycemic index.
It has higher protein content, higher eye content.
It's a good food, but you have to have it with the right source.
- What about after lunch?
- Yeah, I'm a big snacker.
There's no way I can go from lunch to dinner
without snacking.
Are you a snacker?
- I do snack.
I love fruit, and I love to have dates
with a piece of dark chocolate.
I love our bar.
I like the dark chocolate bar in the afternoon,
but in the morning, I like the raspberry and goji berry one.
I don't know why.
So in terms of snacking, usually it's if I'm actually hungry
or if I'm going to work out or if something's happening,
but I don't find snack foods attractive.
Again, very lucky that I don't really fancy biscuits.
I don't really reach for that sort of thing.
- And you don't have this sort of energy crash in the afternoon?
- No, typically I don't.
I don't tend to reach for foods in the afternoon,
and I don't tend to have that desire
for a sweet food in the afternoon.
But in the past, when I used to have less healthy diets,
I would definitely get that afternoon desire
for like a little something sweet.
And honestly, that for me, personally,
that's entirely gone.
Ever since my breakfast has become so nutritious,
so actually it's not even lunch.
It's breakfast has the biggest impact
on how hungry I feel around three or four pm.
- If I eat anything, which is like,
it's normally all these highly refined starches,
like bread, or even your Durham wheat white plaster,
or lovely panoshokala, or whatever these things are,
I really feel that over the next couple of hours,
I feel this energy crash,
and then, and also interestingly,
I'm really hungry, even though I ate this stuff
just a couple of hours before.
And it sounds like, A, you're quite disciplined
about what you eat, but B, that actually doesn't bother you
as much as for some people.
- No, I think it's not even disciplined.
I love eating the food I eat.
So I get a lot of joy of eating the way I do,
and I think that I have a high fiber diet.
So I just avoid the sort of peaks and troughs.
Mostly thanks to the fiber-eat, honestly.
So the days when I'm not able to eat that way,
I do feel the difference.
For me, it's a bit more as headaches.
So interestingly, I think I'm just,
I'm lucky that my hunger signaling isn't that loud,
but I get headaches instead.
And so sometimes I'll know that I haven't eaten well,
and I'll get to around that time,
and be like, "God, I'm gonna eat a headache,"
and it's because I haven't eaten enough food.
So, you know, we're all so different in how we react.
And for me, it's less about discipline,
'cause I'm actually, as I said,
they have different food every day, I don't plan it.
I'm in awe of people who batch cook for the week
and have it all ready to go.
Can you imagine how amazing that would be to be,
like, I know exactly what I mean to.
Like, I'm not that disciplined in that way,
but what I do know is that if I don't feel like myself,
and if I don't eat the right foods,
then I will suffer with it, but just in my own way,
which is headaches and just not feeling 100%.
- And Federica, if you were advising me as someone
who is a regular snacker, and I think there's
a lot of listeners who are the same,
if you were preparing my snack, what would it be?
- I have to say, I eat dinner early,
it's probably why I can get away with it.
I eat with the kids.
If I was preparing your snack,
I would, first of all, do you want to save your sweet?
So, if you want something savory, a combination,
like, definitely hermos and veggie sticks,
and cubes of cheese, like cheddar.
If you're someone who loves savory,
that is gonna just taste delicious, right?
Olives, yes, add some olives in, brilliant.
If you're more of a sweet snacker,
then definitely, like, bring in fresh fruit.
Fresh whole fruit is so good for us.
Two to three portions of the day is ideal
for reducing heart disease risk.
Fresh whole fruit, perhaps you're gonna add some yogurt there,
or maybe a handful of nuts,
some dark chocolate, 70% above.
If you're a sweet snacker, that's gonna see you through
that little snack.
You can make healthy snacks at home as well.
So, if you're someone who loves baking, for example,
you can make really delicious dark chocolate
and nut-based biscuits and then take them with you.
If you're out and about,
and you're looking for a healthy snack,
that gets a bit harder.
It's why we created that cut-out bar.
But you can opt for things like seaweed crisps.
I actually love them.
My kids love them too.
And you can get hermos pots now that you can buy.
Cream cheese on like a rye bread,
or, you know, you can get really nice whole grain bagels.
A cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel is an elite snack.
So, actually, my kids sometimes have that after school.
- So, dinners are only at six.
What does it look like?
- So, I'll eat whatever the kids are eating.
So, that might look like salmon with some broccoli,
some other greens, and perhaps they might have,
they don't love whole grains as much as I do yet
and working on it.
But it could be some sweet potato,
or it might be some roasted potatoes that they're having.
Then, sometimes it's soups.
So, we're going into soup season now.
So, they really love minestrone soups.
They love rebelita.
They also love pumpkin soup.
So, we'll have some of that.
I don't eat meat.
So, if they have a meat, I'll make myself some tofu
or have some beans.
If I've had a very long day and haven't had enough to eat,
I also love making pasta for jolly.
So, that is my comfort food.
It's bolotti beans, sufrito, tomatoes,
lots of parmesan, olive oil, and some pasta.
It's very nice.
- And you just mentioned that you don't eat meat.
- No.
- Is that a health decision?
- Yeah, so for me, it is.
So, my father passed away from colorectal cancer.
And so for me reducing red meat and process meat was a really obvious choice.
To do explain why?
Yeah, so we know that red meat and process meat consumption increases your risk of
colorectal cancer, and so I'm doing everything I can to reduce my risk, and that
includes removing those from my diet.
It doesn't mean that my children have ate them.
Once a week they'll have some form of red meat, whether it's lamb or beef, and I try
to buy it as responsibly as possible, because I cut out those meats, I don't enjoy eating
meat anymore.
It's a funny change in taste reference.
I don't really check in on anything either, but I do eat oily fish.
So we do have fish at home.
If they're eating any kind of meat, I will stop and eat there some oily fish or some tofu,
which I will make for myself.
And when you said fish, you immediately said oily fish.
Yes.
So the oily fish, best way to remember a smash, which is the acronym that's used salmon,
macros, anchovies, sardines, and herring.
I don't know who still buys herring, it is delicious, but it's quite hot to find.
So it's worth mentioning also sprouts and trout are considered oily fish.
That means that they have high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are an essential fatty
acid, very good for our health, for brain health, vascular health.
Oh, I've got microbes love omega-3 fatty acids as well.
And you don't need more than three portions a week to get enough.
And that's an important part.
You were describing when you think about your routine now on the week, you are actively
thinking, have I hit my three?
Yes.
And the kids too, so obviously, children are growing.
Children's needs for omega-3 fatty acids is really high as their brains continue to form.
So have we all had our dose of oily fish?
I think for a lot of people, salmon has become quite a well-known fish, and it's sort
of replaces like a chicken or something like that, right?
So it's sort of quite straightforward how to do it, Ed.
But what about these other oily fish, which I think from me and from lots of other people,
it's like much less obvious really how you would fit them into just your normal eating
pattern.
So for you, how do you consume the rest of these?
So trout is very similar to salmon.
Cook it.
Treat it the same way it's just a bit less cooking time, it's less fat, so it goes dry
if you overcook it.
The girls have seen me eat sardines out of like a jar or tin, so much that they got curious
and tried it and quite like it.
So with sardines, you can just serve it with vegetables.
You don't have to do anything.
You can buy them tinned or jarged, and they're perfectly good to go.
If you're on holiday or if you have access to fresh sardines, fantastic news, you can
cook them in the oven.
You can grill them.
They taste great.
Macros, another one that's interesting, a lot of people don't like cooking macros because
it's quite fishy smelling when you cook it.
But if you buy it again in a tin or a jar, it doesn't smell a fish at all.
So a lot of people put off cooking oily fish because of the smell.
Give it a go.
Lots of herbs and marinating can help with that and also the mode of cooking.
But if you're not sure about it, buy them tinned or jarged that just as healthy for you.
And then you can add them to pasta dishes.
You can just add them to things that you already love.
So for example, if you enjoy like a pesto pasta with broccoli, you can just add in some
sardines.
And it just adds to the pig dish.
If you don't like the idea of mixing it up, you can start by making like a rye bread
tartlet, as I said earlier, with like some pommas, some rocket and put a couple of sardines
on top and see how you like that.
And some anchovies are incredibly versatile. They make everything taste umami and salty.
And my ideal pairing is garlic with anchovies.
You melt that in a pan with olive oil and then you add broccoli and some beans.
And you can use that as a sauce for pasta and you won't taste the anchovies.
It won't taste fishy.
It'll just taste umami.
So it's interesting that you are like just sort of almost as adding this into a dish
that you would have cooked anyway.
Just throw it in on top and you're saying it doesn't completely like wreck the recipe
as you would have had it before actually in the bit sort of like a bit of flavor.
You're like secretly improving your kids' starts without them even noticing.
Yes.
Anchovies are a very easy one to insert.
The hardest is herring.
I mean, you either like herring or you don't, but that's just one of them.
So there's lots of ways you can introduce these into dishes and it won't be a big deal.
So if you like pasta with tuna, that's great.
Why don't you try that as pasta with macrotin, macrotin instead of tin tuna?
Tuna is not as healthy.
Not an olive fish.
It's actually one of the fish that has the highest amounts of mercury.
So you can eat it, but I wouldn't recommend eating it more than two times a week, really.
And if you're pregnant, even less than that.
As we're describing all that, one of the things that comes to mind is what you cook your
food in because it's one of those questions that we get all the time and I have had, you
know, people like question my own choices at home.
So what are you cook with?
I mean, I cook with extra virgin olive oils.
I cook with it.
I dress with it.
I love it.
However, you know, for example, with tofu, sometimes I'm like, I want a different flavor
profile.
So I'll use like a white sesame oil, but I just find extra virgin olive oil works for us.
I think that a cold press or a rape seed oil is also a good option if you want less of
a flavor profile.
So some people find the flavor of extra virgin olive oil quite strong.
The price is also going up.
So for some people it's just not an affordable way to cook and in that case, you can use
olive oil or a rape seed oil or any kind of other seed oil will do the trick in healthy
cooking.
It's healthier than butter.
Are there any health benefits to using extra virgin olive oil over other cooking oils?
Yes.
So extra virgin olive oil has this amazing amount of polyphenols, these bioactive plant
chemicals that are protective and eating extra virgin olive oil is one of the best ways
to get them.
So if you cook with extra virgin olive oil, even at quite high temperatures, you will
get some oxidation from the cooking.
But the high levels of polyphenols mean that it counteracts any oxidation damage.
So it's a really good way to get these things like a layer of acid, which are really good
for your heart, your blood vessels, your brain.
It also contains vitamins and minerals in itself.
The thing that it has less of is alpha linoleic acid, which for example, other seed oils do
have more of, but there's other sources to get those fats from.
So I prefer extra virgin olive oil because of its complete nutritional picture.
It's also when we look at research, nutrition research, extra virgin olive oil plays a specific
role in improving health when we look at the Mediterranean diet.
It's a key element of the Mediterranean diet.
So it actually confers additional benefits to the overall dietary pattern.
I've had a bunch of people tell me that cooking with extra virgin olive oil is downright
dangerous because of something to do with its smoke point and that this is actually unhealthy
and other people tell me, well, it's a complete waste because like you're just like burning
it, so it doesn't do anything.
Yeah.
So the smoke point is higher than people think.
It's about 220 degrees Celsius, which most of us don't cook at that temperature.
You might get up to 190, 200, but 220 is pretty high.
And if you're reaching 220, where it starts to smoke, so it's starting to get oxidized,
it's getting like damaged and it will have some oxidated parts.
But because the polyphenol count is so high, so just to give you some context, right,
an extra virgin olive oil can have anything between 200 milligrams and like a thousand milligrams
of polyphenols per liter.
And then you compare that to like a really expensive cold pressed walnut oil, which is high
in polyphenols.
It's got like maybe 60 milligrams.
Because like 60 versus like 200 to a thousand.
Yeah.
So it's a huge difference.
Now those polyphenolic components themselves reduce oxidative stress.
So even if you're having extra virgin olive oil that has been heated, so it's oxidized
and it's got to a smoke point, it's going to be counteracted by the antioxidant effects
of the high polyphenol count.
So it's one of these myths where it's like, oh, you can only keep it cold.
Actually, no, that's more relevant for the oils that have a lower smoke point, like some
of the seed oils.
You don't really want to use those too much heat because there's no polyphenols to counteract
the oxidation effect.
Extra virgin olive oil is the healthiest oil to cook with, to dress with, to bake with.
This is another area where I've completely changed what I do because originally I would
not have used extra virgin olive oil for anything other than like putting on a salad or
our colleague Professor Sarah Berry actually explained to me that if I fried my eggs in extra
virgin olive oil, I was actually making them healthier than if I poached them.
Because the extra virgin olive oil is so healthy, it's like, that's actually lifting the whole
meal.
And I think maybe one of my biggest surprises is how rapidly you can change your view about
what tastes good.
I mean, let's be honest, butter still tastes great.
I'm not saying that butter doesn't hit, but you know, I use very little butter now because
I've learned that that's really not very good for you and the olive oil is great.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And that change in flavor preference is something that we think is at least impart mediated
by a change in gut microbes.
Is that right?
Yeah, so if you imagine your gut microbes are just trying to survive, you're just a vessel
for them, right?
And so part of the way they try to survive is to send specific signals through the vagus
nerve to encourage you to eat the foods that are going to keep them alive.
So often people who start to eat broccoli or chickpeas and that, "Oh, I never used
sight them, but now I look for them and it's so weird."
It's like, "Well, we think that at least in part this is mediated by the microbes that
are now thriving in your gut, being like, send us more food."
And I just think that's so funny when you think we're just being steered by these tiny
microbes.
Pavlov was correct, not just about dogs, but also humans.
We learn to associate how we feel after certain behaviors.
And so when you start to eat differently and you feel better, it reinforces that
loop of repeating that behavior so you feel good.
That's fascinating.
So you eat on your dinner quite early with the cares.
Is that the last time you eat or do you eat more later in the evening as well?
This is where dark chocolate plays a role in my life.
I love dark chocolate.
So I have some dark chocolate.
I might have made my like date dark chocolate and peanut butter bar, which is so good.
[laughs]
and after we've had that together,
I don't tend to eat anything after that at all.
I might have a herbal tea or definitely drink some water,
but because I also go to bed quite early, right?
So remember I get up at six.
So I'm definitely in bed by 10.
- And so you'll have finished eating
by about what time? - By like, between six and seven.
- Six and seven, and then the next morning
when you have breakfast, how late will that be?
- Around eight, eight, 30.
- So you're doing like 13 to 14 hours of fasting each night,
and mainly that comes from eating early,
but eating early and not then snacking later into the evening.
- Yes, definitely.
And I think the evidence that shows us
that actually eating earlier in the day,
so stacking your eating hours earlier and finishing earlier
tends to be beneficial for most people.
Not for everybody, some people absolutely hate having breakfast
and they much prefer having a later dinner,
especially to Inspector.
So it's not for everybody, but for the majority in the day,
so we see that shifting our eating window earlier
is beneficial for your metabolic health.
In my stage of life right now with young kids,
it also just makes sense.
So it does need to make sense in your social context.
We've spoken briefly about the importance of social connection.
If you're family and your friends
and everybody loves likes to eat dinner at 8 p.m.,
removing yourself from that is not going to be good for you.
So think about what works.
But certainly we do see that trying to not eat late at night
and certainly not eating too close to your bedtime
is beneficial for your sleep quality and metabolic health.
You don't have to have 13 or 14 hours overnight fast.
I mean, my eating window changes throughout the year.
So as we get to some holidays, for example,
if we go on holiday, then I find that actually,
we all eat a bit later and go to bed a bit later.
So don't forget that these things have a bit of movement
and then throughout the year, seasonal changes.
It's not a problem.
But just if when you look at your entire year,
you'd see that there's a consistent pattern.
But just a bit of leeway, because life happens
in things change and when it's like summer time
and it's daylight until 11 p.m.,
none of our kids are going to bed before 9.
It's impossible to do it.
So things shift around and that's absolutely fine.
- I love that.
Let's come to the final part of the day,
which is really like the run up to bedtime.
- Yes.
- You know, a lot of influencers have a 15 point plan
that starts three hours before they go to bed.
Have you got one of those?
- No, no, definitely not.
You've had your dinner catch up.
Then there's homework, right?
So I think it is quite nice to have some time before bed,
maybe an hour before bed, where it's quite calm.
So that's when screens would go off like no TV, no movies,
just doing some homework, reading,
maybe having a nice warm bath and getting ready for bed.
The only things I'd will say for C-Pridey and all those
is keeping screens out of bedrooms,
like really straight about that.
Try to avoid television before like an hour before bedtime,
if possible, sometimes that doesn't happen, but that's okay.
And then try to observe like a nice routine
where your bedroom is nice and cool, and it's dark,
and it's calm.
I think those things, like then of course,
you get the typical like rough and tumble
just before bedtime, where everyone's running around
screaming their heads off, cool.
But I think it's important to observe sleep hygiene
for ourselves and for our kids,
'cause it really impacts how they can learn
and how they then pick up behaviors for themselves as adults.
And so I think one that I've really become very keen on,
especially in the past 18 months or so,
is like absolutely no telephones,
no screens upstairs at all in the bedrooms.
It makes a big difference.
- That's really interesting.
And I have got ever more serious about the screens.
I think the more you read about it and the impact
and realizing how much I'm addicted to this.
And I never meant to be in your just wake up.
I think it's fascinating here in you,
describe your routine.
And it is very different from what we tend to hear
from people describing their very fancy routine online.
So I'd love to finish with a final question.
Is there anything that a lot of wellness influencers
swear by online that you actively don't do?
- I'll never forget the moment that everything shifted for me.
I was at a public talk on nutrition.
Listen to a speaker explain that my gut
had trillions of microbes in it
and that these bugs shaped every aspect of my health.
That speaker was Professor Tim Specter.
One of the world's top 100 scientists
who became my co-founder here at Zoe.
Nine years later, Zoe runs the world's largest
gut health research study.
And the conclusion is simple, gut health is health.
How you feel, your long-term health and your digestion
are all shaped by the state of your gut.
As a listener to this show, you know how important it is
to feed your good gut bugs.
But I suspect that like me, you have a busy schedule
and often you feel you haven't given them
all the different plants they crave.
And that's exactly why we created daily 30.
It's a gut health supplement packed with over 30 plants
that you sprinkle onto any meal.
It tastes great, has a satisfying crunch
and gives you a gut the diversity it craves.
Finally, a healthy happy that's easy to stick to.
I should note, I take it every day.
And because we're Zoe, we don't just guess, we test.
We put our original daily 30 formula
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The results blew us away and proved
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- I think a lot of these influencers really
never talk about the importance of social connection
and spending time with people you love, right?
They never have that.
You never see them be like, part of my biohacking
is to spend time with my best friend.
And so for me, anything they're doing,
which takes them away from having real social connection,
is just a no.
The big levers, as we've said, are nutrition,
eat mostly whole plants, be regular with what you do,
sleep, movement throughout your day.
So walking doesn't have to be a super expensive gym class,
you know?
Social connection, avoid risky substances.
Don't smoke, don't drink.
Don't take any gold drugs.
Don't take substances that have been tested in humans
because someone tells you they might help you
be more like Wolverine and really focus on
what you're doing to help mitigate stress.
We have quite a stressful life
in the countryside of the UK and the US.
So actually building time in for rest,
building time in for a lunch break to pause
is really important.
So it's incredible to do that over trying to fit in
like one more biohacking thing into their day
that's gonna add to the stress.
- I love how grounded that is Federica.
And I'm not gonna do like the normal type of summary
because I think it's like almost trying to walk you
through your whole day, it doesn't seem to make any sense.
But the thing that I'm really taking away from this
is you have all of this amazing knowledge really
about how the things that we can do in our life
can affect our health.
And you apply that a lot, in fact, how you're living.
So it's not like your work and your personal life
are completely separate.
You are really applying a lot of this,
but in a surprisingly non-rigid fashion.
And I was really struck by you said,
like there are these six pillows that are responsible
for like 80% of your disease risks.
So actually if you can fix those six,
like it's transformational for your health.
And what's striking about them is they're not like
weird red light things.
I am gonna list those because I'm just sorry,
it's like what you eat, how you sleep,
whether you're moving, social connections
which you emphasize a lot today, right?
Which is you talk a lot about being with your friends
and your family, like avoiding risky drugs
and how you deal with stress.
And then as you're describing your day,
I think the thing that I'm most struck by
is of course food is central, not surprising knowing you
and you talk about it's such joy and love
that you combine in a sense the sleep
and your family and sort of the social connections
and the avoiding stress, all sort of bit wrapped up
which trying to say, well, I've got younger kids.
So actually I'm gonna go to bed early
and then I can be able to wake up earlier.
So I'm not exhausted and I'm gonna be able to be with them.
So you sort of designed your life to fit together.
That is really striking.
And I think the other thing that for me I was struck by
is there are certain foods quite specifically
that obviously really important to you.
So I could see that for you as like beans and whole grains,
like you need to find a way that you're putting them
together in the same meal, like a lot across your diet.
And similarly when you were talking about the oily fish
then again, you're thinking like that's really important.
I need to get three of those
and not all gonna be the same fish even.
And it's important for me, it's important for my children.
Whereas elsewhere, actually you're relatively relaxed.
Like you know what's good, you're trying to put this together
and you know that you want to eat at least 30 plants,
you want to make sure you're getting all of the fiber
from this all the rest of it.
But actually it's the opposite of rigid.
It's actually all quite fluid and I guess part of that
is that you have a lot of confidence in what you're doing.
So because you know really, really everything about
what's gonna be healthy, it's quite easy to find your way
through this.
- That and also I've been lucky to learn how to cook.
So I'm no chef, but being able to cook for yourself
is an absolutely essential life skill
if you want to be able to look after yourself.
I'm lucky I learned it from my family,
but I do encourage people if you haven't been lucky
to have that.
Learn how to like go to a course, learn how to cook.
There's lots of videos online, YouTube videos.
Once you start to learn how to combine food
and make it delicious for you, eating healthier
becomes easier and more enjoyable.
So it's really worth doing.
- And a lot cheaper, yes, exactly.
(upbeat music)
When you think of a gut supplement, what comes to mind?
Something you swallow and grimace at.
I think the aftertaste is so horrible that it must be good for me.
Or something you sprinkle crunch and actually enjoy.
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Years of scientific research have gone into creating the crunchy and delicious blend that
we sell today.
Developed by Zoe's gut health scientists, Daily 30 is a gut supplement that's rewriting
the rules on supplements by rejecting synthetic chemicals.
It's packed with over 30 carefully selected plants and features ingredients that support
gut health, digestion and energy.
And because we're Zoe, we lead with the evidence.
When we first developed Daily 30, we ran our own randomized controlled trial to check
if it worked.
The results blew us away and helped us create the formulation that we sell today.
By the way, whenever we talk about Daily 30 is a good source of fiber, we're required
to say that it contains 4 grams of total fat per serving.
Obviously, that's all amazing healthy fats from plants.
To get your pouch of Zoe's delicious gut supplement, visit Zoe.com/daily30.
Thanks for listening and see you next time.
(upbeat music)
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Dr. Federica Romati, a leading nutrition scientist, emphasizes that real daily routines should be grounded in science and personal life realities, not influencer-driven extremes.
Consistency in sleep, meal times, and daily habits supports metabolic flexibility and long-term health, especially through stable circadian rhythms.
The six pillars of lifestyle medicine—nutrition, sleep, movement, stress management, social connections, and gut health—explain 80% of chronic disease risk, with four being sufficient for significant risk reduction.
Breakfast is important but not universally essential; variety and personal enjoyment matter more than strict routines, especially when paired with balanced meals throughout the day.
Simple, nutritious, and fiber-rich meals like legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods promote satiety, gut health, and stable energy, reducing midday crashes.
Healthy snacking and strategic use of whole foods (e.g., fruit, nuts, dark chocolate) help maintain energy and support metabolic balance without over-reliance on supplements.
Eating earlier in the day, especially with dinner before 7 PM, supports metabolic health and better sleep, though social context must be respected.
Personalization and adaptability are key—what works for one person may not work for another, and routines should evolve with life demands like parenting or work.
Summary:
The episode challenges the myth of rigid, influencer-style morning routines by showcasing the real daily habits of Dr. Federica Romati, a top nutrition scientist and busy parent. Rather than extreme practices like early wake-ups or cryotherapy, she emphasizes consistency, real-life balance, and science-based health pillars.
Her routine centers on predictable sleep, balanced meals, and stress management, with a strong focus on nutrition—particularly fiber-rich legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods—that support gut health and satiety. Breakfast is flexible and enjoyable, often followed by a nutritious lunch made with pre-cooked or ready-to-assemble components, ensuring variety and ease. She avoids processed foods, red and processed meats, and sugary snacks, opting instead for plant-based, high-fiber meals that stabilize energy and reduce cravings.
Snacking is minimal and aligned with hunger cues, while evening meals are early to support metabolic health and sleep. The core insight is that health isn’t about perfection or discipline, but about choosing habits that fit one’s life—like family routines or work schedules—while maintaining evidence-based principles like gut health, sleep consistency, and stress reduction. This approach makes wellness sustainable, joyful, and accessible for most people.
FAQs
No, such routines are not essential. The most impactful habits are consistent sleep, nutrition, movement, and stress management. These are backed by science and have a much stronger effect on long-term health than extreme or unachievable routines.
It can be, but not for everyone. What matters most is having a consistent, nutritious meal that supports energy and metabolism. For some, a balanced breakfast helps maintain focus and well-being throughout the day.
Yes. Flexibility is key. Even busy professionals can build healthy habits by focusing on core pillars like sleep, nutrition, and stress management, adapting to real-life constraints rather than rigid routines.
Nutrition, sleep, physical activity, stress management, social connections, and gut health are the six major pillars. Together, they account for about 80% of chronic disease risk, with getting four of them right reducing risk by 60–70%.
Yes, variety is important across the week, not just at breakfast. Consistency in a balanced meal is more valuable than variety in a single meal. The goal is to ensure nutritional diversity throughout the day and week.
Prep meals in advance, like bean and whole grain bowls or salads, and pack healthy options such as hummus, veggies, and a piece of fruit. Choose whole foods over processed sandwiches to maintain energy and satiety.
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