Will AI replace nutrition coaching? With Rohini Bajekal

Today's guest is Rahini Bajarkal. Rahini is someone I've been lucky enough to know for a couple of years now, in which time we've had some fascinating conversations and I've always felt like I would really love to give more people access to some of the things that we've discussed. This episode is for anyone that works as a nutritionist, personal trainer, dietician, and they want to understand what role does AI play in the future of their career. They want to understand how to build a personal brand and a social media following, as well as just understanding how things like soft skills, compassion and empathy are going to even more important moving forward when it comes to your practices, community building. I hope you love this conversation as much as I did with Rahini and be sure to leave us a comment and a review and message me or Rahini if you have any questions from the episode. Rahini, thank you so much for being here today. We've obviously had so many amazing chats about so many things related to the industry and women's self, but never on camera. So really, really excited to be here today. Thank you so much. You are officially our first guest off season two of the Woman's Wellness Show. So again, just thank you so so much for your time. No, thank you, Lure. That's really exciting and very honoured to be here and excited to talk about everything we've got planned for today. Yeah, amazing. I see a nutritionist and fitness professional myself. I've seen a lot of these topics selfishly are like really, really relevant to me. So I'm so excited to learn from you. But yeah, just to get started. So we were discussing, obviously, the role of AI and how that's played a kind of a role in your career and your health journey. So I believe you've had a condition that like many women had a journey to get diagnosed. And then actually, once you have that diagnosed, you then kind of put that same data into AI. And it was actually something that came up as a suggestion about which is really interesting and just shows how powerful this can potentially be. So yeah, I'd love to hear that story. Yeah, so I'm definitely had my share of challenges, which I'm really open about both with my clients and generally when I kind of talk. So I have a few different women's health conditions like PCLS and endometriosis. But what was really frustrating was that there was this background sort of health condition that had been really plaguing me because I as a nutritionist, you know, take a lot of care about my health and was doing all the, you know, the pillars and making sure I was exercising, managing my stress but for some reason, my blood sugars continue to be elevated. And this was sort of on my mind, it was around when people started to be a lot more aware about that blood sugars and pandemic and glucose monitoring became a big craze and we got some good thoughts about that. But what was interesting was I went to see so many different health professionals over the years and it took about nine years to finally get the diagnosis of this rare genetic form of diabetes, which is called GCK Modi here in the UK, Gluga Cyanase. And it's like a spelling error in my genes. I was born with it. My father carries the gene and he cast it onto my sister and I, so it's a genetic condition that cannot be fixed with diet, with lifestyle. That can obviously help you live long and healthily and this condition doesn't, you know, prevent me from getting type 2 diabetes. So of course, I would want to be looking after my house anyway. But it was really frustrating at the time when I was sort of, it started off from my diagnosis, also being when I was actually studying nutrition and being told that, oh, you put a change your diet, you put a change your lifestyle and I was like, I'm already doing everything. And what was quite frustrating was going to spend all this money on private health professionals as well as seeing NHS doctors and advocating for myself and knowing so much about health still do prevent me getting misdiagnosed. And sadly, there are many, many people, about 80% of people with this condition and misdiagnosed and incorrectly put on insulin, which they don't need. Imagine being on insulin for decades when you don't need any treatment whatsoever. And so, when I put all the data into AI, just tried it out and just a few months ago, I popped in all the data about kind of person's screenshots for my CGM, my ketymus glucose monitor. I added a few bits of information about my Balsyng glucose. It said you've got, you know, it narrowed it down so you could have X, Y, and Z and one of the things that I could have was GCK Modi. And it was game changing. I thought, wow, if I'd have this, you know, nine years earlier, it could have saved me so much hearty, can so much concern because tight to diabetes is rampant in salhazure populations. We're about six times more likely to have it than sort of white British counterparts. So, it's something that was scary to me because I've had extended family members lose things like limbs and eyesight and things like that. So, it was really frightening. And what's been amazing is actually when you have other conditions like PCOS and you put, it's hard to get that sort of specialist nuance to face. But what I found AI really useful for is giving me really specific information about this condition, which I've not really been able to get from even specialist and with chronologists in some cases. It doesn't mean that it's completely accurate. Obviously pulling that data from the recent pop method and other, you know, research databases. But it is helpful sometimes when I'm sort of explaining some of my other sort of criteria like the fact I follow a part-based diet, how can I work with this condition, what would I need to be aware of. So, it's, I think, AI could be useful for people who have really specific conditions and maybe they're struggling to access that information. But it comes with some risk of course. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I saw really long, normal journeys, so I appreciate you sharing that. I've got so many follow-up questions about AI and as you've touched on things like regulation, etc. But before we read it into that, you've mentioned a few things around my lifestyle and nutrition in terms of managing your condition. So, I'd love to know, I believe you've described them before, like the six pillars of lifestyle medicine. Maybe we could just kind of, you know, run over those, and that might be a really good framework when we're discussing AI in terms of where it may be useful or not as useful in people's wellness journeys. So, lifestyle medicine is one of the fastest growing areas of medicine and it was sort of been around for a few decades now as a kind of concept, but the concept's actually thousands of years old. And the American College of Lifestyle Medicine sort of outlines these six pillars. And here in the UK, we have the British British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and lots of different societies around the world sort of promoting this. And this is an evidence-based discipline. It is not alternative or complementary medicine, but it goes alongside alipathy or Western medicine. So, it includes things like nutrition, movement, so that can be any movement, any kind, restful sleep, manage stress management, social connectedness, and reducing alcohol and avoiding tobacco. And of course, there's more specific information onto each pillar that I think as a health and nutrition and fitness coach yourself, these are things you probably discussed with every single one, you clients and these pillars, or sort of anyone who is worth their thought would be bringing it up in a consultation. But I think it was something I really care about and I received my diploma and continue to keep that up because I realised that nutrition is just one piece of the puzzle. Someone could be eating a really optimal diet and so many ways, it could be spending a lot of time looking after their nutrition. They're sleeping five hours a night, nescaping, social meals, to meal prep, and they're isolating themselves. That's going to have a much more detrimental impact on their health than that piece of chocolate-budget cake. So, it's a lot more nuanced and being able to draw on these different disciplines is super important. And I think AI can play a really good role in terms of, you know, for behaviour change and terms of providing things like prompts to the user in a way that I wouldn't be able to do. It costs a lot of money for me to be there, costs that you're reminding the person about what to do. It can help to provide suggestions and help optimise. You might, it was all about the prompts that you could enter it. So you could say, I find that my mind starts, I start ruminating in yoga or meditation. What are some other ways I could manage my stress and I like spending time in nature. It might suggest a number of activities that could be more suitable for you. So it could be quite helpful in those regards. And I think in terms of people who are using these tools, they should just, yeah, they should be aware that it isn't that the information isn't always 100% accurate. And it's all about the information you put into it. So try to be as honest as possible and about things that you find challenging and it will get you'll get better information back. So it's what you put in that really counts for a lot with AI. Yeah, that makes sense. I'd love to hear your thoughts more on that in terms of getting more out of it as a consumer and potentially the future as we discuss the future, kind of the role AI will play in health coaching. I'd love to know though, if there were any changes that you've made as part of your kind of your lifestyle pillar approach based on having access to AI. So you obviously very educated from these pillars anywhere, you're implementing them yourself. Since kind of AI has become more prominent and you've had more access to it, as that has there been any changes that you've made specifically off the back of that, like any kind of new information or tips that actually you previously weren't aware of? I think so, you know, it helped me to spot some patterns in my behaviour. So dealing with certain energy depths at certain times of the day. So looking at maybe kind of making sure that my breakfast was tweaked or optimised a bit. And then if I've had information like I find the mornings really hard to pair something like this, you know, if it's suggesting a higher protein breakfast like a tofu scrambled with vegetables, I'm like, that sounds great, but I don't have time to do that in the morning. It will then give me much better suggestions. So I've used it to an extent within my own life. I would say that this is something I've been doing for over a decade. So I know this area inside out, but what I've found it really useful for is sort of getting a bit deeper when it comes to managing different conditions and looking at kind of what would make the biggest impact. So there are certain things that it might recommend that actually maybe someone would say would be good, but actually would be not very good for me. So high intensity exercise, I do find it can flare up my endometriosis, whereas I know some people with PCS also find the same. And so actually having that information enabled me to tailor my workout routine a bit more. I think I'm somewhat it's already very intune with their bodies. So it wasn't as much of a dramatic jump for me to be totally honest, but I know that with clients and with other people I've spoken to, it's had a bigger impact. Yeah, super cool. So I'd love to know like practically what is your kind of, how do you engage with AI? Is this something where you've got a little bit of a daily routine, where you like check in with it? What model are you using? If you're happy to share that? Is this like a weekly reflection? Or yeah, kind of what does that journey look like for you in terms of your relationship with AI, for a better way of putting it and that ongoing kind of re-evaluation process the evolution. So I definitely do use AI the way that I would use the search engine, for example. I'm very aware of the current kind of carbon footprint and just using it the way that you might use a search engine doesn't really align with some of the values I have. I think that the way that I try and use it is to and make sure that I'm delivering the best care to the people that I work with or providing the best service to companies that I advise and so on. I set up different projects for different things that I'm working on and I also have my own health projects in there as well. So I will discuss sort of my health concerns or other things that are happening. So I find that a really helpful way of going about it. I also like to keep up to date with what's happening, what developments are happening. So a few weeks ago, Claude launched co-work, which is a really fantastic tool for people with a self-employed or working for themselves. I don't want to say like I'm shilling a regenerative AI, but it's pretty amazing to be able to automate some of these tasks which would often be extremely time-consuming for me. I would sometimes use it to analyse flip-boot diaries or logs or large data sets where it's very difficult for me to do that without spending a huge amount of time. Obviously my time is precious, it's expensive, but that's time that I could be spending doing so many other things and any small business owner knows how valuable their time is. So all of that has been game-changing and there are things that get really, really wrong as well. I think it's homey the other day that I should be adding some coconut oil to my coffee and I was like, "First of all, that sounds horrible." And it comes from a very diet culture trend of like, "Fellet-proof coffee." And I was sort of educating it, you know, coconut oil is higher and saturated fat than lard. It's not healthy food. So you've got to watch out for those things because it can be a little bit dodgy, but I think that just having that experience makes me much more confident in using AI because it can be almost a bit narcissistic in its recommendations. It can be quite kind of confident, like, "Yeah." And you're just sort of going, "Okay, this is not right at all." So it's got to be used judiciously. Have you seen the strawberry videos? No, have you? No, that's so funny. So many people have done it now. It's a trend where you ask AI how many hours are in strawberry. And it goes, "There's two hours in strawberry." And you're like, "No, no, then it basically is just people having arguments with AI and AI." I just tell you from them that they're all, they're just really funny to watch. There's kind of two directions I'd love to go in there in terms of the professional side of how you're using AI and how other coaches might be using it. But before we get into that, I think what you've just raised there is obviously a really important point around whether that is how to prompt, how to spot misinformation and hallucinations. You know, we know there's not two hours in strawberry. And I think that's really, really important because what worries me a little bit about AI is I'm seeing a little bit of a trend where people just take it as gospel, whereas I think when that old Dr. Google joke, everyone kind of knows just because you Google your symptoms, you take it with a pinch of salt, that mail may not be the correct thing that you're experiencing. And there's also some distant fancies just with that because as you've said, AI, maybe correctly said one and a few things you're experiencing is something that took you a lot of time and a lot of money to get diagnosed. And that's absolutely amazing. Obviously the flip side of that though is often then people think they have worse situations or conditions than they do. So I'm seeing this trend where people, because this AI there just think it can't be wrong, it's artificial intelligence. How intelligent is it? It's kind of, it's really some mirror right in terms of the data that gets fed in. And subsequently there are some situations where that might be problematic, especially with women's health when we have this gender help gap, gender data gap. So if you're a consumer, you're a man or a woman and you're using it as part of your health journey. Yeah, what advice would you give in terms of prompts, maybe guardrails, spotting misinformation, and yeah, what you're forcing all that out? I think you hit the nail on the head, it can personalize really normal things that I would also remind people that the internet's been doing this for a long time where people would go on to when WebMD, I have a headache or a hat cancer, you know, that's the tailors or just time and it probably existed long before that as well. And I think AI needs to be seen as what's helpful as it can democratize access to information that was previously maybe not as accessible. And like I said about specific conditions could be really helpful for educating people that again, it has a lot of quite worrying information. A lot of the data sets are male centric or they exclude women or minority groups. So that's concerning as well because as we know, the NIH until the NIH would vitalization act in 1993 women were excluded from clinical trials. And even to this day, there were many male trials that women are excluded because we're especially premenoples or women with, you know, we can bearable menstrual cycles and that can make data quite hard. And so I'm just going to be really aware of that. I know that's something you're super passionate about is like filling these gaps and that's why we need to yeah, make sure that we don't, we were not just using AI blindly and we're just actually being conscious of what we're using. I think we need to use a tool to be able to help to advocate for ourselves. And in my book Living PCS3, I have a whole chapter about how to advocate yourself with your doctor, the questions to take to your gynecologist, my mother's a gynecologist and we wrote the bet together because so many people didn't grow up with that privilege and that knowledge that I had access to from having a mother as a gynecologist, I already knew how to interact with healthcare professionals, how to advocate yourself, how to vocalize issues, how to ensure that your pain isn't dismissed, although it's easier said than done in the healthcare system. So at least having these starting points, maybe using it to say, okay, how can I best prepare for this? Even something I do before I see a doctor is send the doctor a two-page summary of my health history. That saves so much time in a 15 minute appointment. You can actually get to the crux of what you're there for. So that's where I would say use AI, but please don't use it to replace qualified evidence-based health professionals. If you need to go and see a doctor, that's then make sure that you try to do that. I do think with wasting less being really long, extremely high health insurance issues in the US, that it would be wronged completely to dismiss AI when so many people cannot access healthcare. We're so lucky in this country to have the NHS, but I think use it as a tool to be able to empower yourself with information and education and make sure that you are also looking at really good resources, whether it's cases like endometriosis UK, the NHS, you know, looking at PubMed, reading at the actual sources, because as you said, AI can hallucinate references, it can spit out something that isn't on it's looking at a study which has six subjects and it's taking that as gospel, so you've got to be quite careful. Yeah, no, there's so many great tips in there. Have you heard of notebook, Kelle then? No, I haven't. It's a little bit of work to set up, but it's a new Google product. I mean, no way, an expert, but I was playing around with it, and sometimes why put all of the endometriosis guidelines into this notebook, Kelle then. And then I went through and found about 90 studies off the top of my head, where I was like, okay, this study seemed, you know, well-conducted. You basically feed it into the notebook, LLM, and then when you're engaging with the chat interface, it's only pulling from what you've put in. So essentially, you can kind of create that, you know, those different chats, as I think you've alluded to, but ultimately it's still scraping from everything, so you can kind of create your own mini LLMs in terms of putting in any person information if you want it to felt comfortable to. And also the certain guidelines, certain NHS recommendations, certain studies. That's maybe a bit limiting versus obviously everything that could be pulled from, but sometimes potentially that means you're more confident in what the, you know, what is put in from. Interesting. Yeah, check it out. I'll definitely check it out. I think I'd be giving you access to, like the notebooks that you create, if that makes sense. So I'd be access to the end of one. The other question I had for your map was, you said about the accessibility, which I think is like really, really powerful. My whole narrative for starting Nexus was I was £250 a month for online coaching, and I didn't like that that was inaccessible to, you know, literally my own month, for example, when we were growing up. So that was kind of a narrative of Nexus was to try and make access to AI, personalised at an accessible price point. Do you see potentially a bit of a problem there where the people that might need it the most from an accessibility standpoint of potentially certain minorities where the data sets maybe aren't obviously coming from them in terms of training that models, and therefore yet any tips in terms of potentially spotting hallucinations or misinformation? It's very difficult to because it sounds so confident when the information is presented to you in a very articulate way. It can be very difficult to spot that without years of professional training, without qualifications, the kind of continuous professional development that all, you know, registered nutritioners, dietitians and so on have. So that's what the concern is, and I do think it can also exclude a huge amount of people. There is little doubt about that. But as you said about the accessibility, we've got to put pressure on these systems to make sure that they are more reflective and things like the notebook, LLN, those are great examples of that. I don't know what the answers are, not deep into the AI world, but I feel that it's going to be probably the people who need it most that also do suffer with some of the misinformation because they may not have the tools to be able to pass out what is actually meaningful, what is useful. It's not that useful to use AI unless you have knowledge of some starting point in on how to decide for the information. Why is it put in this information into AI about B2B SaaS? It's not going to be nothing about, I'm not going to be able to tell if it's real or not or it's accurate or not. So I think, and we still need subject matter experts. And I will say about coaching, you know, we know from so many studies now that the client coach relationship is as important as some of the information it's given. It's sort of like the therapeutic effect of actually working with someone, helping someone feel seeing, heard, understood is extremely powerful for behavior change and kind of transformations as whatever information that they're giving you. It's sort of the way that you could say with lots of other help related things say something that acupuncture, which actually does have more of an increasing kind of information or more more evidence for its kind of suitability. But it's the therapeutic nature of has going there lying in a nice dark room. The placebo effect can be extremely powerful and even the placebo effect shouldn't be dismissed because it's huge. So I think it's kind of similar with the whole therapeutic experience of talking to someone and sometimes vocalising the issues that you have or the challenges, your goals, saying what you want out loud. It can make a huge difference to how you're going to implement that. And as you said, it's the expenses in terms. I mean, I know that my services are unaffordable for many people who need it. I try to balance it by being able to office and you know, discounted rates or complimentary places on my programs and so on. But it's not something that is still that accessible or scalable as well. So I think we need a more of a hybrid model. I think the skills that are really going to become paramount and this is not my unique take on it. The something that's been looked at is those soft skills. I feel like soft skills are such bad term. The only cause soft skills sounds like they're weaker and but soft skills around empathy, being able to listen, being intuitive, being compassionate to your clients. Those are going to be skills that are really, really valuable and just being able to speed up information, but without being able to interpret it and deliver in a very kind of compassionate and meaningful way. It's not going to be that useful. So it's going to be the people who are able to do that. They're the ones who are going to stand out. They have little doubt about that. They're health professionals. Yeah. So soft skills makes them sound so underwhelming, doesn't it? And actually in this world of AI more important than ever. And then all important than ever with nutrition because AI is definitely actually a bit more ahead when it comes to kind of hard medical data because there is just more information out that I think nutrition is actually so nuanced. There is so many different aspects that isn't a one-size-fits-all. There's genetics, race, gender, socioeconomic, determinants of health, so many different areas that impact nutrition. So it's actually much harder when it comes to nutrition. If you don't have that personal touch and you don't have someone to guide you. And so AI needs to be used in conjunction with really compassionate, qualified people. And is what I would say. I don't think it's going to replace the people who are at the top of their field and who really know how to work with people. Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, that segway is brilliantly and we've already started covering it in terms of, well, AI replaced me as a coach. I'd run a quick question for you though before I forget. And this might be highly specific to you and your relationship with your doctor. But I can just imagine that if I was to hear someone say, I'm able to email my doctor at report a couple of days before. I know so many people are going to be asking like how. I'm sorry, if you, if, if comfortable, please feel free to share a little bit more about that. So I know that's not something I'm able to do with my GP. So yeah, it really depends GP to GP. And firstly, the BMJ did a podcast recently about kind of how AI has been used in Florida, Karen, many, many, and it's just GP are using AI. They may not be disclosing it. There are issues with AI, major issues when you're handling data. You know, I have to make sure that I'm registered with the Information Commissioners Office. And it's a scary of people are putting in someone's personal data into AI, which might have their name, their data birth, their address, all of these things in there. So GP is some of them are using AI already. It's what I would say. It may not be kind of official, but they've done the BMJ has done studies around this, it's showing that quite a number are. It really depends doctor to doctor. So are NHSGPs, for example, who you can email the doctor's schedule and say, could you have us to my file to my notes, if you're seeing someone privately, of course, that would be a lot easier because you could contact them through their private secretary or whatever. And obviously, private healthcare is growing in the UK, but definitely even through the NHS, it was being specialist, which all of my diabetes care is on the NHS. But I have the email and I can send across that summary or an update. And doctors do spend a few minutes before you come into the room looking at your file generally. So it is really helpful to often call your practice up and ask. And if you don't just give up there, if they say no, you can't do that, although I'd be surprised if they said absolutely no, I would take printout and have one major that you share at the start of the session. And we say the same to people, try and take an advocate with you, maybe take your partner or a friend or ask for a companion in healthcare appointments, because I'd be then many healthcare appointments, despite the knowledge that I have, your mind just goes blank and you're on it. Why am I here? You completely forget all the reasons you're there. So AI could actually help with that because you've got your list of questions and fun to view that's it's helped it together. So that sort of information is really, really valuable. And I think taking a pick a handout or papercockey is really suitable. Okay, cool. It sounds like there's something that's probably a lot more readily available than I realized, but maybe unfortunately need to push and advocate for a little bit more in terms of the ability. Not only. And you should always feel doctors open or you're dietician or anyone that you see in the healthcare, you know, a good healthcare professional should always be open to learning. And you ask any good doctor, they will tell you that often their patients know more about their specific health condition than that when it's infeasually when it's in niche conditions, say, for example, my GCK moded IBT's, they will say, Oh, that's passing execute to teach me more. And I will often take and give them examples and say you should, you know, let your patients know about endometriosis, UK, they have loads of really great fact sheets and support groups and they can ask us for their information. So they'd be afraid to also let your doctor know I'm aware that not everyone has great experiences. And it can be hard. And I think preparation is key. It's like just time to make sure that you have everything that you can. It doesn't mean that it's always going to be the smoothest experience even with all that preparation, but at least you've done what you can. Yeah. And you've got the right to request to change who you're speaking to, right? I know a few clients that have had to do that. And obviously that's not a nice experience, but yeah, people can do that. The perfect thing useful that AI told me recommended to me was to say if you're denied an MRI by your doctor, say if you're you want to get a screen for endometriosis, then ask them to put that in their notes. If they're denying tassel things, AI said, gently ask them to please put that on the record. You'd be surprised at how many of them no longer want to write that down. So it's not this not that individual doctors or individual health care professionals. It's just that it can help you to speak up if you find that really hard. Even the most confident people can become more well as once they're in the doctor's office. So I'm a big fan of kind of using it to fill in those gaps. Yeah, brilliant. This seems positive. I know we've started to touch on it already, but I would love to know your thoughts on if AI will eventually replace me as a nutrition coach or how can I learn to work with AI. So maybe in looking at one to three years ahead for any nutrition coach here as personal trainers, dietitians listening, how does their future career start to play out with AI? I do think AI is going to change a lot about the nutrition and the dietetics industry. It's not entirely clear exactly how that future is going to look right now that we can see already the use of things like AI chat bots. They used to be absolutely dreadful just a few years ago and you can see already how much liquor they're getting and even things like the amount of work that went into making Claude. One of the kind of top-generator AI is trying to make it have a good personality and give it that kind of sets of compassion. It's quite interesting. So I think these chat bots are going to be used a lot more by kind of nutrition companies, with supplement companies, that also could be used by nutritionists like myself who might wish to have that on my website to initially kind of filter out or help the person visiting the site know what they need. So I think that would be an aspect. I think the individual nutrition and dietetics coaching you probably won't see people coming for just really straightforward queries like they may have had before. The same way that GRP ones are completely shaken up the nutrition world. I think AI is going to be really useful to use to make things a lot faster which we really talked about things like logging nutrition or calorie tracking or you know creating meal plans all of those sorts of things handouts, information packs, all of that kind of stuff. But I think is it going to replace you in a nutshell? No, because you have years of experience, you do you have that personal touch as well and you have a really strong niche as someone who's really passionate about women's health, but interestingly you are a man. So again, man, so I think that that is always a positive thing to have a strong niche in this space and make sure that you are using AI usefully. Those who are not using at all, I think they will be left behind to be honest. I think it's going to slow them down so much. So I think making sure that you're using it strategically but not to replace everything that you you're doing well and like we talked about soft skills, I think they sound weak but they're not they are absolutely key and often you're there to provide that reassurance. Loads of my clients come to me and they're super smart people but they sometimes need to be told to almost like real certain things back in, note you're doing everything really well in this area. Let's look at this. They need someone to somehow weave between the lines, pick up and things that they may not be saying and a good example is if you have disordered eating, you may not even be aware that some of your thinking or your patterns are disordered. You're talking to an AI and it might be telling you really quite unhelpful hacks and leading into more kind of obsessive, ruminating patterns. If you have a touch of obsessive-comulsive disorder or you find that you're, have a love health anxiety, it could make you spiral. So that's why having an actual person to guide you, that's really really important. So I think there are areas of nutrition, really straightforward kind of data tracking and things like that that I just don't see the need or a huge amount of human input apart from the sometimes looking at a little bit of the interpretation and explaining that to the person that I think the other sort of nuanced areas, whether it's specific health conditions or it's areas are really difficult, like trauma or eating or disordered eating or these sorts of things, what you need to pass in the room with you. Whatever's on soon, more in person. Yeah, there's two avenues that are really one on part of you, which is the niche and downs of becoming a subject matter expert and also the kind of compassion empathy side of it. But I completely agree with everything you've said there. I actually think a lot of coaches and nutritionists are like very much, we call them like macro coaches. They're not really, obviously, where you've got your expertise and you've gone and done your degree and it's a completely different standard and level of service that you'd be working with clients. So many literally do just calculate macro changes if needed based on a very simple formula based on if someone's lost weight or not, very generic training program. Those people are quite possibly actually going to be replaced. I think the other goes, there's skills that are expendable to be honest and that's not the person is. It's that those skills are already being effectively replaced and they're doing it very fast if you've used AI in 30 seconds. It can analyse a week's worth of food diaries or whatever and come up with things. So I agree, I think those that's that's a little bit of a concerning area. And I think we've seen this in seven different industries right now as well. This is probably where it does get a bit dicey for people working in the wellbeing, wellness, fitness, nutrition, coaching sort of area. Yeah, I'm really curious because you said concerning. Maybe this is just me coming from more of the buddy building side of the fitness industry and I don't look like an owl, but I did a few men's physique shows when I was a lot younger. A lot of those coaches should not be coaching. So when you say concerning, I'm actually quite excited about it in a way. So yeah, of course, the lack of regulation and these industries and sort of it's worrying just because you've got six pack doesn't make you an incredible coach or an incredibly qualified person to be giving advice. Your body is not your business card. So it's kind of the same as so many areas that they just because I don't know, someone got pregnant the first month, they can't suddenly call themselves a fertility coach and tell women that they need to change their mindset. And I think that if it's going to help really, you know, make people stand out who have invested in that sort of the client relationship and understanding it and being able to be a true thought leader in that space, that to me is a good thing. But of course, for that individual, it's not as much, I think, for people who really respect the discipline and the training and you know, you have to keep up with continuous professional development. I'm constantly attending webinars conferences, reading out the latest studies. It's not glamorous work, but it's what why I think that I know what I'm doing when it comes to my work. So I think those sorts of skills are really, really valuable and those sorts of people are really valuable to ensure that you have the best kind of quality advice. And I just see AI as being a useful tool so I can keep doing stuff that I love, which is working with people and not spending loads of time doing things that are just draining my time and resources. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So I think there's like three in terms of your, you know, your coaching nutritionist trying to make sure you stand out and stay ahead. We've spoken a little bit about the soft skills and we spoke a little bit about compassion and empathy. Let's talk a little bit about when you mentioned AI being useful in your website and maybe like a signposting tool. So let's talk a little bit about the kind of personal brand or social media side of it. In general, you've obviously done an amazing job with that and then potentially segueing into how AI might be able to support in that content creation, for example. Yeah, I think, thank you. I think when it comes to personal brands, there's been given a lot of attention now that kind of something AI can't replace. It's like, you know, something to stand out in this world is to have a strong personal brand. And that whole sort of everyone's an influencer thing. And I think having a strong personal brand and pretty much most industries is helpful. I think trying to go about it by hacking the system and going which niche I have that's really specific and, you know, I should go into that. If you don't have that passion for that, the curiosity about it, many even the experience already and that worries me a bit because I definitely went into the areas I did from that personal experience, struggling with things like PCOAS and Endo that also and my family background and so on with gynecologist for another that I felt really desperately that I want to help you find, I want to spread information on someone that loves to tell people about things. If there's an app I love and you know this, I was going on about an app just before there's it. If I see in the TV show, I will tell all my friends, I will be on WhatsApp today and everyone, you have to watch this. I'm just a shareer by nature. So I think that this that is a kind of a similar similar thing. Social media is the ultimate sort of office cooler that you just get on those sort of talking about whatever you're passionate about. And I think that is the best way. Of course, if someone said to me, my dream is to be a junior copy writer right now, to probably get and it's not going to be quite right. So take with anything you've got to there's got to obviously be a sort of business element to it that's got to have you go have a market and audience for it. But you don't want to spend too much time just thinking about that without thinking could I be passionate. So it's someone's just trying to do weight loss coaching now. I would say, make sure that you learn about GLP ones and how you're going to advise people who are taking them because they are so big. You know, the first or or GLP one was launched in the US this year. So or if you want to go. So I think that this stuff is all going to change so many things. And I think just staying on top of developments is really important that social media. I definitely get burnt out sometimes on social media. So AI can be useful for people who can draft that content on that, you know, too, you can definitely train it to to work within a style that you like or to mimic your style that I say it's quite obvious when things are AI generated. LinkedIn is just the limits, you know, what losing my dog taught me about, you know, be to be marketing or whatever it would just be something like that. And it just feels really spewed out there at AI. So I think longer form content podcasts videos where you're authentic, you're speaking to the person that works really well, even sharing your personal journeys, your stories, your aspects of things you're enjoying your life without that feeling that you're just mining your life for personal information. It's got to feel authentic to you and feel right. So it's always a balance and everyone has a different level of comfort with social media. Yeah, of course. This you might not have an honest this because you've said someone or two that love sharing and yeah, absolutely. It's any for 30 seconds earlier, you're like, have you been on this app? And I'm like, I love this. We'll go pick up some some food from the Prattinix store after. So maybe you don't really have too much reports to this. But I think a lot of people listening would go, okay, it sounds like your personality like social media is a good distribution channel for that. But if you're someone that's like, I don't love sharing and kind of turning up, have you got any tips for that person to build personal brand, build credibility and it might be that then social media isn't the right mechanism for them. So yeah, for someone that maybe isn't like you and doesn't want to kind of share as much any force in times of still building that credibility. Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, not everyone I guess is just share about ultimately if you're a coach, if you were a health professional, some kind of an education is a big part of what you probably care about helping people to become better versions of themselves, helping with behavior change. So that use it as an education. Think of it as a way to educate others and that you get to speak to more people. And rather than it needing to be, I don't know, you and your partner going out on holiday or you don't need to share those personal aspects of your life. There are many, many people that do not put their partners there. Kids and quite rarely say like, you know, on social media, but they find other ways to be authentic because they have a discipline they care about and they are sharing that in a consistent way and showing our regularly. So there are totally, there are ways to do it that it's a job like anything else you've got to treat it with that profession as them. I would say that for people who find maybe the algorithms really confronting or not suitable for them, they're looking to long form content. So my sub stack full of beans, I really like to own a longer form content on there. So, you know, yeah, that's quite a nice way because you don't have loads of images on there. You don't have to have lots of pictures of yourself and stuff like that. So that could be a good way of exploring it. LinkedIn can be quite a lot more formal, more professional. So there's probably a platform that everyone and there are tools that you can use that social media has kind of seen as this like one big thing that actually each platform is so distinct, isn't it? Wouldn't you say that there's something for everyone there that you've got to kind of treat it something you've got to integrate into your business that don't really have to be everywhere all at once because you just get so exhausted. I love your sub stack's name for the beans. That's really cool. And I think that such a great point is not viewing it as one collective thing. Different platforms will work for different people and actually content needs to be created at least semi-organically for different platforms and the night actually gets really exhausting. So maybe better to find one or two platforms that resonate with your star a little bit more. And our sub stack actually does quite well. I'm actually surprised how many people read it. So actually maybe a bit of an underrated platform for people that are trying to become or aren't nutritionist, dietitians, etc. I agree. I agree. And like also it's just really nice to be able to shout out people that you when you like their content. And I wish more people could see that and amplify them. It's such a great way to have new connections. I'm not a super extra bastard person by any means or someone who feels super comfortable kind of putting myself out there. But I find that it's really nice when you can form a connection and you find other people on that who have things in common with you. And I made friends literally through social media. So people that I've ended up then meeting real life and sounds very cheesy. And I think there's definitely a halo effect of certain platforms that are wearing off. And you do need to take kind of intentional breaks from that. But I think it is a powerful tool. What role is it played in you if at all getting some of the opportunities that you've had because you've obviously spoken and been written for some amazing publications, podcasts, etc. Has that played a role at all? And if so, was it like strategic to grow your following to potentially get some of those opportunities? Thank you, Liet. Yeah, no, I think it's definitely played a role because it's a bit frustrating actually because there are people, for example, who are incredible writers who cannot get a book deal because they don't have a social media following. It's just not their thing. They can't imagine anything worse, you know. And so it's frustrating because I think a lot of the big publishers they want to know that you have a social media following that you are visible and that you're kind of it's an attention economy. So they want to know that you are commanding that and taking off space. I think for me, it's definitely led to more opportunities and connections. And I just yeah, enjoy seeing certain people's content. So I might share that. I haven't posted very much on social media in the last year and I'll do get quite burnt out sometimes from it, especially when lots of things are happening in the world. I can find it quite polarizing place and sometimes seeing a post of our song ones, banana bread next to something really horrendous and happening can make it can feel very jarring. I didn't wear supposed access information in this way all the time and it could be constant kind of noise. It can also be a massive productivity set that I would say it's definitely led to more opportunities and people reaching out and just getting to know more people widen my network. I never did it in a strategic way because like I said, I'm just a natural shower. So I just started like sharing bets, I wasn't like something that was constantly posting, but I just like to share and just to say what I love and if I like I feel really passionate and the kind of person that leaves Google reviews and like tripping reviews. So I just feel like, oh, I want to support small businesses. Like I would not do it for a massive chain, but when I go to a little coffee shop and I have a chat with a person there and they say, I started there. So it was like my dream. I have to leave take a picture of, you know, the child, I think, the review that I just have to because I'm like, oh, I have to, I know what it's like to be a some business. I know what it's like to struggle when people, I remember every single person who left a review of my book in my friend's circle because I was like, it meant so much to me. That's why I always try and do that back. So if, yeah, I just think being, if you're caring, you will find a way to do it in a way that feels right. I'm not someone that's going to be doing a real and pointing in five different directions and I don't know taking certain kinds of pictures that like it's just what works for me and who I am and there are people who will take that and people who will like it. So you'll find the people that enjoy your content and I actually had someone find out through my extended circle. He was following me. I'm not, I don't have huge numbers of men following me because I do paste a lot of women's health related content and nutrition content as well, but he, I shared my story about my diabetes and he actually got tested and he has the same condition and he didn't know and he's actually a bit older than me. So it was kind of incredible that just by sharing a story, you are able to change someone's life in that dramatic way. So yeah, I just think people sharing out being themselves, there's something there for everyone and you might think, God, why would I want to hear from me? You know, I'm not that exciting. I'm not Michelle Obama or something that your story is a story that someone else needs to hear. You are someone that is inspiring or you resonate with someone else, you'd be surprised and vice versa. There are people that I really admire and someone's like, drop the message and say, I really, really love, you know, that podcast you are on. You'd be surprised how many people don't do that, don't tell people what when their work has touched them. So I think all of us doing that more just dropping email to someone who's worked, you admired or who's rasterontly loved and it could just make their day at least and it's a nice thing to do to pay it back. I mean, I knew this anyway, but you are an amazingly hamip compassionate and empathetic person. You reviewed our app, which was like so kind. And for what is worth, you have way more interesting to me than Michelle Obama's. I prefer your concept. Yeah, I think just, I think remembering that, yes, do you need to share every single aspect of your people who share loads and loads of stories all the time or do you need to just show up in a way that feels right for you? You could be once, once a week, it could be once a day, but just you put make it work for you without feeling exhausted by it. I think the world can be an exhausting place. So don't lose that passion that you have. And when I'm feeling really down and sometimes I can feel scared, even these conversations around AI and the fact that they are run by billionaires who don't have, you know, that everyone's best interest clearly at heart. Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed about the future of this profession that I went into where, you know, retrained as a nutritionist, I was in public relations before. So I definitely know about how to recharge newspapers. And that's why I got some of these opportunities. I know how to be how to work with journalists. And I think journalists like people who are very punctual, diligent, who can have interesting takes on things and who are going to be reliable. Ultimately, journalists don't have time to waste. They want to know they email you at 10pm on a Friday. Are you going to respond with a quote? And I am not person who will. So they'll just keep coming back to the ban. But when I think about the future, I do get overwhelmed. And what I keep coming back to is don't forget your why, like why you went into this profession. And there will always be a place for people who have those have that kind of conviction in that. It might mean pivoting. It might mean exploring different opportunities. I'm doing a lot more speaking opportunities with corporates and going into companies and talking about, you know, women's health and nutrition and other areas because an AI bot can't replace me being in the flash on zoom in that way. So I'm thinking about this strategically, but it's still related to my field and not relatively the nutrition of this journey time soon. Yeah, powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I think that I know we touched on before that you wanted to maybe mention was around AI accuracy in kind of people's fertility journeys. I know we've not got to that yet. So yeah, please feel free to share some thoughts on that. Yeah, so I think you know, the fertility industries and massive industry, I work with lots of people going through egg freezing, IBR, different types of fertility treatment. It can be really long grueling journey for many people and even people who are not doing fertility treatments, having more data about things like cycle tracking and so on. It can be really powerful. I think that what's happening in the fertility industries, some there to what's happening in the nutrition industry a few years ago, where it was all about personalized nutrition. And we were thinking, okay, is it actually personalized or is it a program that is sort of actually saying stuff that's quite sensible with maybe a few tweaks here and there without naming certain companies names? I've seen this a few times and you can see it around supplement websites where it's like personalized advice. I'm not sure that it is truly personalized. I think we're quite a way off from having truly personalized approaches. And I think it's similar with the fertility industry. There is a clinic in London that's offering AI integrated fertility, so they're using AI to predict outcomes. So the number of chromosomely normal embryos someone would get or the success of a certain cycle or their responsiveness to certain medications. I don't think that it's actually being used in that way that that is super transformative yet. I think that it's an exciting area because clearly there is more and more data in this area. It's a very expensive field medicine. It's very expensive for the consumer. Few people can access it. The NHS is slashed funding in so many areas. So anything that makes it more efficient, that makes it more effective and has to put the patient through through last few rounds of IVF is amazing. And I think that it can be used really effectively to synchronize all the different kind of people working in that space and maybe give people a lot more access to information around their fertility. I just think that it's again with fertility, how much research has actually been done to support women in this area. It's another big data gap. So it's something that is exciting and I think people should definitely look at and talk to their clinics about that going through that or use it themselves. But just be aware again of making your body feel like a problem like a spreadsheet to solve. You don't want to feel having too much information because sometimes also be very, very overwhelming without someone there to guide you and reassure you. So it's not always a benefit, especially in an area where stress management has a role to play. So you just always want to be a bit careful because you can get sucked down, go to a black hole just looking at numbers and being disconnected from yourself and from who you are. Yeah, it's really great advice. Thank you. Is there anything now in hindsight that you feel like we should have covered or anything that you'd like to add to those points so far? Yeah, let's say that there are so many ethical quandaries when it comes to AI and a lot of concerns that governments and research as scientists other people in this space are sort of expressing and I'm by no means an expert in this space whatsoever. I'm just a nutritionist and women's health expert that's kind of trying to use AI to speed up what I do and to make make myself better at what I do. I don't think there's a shortcut to working really hard and trying to do the best for for the person. So I just want to know that I'm by no means an expert that this is just hope-lice of food for thought to start thinking about it. Maybe you've never used an AI tool before. Maybe use all the time that these are things that haven't occurred or these these are kind of things that you've always thought thought about that you're discussing with colleagues. But I'm definitely interested in my love if anyone has any extra thoughts from this podcast and definitely leave a comment or reach out to Leo and I because it's always interesting to hear what people think and definitely spread the word about it if you think it's interesting. I actually feel more optimistic and excited about the future of AI than I did 60ish minutes ago. It's genuinely thank you for that. I know you've mentioned your book, you've mentioned your sub-stack already, but yeah, where can people find those and find out more about you and where to connect with you if they aren't already. Thank you. So yeah, my website is RoohiniBajacle.com and I see clients one to one as well as have a group program for women with PCOS and probably the best way to connect with me is on Instagram and just @RohiniBajacle and I generally respond to pretty much everyone's. So if you do message me, I would yeah, I'd love to hear from you and I hope you leave them into a future event or yeah, maybe in real life. So that would that would be great. Thank you so much Leo and yeah, thank you for having me on this podcast because I feel like we mostly keep having these conversations as help professionals and keep discussing what these things are. I'm sure I'm going to keep changing my mind. I'm sure even in a few months I'll have a different take, but it's just it's just interesting when there's big things like this that come or we didn't know exactly what's going to happen. I think it could be seen as a threat or a sucking that we could use to our advantage if we're smart about it. Yeah, no, I feel I definitely feel more excited than before this chat. So thank you for coming on and sharing that and yeah, thank you so much for being my first guest. I was confident enough in the setup to get you to give me your time. Thanks to thanks to George, but ultimately that was a little bit of a guinea pig one with the equipment. So genuinely, thank you so so much for like a one-week turn around as well. So I really appreciate you. You've got amazing content. So obviously we'll put everything in the show notes and if people aren't already idea, I'd highly recommend the bake go and check out your work. Thank you so much, the Earth. Thank you.