How does sugar affect anxiety?

So I am absolutely delighted to be sharing some time this morning with Sue Thomas, who calls herself the Sugar-Free Coach. And now this is really exciting for me because, um, I am quite focused on food and really interested in how changes in diet can really have an impact on how you feel, but also how you perform. So Sue, um, I know you've got a huge wealth of experience within the wellness industry, so why don't you just tell us a little bit more about yourself and what's got you to where you are now?

Oh, thank you for having me, Caroline. It's so lovely to be here. Um, so yeah, I'm— I've been in the wellness industry for 20 years, um, and I've always had an absolute passion for nutrition. Um, but about 13, 14 years ago, I had a streptococcal knee infection, which sounds a bit random, but basically it was a really painful knee infection that I had to have about 25, 26 days of high-dose antibiotics for. And fast forward about 4 years from that point. And at the time I was personal training. And so I was working with women to improve their wellbeing from a physical perspective. And, um, I was really struggling with my own personal health. I was having to take a sleep in the afternoon. I couldn't, I wasn't functioning effectively. I wasn't present for my family. And I really wasn't the person that I needed to be, to be a personal trainer. And I'm very much about walking the talk. I need to set an example to my clients. And so at that point I thought, actually, I need to really identify what I need to do for myself in order to improve my wellbeing. So I went on my own little journey of starting to reduce and cutting out sugar, starting to focus on my gut health and improving my gut health. And really started to become more and more passionate about nutrition. I'd always had a love for nutrition, but it wasn't in the same way as in, in, in kind of healing my own body. And so, um, that at that point I decided that actually I would retrain as a nutritional therapist, started to bring nutrition more and more into my personal training business, and then gradually moved away from the personal training just to focus on nutrition. And now I help people understand just how much of an impact sugar has And we're exposed to so much sugar on a day-to-day basis that we don't even realize sometimes we're on a blood sugar rollercoaster. And so as a result, I really want to empower people to understand how they can break that almost unaware addiction that they have to sugar, how they can break it and how they can improve their long-term wellbeing.

Okay, fantastic. So I know there's a huge amount of research going on at the moment around the link between gut health and diabetes. health and mental health. And something that, that I find is it's— it feels so confusing that it wasn't that long ago that fat was the bad thing.

Mm.

And then it was just eat proteins, and then that kind of got thrown in the bin, and now we're on sugar. So what is the latest research that's really making this link between sugar as now being the new evil and the impact that that has on our, on our mental well-being?

Yeah, okay, so let's first of all understand gut health. So you have, um, all this bacteria that live on you and in you, and it is the kind of foundation to your well-being. It weighs— if you added all that bacteria up, it weighs about 2 kilograms. So they're now starting— scientists are now starting to recognize that actually it's an organ in its own right. And I'd love to use this, this little saying that only your mother loves you more than your gut bacteria. Your gut bacteria is So passionate about supporting your long-term well-being.

So having because quite often when we talk about bacteria, it always has a negative connotation. As you say, it's I think it was Actimel. It was talking about the good bacteria.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, but we need a good balance of good bacteria, bad bacteria. About 80% good bacteria, 20% bad bacteria in our intestine, but also on our hands, in our mouth. We have bacteria everywhere. We're only actually 10% human. We're made up of so much bacteria that there's more bacteria than there is DNA in our system. Now, so that gut microbiome, that balance of bacteria is our kind of foundation. Our gut health is our foundation to our long-term wellbeing. And built on that are 5 pillars: hydration, nutrition, movement, mindset, and sleep. And all of those 5 need to be in the right place in order to function, in order for our bodies to function efficiently, to be in a place of longevity, to be in a place of what we like to call elite health, really good health. Now, if you add sugar into the mix, sugar is really disruptive to all 5 of those pillars. So let's just understand a little bit more about what happens with sugar, first of all, when we consume it. So when we consume sugar, Actually, let's talk about the carbohydrate spectrum first of all. So there's this spectrum of carbohydrates, and we start with kind of greens and reds and oranges, and then we move to beige and white. And the greens and the reds and the oranges are the vegetables and the fruit. The greens are the more veggies that we get to the red, and then oranges, they're kind of heading into fruit. And then we've got beige, things like pasta and bread, and then we've got the white, which is the real refined sugars like biscuits and cakes and cookies and all those kind of things. Now, when you— when your body metabolizes, um, when your body metabolizes carbohydrate, the metabolic process it goes through is exactly the same whether it is green or whether it is beige, okay, or white. But one, with the greens and the, and the reds and the oranges, we release— they contain something called antioxidants. And those antioxidants neutralize the side effects of the metabolic process that the body goes through in order to access the glucose in those reds and greens and oranges. We don't have antioxidants in the beiges and the whites, so as a result, when we metabolize that carbohydrate, the substances that are released in the body aren't neutralized by the antioxidants and they can start to cause damage in the system. So they can start— they start to attack healthy tissue Basically, and they start to set up a little bit of inflammation. Now inflammation is really, it's a really important process that the body needs to protect us, but when we are constantly eating beige and white sources of carbohydrate, more and more of these free radicals, they're called, the side effects of the metabolic process are produced, and so more and more inflammation starts to be caused in the body.

This is what Is this what some people then label as bloating?

Not necessarily. Bloating is a side effect, but inflammation might be seen as joint health, poor, you know, kind of really uncomfortable joints, low back pain, all that kind of thing. It might impact our immunity, but in your situation, it also impacts our ability to be able to cope with stress externally because it's creating a stress internally. So this inflammation is creating a stress It causes the release of cortisol, which is a hormone that we need for the body to repair. But if cortisol rises too high, cortisol can, um, become toxic to the body.

Yep.

So we're inflamed internally, we're stressed internally. It makes dealing with external circumstances harder. So in the case of anxiety, it would make dealing with things that might set off your anxiety, um, it makes it dealing with all those kind of things much harder. But most important, most importantly, what cortisol does is it disrupts the health of the good bacteria. And when the health of the good bacteria is disrupted, it basically starts to destroy them. That can lead to other really big consequences. So the good bacteria release serotonin, which is our feel-good hormone. They also release B vitamins, which is, which are the nutrients that help us to stay calm in stressful situations. So we've got all this bacteria being disrupted by cortisol, which is then having a knock-on effect to our mental well-being. It's our ability to be able to cope with stress externally. So not only have we got sugar in the form of carbohydrates, in the form of beige and white carbohydrates, those sugars are causing this bit of inflammation. They're causing this disruption in the system that's causing disruption to our gut bacteria, which as a consequence means that that direct link between the gut and the brain is being disrupted. Anything goes on in your back, in your intestine, basically comes out in your brain. So if your intestine is inflamed and stressed, that's what comes out as far as your emotions are concerned and your ability to be able to cope with things. So there's this real inextricable link between how much sugar you consume And your ability to be able to cope with anxiety. And it's all linked through gut health, basically inflammation and gut health in the body. The more you are consuming carbohydrates from the reds and the greens and the oranges, the less inflammation you're going to have, the more healthy your good bacteria is going to be, because all of those, those colors contain something called short-chain fatty acids, which will feed the good bacteria and help the good bacteria to thrive. So the more the reds and the greens, the oranges you're consuming in your form of your carbohydrate, the better your gut health is going to be, the less inflammation you're going to have, the more you're going to be able to cope with stressful situations externally. So when someone says they're carb, they're going low carb, actually, if you're eating fruit and vegetables, you're not low carb. Those are the perfect kind of carbohydrates you should be eating. You're only taking out the processed carbohydrates. which influence our blood glucose levels really massively. And we want our blood glucose levels to be really nicely balanced. That's the way we keep inflammation under control, and we can keep anxiety and improve our better— our mental health by having really nicely balanced blood glucose levels.

So something that I talk a lot about when we're talking about anxiety is anxiety is basically a feeling of a loss of control.

Yeah.

And it's very hard to control stresses externally to us, but this is clearly something that you can have a much higher level of control internally. What you put in your mouth is, for most of us, under, you know, our control.

Yeah, it is totally, Natalie. But for some people, if they're on a blood roller coaster, blood sugar roller coaster, they don't actually realize they're making the choices they're making around food because they can't control those cravings. So when you eat sugar or you eat carbohydrates, insulin is the hormone that's released in response to the carbohydrate to keep our blood sugars under control. So if the carbohydrate is very processed in the forms of cakes and biscuits, because those— that's already— that, that processed, that processed sugar is already released, is released into our bloodstream really quickly, the body releases insulin really quickly. So insulin is released to pick up the sugars and take them to the cells for energy production. But if we're sedentary, we don't need those cells, we don't need that energy. So insulin then leaves the bloodstream very quickly and takes the sugars to the liver to store them, basically. So we have this spike in insulin to pick up the sugars. We're not using them for energy production. So then we have a very quick crash because the insulin leaves the bloodstream and goes to the liver. And that crash down here is where the brain— because the brain functions on glucose, the brain says, we haven't got enough sugar in the system, we haven't got enough glucose in the system, eat some more sugar. So down here in this kind of low blood sugar state where we might be feeling we're craving sugar, we're feeling a bit tired and exhausted, we need something to pick us back up again. Down here is where we reach for the quick sugary snack. to pick our blood sugars back up, 'cause that's what the brain's told us to do.

Mm-hmm.

That lifts our insulin really quickly again because it's sugary. We don't use the energy for energy production. So we have another crash in insulin because we, it leaves to go to the liver. And so this process carries on throughout the day and sometimes we don't even realize we are on that blood rollercoaster. We just end up craving things that we, we, we find it kind of feels like it's out of our control. And so that then adds, further fuels the anxiety because we kind of think, I can't control my cravings, you know. And also in the, in the, in 21st century life, we've been told that the way to manage weight, the way to manage our health, etc., etc., is to keep cutting things down, cutting things down. And if you then can't cut it down because you're on this blood roller coaster and you're constantly eating things, constantly looking at calorie content, all those kind of things, that just fuels more anxiety.

Yeah, it's really bad.

It puts us in a real place around food of, of kind of like not being able to control things. And so we've got more anxiety going on, which is already fueling the anxiety and the inflammation that's already in our system. And it's just a vicious circle that some people really struggle to break. And one of the things that I really want to do is empower people to understand that actually it's really easy to break that cycle. You just need to know how to do it, basically. And one of the easiest things to do is to make sure that the first thing you eat at the beginning of the day is the right food to balance your blood sugars through the course of the rest of the day.

And if you can get a green, orange, or red, is it?

Well, yeah, and it's protein, and it's a more protein-based breakfast. So a savory breakfast that's protein breakfast with greens and reds and oranges on it. But if you, you know, if it was to be an omelette, for example, or scrambled eggs or something like that, Um, that protein doesn't have a relationship with insulin. So if you had your greens and reds and oranges on there, you've got the carbohydrate to give you the energy, but the protein keeps your blood sugars really well balanced. And you should be able to go from one meal to the next without needing to snack. And if you can do that, that's when you know your blood sugars are really well balanced. That's when you're gonna get inflammation under control. That's when you're gonna improve your gut health. That's when you can control the cravings. You're in charge of the food that you eat, and then you can choose the right foods that are going to nourish your body to help bring that internal stress down, which means you can cope with external stress much better.

And what would you say, um, for some there can be quite a big gap between breakfast and lunch, or perhaps lunch and dinner. What's the current thinking if you're saying you should not need to snack? Snack if your, um, if your blood sugar is stable. But clearly there is a point where your body's going to go, I am now short of food.

Yeah, yeah, glucose.

What would be a good reference point?

So I always say to people, listen to what your body's telling you. So if you eat something and 2 and a half hours later you're hungry, what you ate didn't keep your blood sugars balanced. It spiked your blood sugars and they crashed. So go back and look at what you ate, add more protein to it, and you should be able to, you should be able to go for a minimum of 4 hours. But like I said, some people have to go for 6 hours, for example, between breakfast and lunch. So if you do need a snack, then I would always say focus, go for a savory snack if you can, and make sure it's protein-based. So let's say carrots and hummus, for example, good quality protein in the hummus and the chickpeas and the carrots to kind of add a little bit of carbohydrate to give you energy. Or if you like, if fruit's your thing, have, um, you know, an apple with some nut butter or, um, you know, a banana with a handful of almonds. All of those, if you can combine the protein with the carbohydrate, it will keep your blood sugars really nicely balanced. So if you can't get from your lunch to your evening meal without needing snacks, some people go to exercise after they finish work, for example, and they need something to get them through the exercise session. Always focus on having some form of protein with that snack. To help keep blood sugars balanced. And don't focus on the calorific content because often the food industry will make you think that it's low calorie, but it's full of sugars or it's full of, of sweeteners. And you still get that insulin response. Even with sweeteners, you still get that insulin response. So you'll still get that start to get that blood sugar rollercoaster. So always think protein keeps my blood sugars really well balanced. It won't have the same relationship with insulin. If I can combine it with some reds and greens and oranges, that's gonna help to reduce my inflammation in the system, which is gonna help me manage everything much better because my inflammation is coming under control. So my stress is easier to cope with. And I, everyone I work with, people I work with who start to get their blood sugars balanced, one of the things they will always come back to me and say, I feel calmer. I feel like I'm able to cope with things better. And that is because we are really starting to get that inflammation in the system under control.

Yeah, but I've just had this really weird image that comes to my head, which often it does. It's a bit like, again, as ladies, if we know we've got our best undies on, you suddenly feel more confident.

Yes.

It's almost like the equivalent is having your foundation inside. You think, I can do this. So even if the outside is exactly the same, you feel more grounded. Yeah. Resilient.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you can get the food that you eat first thing in the day, the right food for you. So a good protein-based savory breakfast that is going to make you feel great for the rest of the day because your blood sugar is going to be well balanced. You're going to be able to make the right choices around your lunch, and then you're going to be able to get through and with tons of energy, no afternoon slump, all that kind of thing, get through to your evening meal. And it's just going to make you feel. so much better through the course of the day. Brain fog lifts, your productivity increases, your ability to be able to cope with stress, the anxiety, all of that begins to reduce when your body is functioning better internally. And that all comes down to insulin balance.

And I can completely endorse this, Sue. I used to, um, I used to think I was having a very healthy breakfast, which in many ways it was, you know, fruit, granola, homemade granola, all very natural. But very high in sugar.

Yeah.

And, you know, if I ate breakfast about 8, by half past 10, I was kind of eating the table.

Yeah.

And I was working with a personal trainer at the time, and he said to me, I want you to have a beef steak for breakfast. Now that's my idea of hell.

Yeah.

But we compromised and I said, okay, for 2 weeks. And I switched to something that was, um, it's, it's like a venison pork mix, easy to cook, burgery type thing. And whilst I really miss my fruit and granola, by eating this grilled steak, which actually is less calories, because people I think have still got mentality calories, it was less calories. I would often still be 1, 2 o'clock thinking, oh, I haven't eaten yet.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, I can absolutely endorse, even though it wasn't, you know, as I say, I didn't particularly enjoy my breakfast in the same way. I enjoyed the impact it had on my, my body.

Yeah.

And my ability to concentrate. So I think that's another really important thing that when insulin crashes, your ability to focus reduces too.

Yeah, totally. Totally. Your brain, the brain fog kicks in, your productivity falls when you're into insulin crashes and you just find yourself, you know, being distracted by the tiniest little thing.

Yeah. Another thing that I'd really like your, your input and discussion on is I do a lot of work with teenagers. I've got 2 of my own, so I know that typically their diet is absolutely atrocious. They bounce from fizzy drinks to chocolate bars, and if you get anything green, red, or orange in them, that's a good day.

Hmm.

Um, what is your Tip to help parents, mothers, or, you know, any teenagers themselves to get back in that place of putting their gut health in a better order, being realistic that they're not going to go from that sort of diet to a utopian diet in a week?

No, I agree totally because I have 3 of my own as well. The first, the first and most important thing is exactly the same for an adult as it is for a teenager, and that is the first thing they eat in the morning needs to be protein-based. Now that might that might be, you know, scrambled eggs. Or my kids grew up on scrambled egg for breakfast, um, because we think that, oh, cooking, um, you know, making cereal is much quicker than cooking scrambled eggs, but it isn't. It just really isn't. It's so quick. It's so quick to make scrambled eggs. Another thing that they do have now, now they're teenagers, is they make themselves some banana and coconut milk pancakes, and they'll have that for breakfast, and they'll dollop yogurt on it and things like that. And because they're older now, they all know, unfortunately, because they have me as a mum, they all know that what they have first thing, they're not going out of the house without breakfast and without something that is protein-based basically. Now I can't control what they do for the rest of the day, but I know that if I can make sure I get the right thing into them first thing, that's gonna have an impact on the choices they make later on in the day. So that would be the first thing I would say, just look at what breakfast they're eating and how can you begin to bring more protein into it. Now that might be, Rather than going down the kind of chocolate Mini-Wheats or whatever it is route, let's see if it's a sweeter breakfast that they want. Can we do a dollop of yogurt with some seeds and nuts and some blueberries on it or something like that? It needs to be something that they will eat obviously, 'cause what you don't want them to do is to then leave the house for not having anything kind of thing, 'cause that's no good for their productivity when they get to school. So the first thing that we really need to focus on, and I've worked with quite a few parents who've had children with, you know, making difficult choices at breakfast time, that kind of thing, and I've encouraged them to— we've worked out how we can make it work for that teenager. So that first thing in the morning protein is really important. The second thing that I would always do is, and I do this with all of my kids, is they all take a probiotic every day. Because I, again, I know I can't control what they're doing at school. So if I know that, that at the end of the day when they've eaten their evening meal, they've taken a probiotic, and again, I don't administer it, but they're in a routine now with it. And that came from my daughter had quite a lot of tonsillitis and ear infections when she was younger, and they seemed to keep repeating themselves all the time. And then when I became a nutritional therapist, I was like, actually, I think her gut health needs to be improved. So all we did was we started with a probiotic every day, and she still takes it. They all take it now. They just take a probiotic once a day, and that just puts back the good bacteria that perhaps the choices they've made during the day hasn't supported. And I know then—

So you have last end of the day?

Yeah, after your evening meal, just take a probiotic, and then that will, you know, that will be digested through the course of the night and populate the bacteria in the intestine. And those are my 2 tips really that I would say to any parent of teenagers. Take a look at their breakfast and try and make sure it's more protein-based, and just make sure they're taking a probiotic at the end of the day. There's lots of, there's lots of, um, thoughts around should you take a probiotic all the time, should you just take it every now and again, etc., etc. In my opinion, 21st century life does not support the good bacteria in the intestine. There's 2 things everyone should take every day. One is vitamin D, and the other is a probiotic in order to support the gut bacteria, and that will have a massive impact on their level of anxiety and their ability to be able to function every day.

One of the things that a lot of parents speak to me about is exam stress. Now, you know, we're past the summer and the height of that, but a lot of teenagers, they're going to be facing mocks not that far away around Christmas time. So I think for those parents who are saying, how can I help my teen, that advice is equally applicable, isn't it?

It is, it really is.

In the morning, rather than them sitting there with a with a massive bowl of Coco Pops, that means half hour into their exam they're going to have one of these insulin—

Yeah.

For us mums, should we say, um, obviously not excluding dads, cook too, getting up and doing that scrambled egg or making them an omelette, because the chances are they won't do it themselves.

No, no, exactly, exactly.

Um, can really be helping in stabilizing that and facilitating them to maintain that level of concentration throughout that 2-3 hour exam.

Yeah, never underestimate how much that crash in blood sugars really impacts our ability to be able to focus and stay And then all we end up doing is reaching for a sugary sports drink or whatever, or sugary drink that, you know, caffeine drink that lifts your energy levels back up. But it's all false, it's all false, and it doesn't, it doesn't improve your productivity at all. It just puts you into hyperstates. So, you know, definitely that first thing in the morning is the key thing to help teenagers get through the exams for sure. Brilliant.

Okay, I love your 5 pillars, and I think whilst I knew of those, I'd never put them all together collectively. But again, the first one you mentioned, hydration, that's something that I find especially with teenagers. Again, they're, they're not very good at drinking non-caffeine-based drinks.

Yeah.

But similarly, us, or many of us as adults, don't drink nearly enough water as possible. And the way I tend to think about it is you know, your, your transport system is your blood. So if it's flowing freely, a bit like, you know, a fast-flowing stream, all of those sugars and oxygen and stuff is going to travel well. Whereas if it's sludgy and like mud, that ain't going to do too well for your overall mental health. Is that overly simplistic?

No, not at all. Not at all. I think that's a really good way to put it. You know, your cardiovascular system needs you to be hydrated. And if you're, if you're dehydrated, you will struggle with your energy levels and and your productivity and your focus, et cetera, et cetera. And that's when you naturally end up eating sugar because you want something to lift you back up again. Whereas if you focus on the hydration, your hydration levels and how hydrated you were, um, your energy levels rise naturally. So you don't need to be reaching for sugars in quite the same way. Um, one of the easiest ways to make sure you're getting 2 liters of water into your system is to break it down in the day, break the day down into 4 chunks.

Mm-hmm.

And have a 500ml bottle, say, before 10 o'clock, have a 500ml bottle before 1 o'clock, another 500ml before 5 o'clock, and then the last bottle in the evening. And that way you've done 2 litres without even noticing it. I think some people look at the amount of 2 litres, amount of water there is, and think, God, when am I ever going to be able to get through that through the course of the day? So rather than looking at the whole, break it down into the sum of the parts. And just, you know, focus on the sum of the, one of the parts to start with, rather than trying to, to think I've got to drink that all in one go kind of thing. And the amount of energy you will have if your body is hydrated, you will, you, you won't be able to get your head around it. So again, put you in a much more positive space, a much better space mentally when your body's hydrated. But just giving you more energy, more of an ability to be able to function throughout the course of the day.

Perfect. And that's, um, that's a great tip because I have often thought about having a 2-liter because it's very easy measure, and then, um, putting marks so that, let's say, doing that over the 12 hours, you do 12 increments and each time going down by the hour. But one of the things I find is, is really important is keeping that water close by because quite often, even when I'm sitting here working, I just think, oh, I'll go and get myself a drink in a minute, and an hour will go past.

Yeah.

Yeah. Before I've gone down 14 steps to the kitchen to get a drink.

Yeah.

And it's not that difficult, but if it's here and you keep sipping, it's, as you say, it is amazing how quickly you can get through that volume.

Yeah. And the other thing I do as well, so my water is my, I always drink sort of warm water, so I have it in a cup. And that when, when someone's drinking coffee, for example, to give them a lift because their energy levels are low, what I encourage clients to think about doing is how can you swap that coffee out for warm water, or, you know, just so that you're still drinking and hydrating rather than drinking coffee to give you energy, which is actually a diuretic, which will make you even more dehydrated. Just swap out. Look at your day and go, where am I drinking coffee? How can I swap out 1 or 2 cups of my coffee for warm water? And I know that's another way then of getting some good hydration into my system.

Fantastic. That's been really fascinating. And I know that you have, um, a lot of goodies and, and things. You've got a challenge coming up, which I'm really interested in maybe partaking. Say, I'm sitting here thinking, I think my diet's quite good, but now I'm thinking, oh, I wonder, I bet there's, as you say, a lot of hidden sugars.

Yes, you'd be surprised at the amount of women that come on to that sugar-free challenge and say, I didn't realize how bad my diet was beforehand, and I can't believe, you know, what I was consuming. And, and I've now started to identify where those sugars are. and how I've balanced my blood sugars. So yeah, it's a 7-day sugar-free challenge. It's a really simple challenge to follow. We do, um, a little mini challenge every day. So there's a little thing to keep you focused. Um, there's, it's a group full of mostly women, um, because that tends to be the, the kind of people that sign up to that kind of thing. But it's a really great way of breaking that cycle of sugar consumption with that accountability and support. Basically, I do lots of little workshops in there as well to help you understand more about how sugar impacts our wellbeing. So there's a live feed every morning at 7:30 giving you the challenge for the day, um, but then there's 2 workshops in the evenings during the course of the week as well. So there's loads of education to learn, but it's a really simple challenge to follow and you get loads from it. So, um, that, that challenge is starting at the end of September. Um, and then I also have a quiz. So if you're, if you're not ready to quite, um, give up sugar for 7 days, and all you have to do within that challenge is to, is to give up the refined sugar. We don't, there's no requirement to create special meals or anything like that. It's just—

It's giving up the beige and the white.

Yeah, just give up the beige and the white for the week. Um, but I also have a little mini quiz. So it's a little quiz where you can go through and you can answer a series of questions to see whether you're on a blood sugar roller coaster. And then there's a little video depending on what score you've got at the end that's relevant to you. So all of those are available on my website, suethomaswellbeing.co.uk. Um, you can go there and carry out, go through the quiz and, and then sign up for the sugar-free challenge if you decided that was the right thing for you. And I run those sugar-free challenges 3 times a year, um, usually in September, January, and April, at the times when straight after Christmas, straight after Easter, straight after summer holidays, when we've all been probably a little bit more relaxed and consuming more sugar than we would normally do. So.

And if people wanted to work with you directly, How, how does that relationship work? How do you help people?

Yeah, so I have a, a 21-day program that I work with directly with people. Um, that is also a bit of a gut reset program as well, but it's a sugar and, and intestinal reset program. And that's where you can work with me one-to-one. Um, you can go through the 7-Day Sugar-Free Challenge, which is a group program. And I also have a 12-week transformation program called Fed Up to Fabulous. And that program is also a group program, but there is quite a lot of time with me working one-to-one with me on that program as well. So yeah, there's 3 different levels depending on how, how, um, prepared you are to make some changes. Yeah, perfect.

Well, that's, that's really, um, I've learned so much even in this, in this half an hour, and I thought my knowledge was quite good, but it just proves that not only is science constantly evolving, but our understanding of how diet and mental health, especially anxiety, are now so intrinsic linked that with, you know, relatively small changes, I think you can also really help yourself to feel better without perhaps going down the pharmaceutical route, which, you know, increasingly a lot of people are saying to me, I, I don't want to take drugs. And feel empowered to help yourself, I think, can really, um, be, be very optimistic for people to take back some of that control over how they feel.

Yeah, totally. Taking back control is really important. You don't have to be just popping pills all the time. You can actually make yourself feel so much better if you make some of these small lifestyle changes. And when you make the small lifestyle changes and you start to feel better, then you can take the next step to making some more and some more and some more. Before you know where you are, you've kind of, you know, you really have transformed your health. Yeah, perfect.

Thank you ever so much for your time, Sue, and I will make sure that all of the links to your website. So if people want to speak to you more about your challenge or to sign up or to do the quiz, then those links will be available too.

Perfect. Thank you for having me, Caroline. I really appreciate it.

It's been a pleasure.