Davinia Taylor - On How to Biohack Your Hormones for Optimal Health

The root cause is the mental health because all movement begins in the brain. So I feed my brain and the body follows. It's one of my mantras. Get the right ingredients in your brain and then all of a sudden stuff starts to happen.

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Today's guest is Davinia Taylor. Davinia is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, pioneering biohacker, mother of 4, and former actress who transformed her life from a party lifestyle. Discovering biohacking was a turning point in her journey, changing her attitude from I'll sleep when I'm dead, which I am very much guilty of, to one of optimal health and energy by feeding her brain. And her body followed with a weight loss of over 40 pounds or 20 kilos.. We will be digging into all things biohacking, women's health, sugar cravings, diet strategies, boosting energy, and so much more. Davinia, it's such a pleasure to welcome you today to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast.

Oh, thank you for having me. This is lovely to meet you.

You too. So I'd love to start with a journey that potentially several people or many people listening might find themselves on of going from antidepressants, right, which are prescribed so readily these days, to actually becoming a marathon And I'd love to share a quote from you that may resonate with people listening. And it says, 14 years ago, I couldn't stop drinking wine. The doctors put me on antidepressants. I couldn't control my weight. I kept yo-yo dieting, which many people will know, and eating fast food, bread, pasta, anything to give me comfort. Today I'm 45 and I'm running marathons and I'm in the best shape of my life. So I'd love to talk about what changed, right? So what was that initial spark that changed the trajectory of your life, Davinia? Can you take us to that moment in time?

I was extremely lucky that my husband is really into health and brain health, and he came across the whole idea of ketogenic fuel for your brain. So MCT oils for your brain. That opened up the conversation with me that I wasn't depressed. I was actually just lacking brain energy. I'd flatlined. And that was phenomenal when I realized I could actually improve my energy without consuming sugar. Therefore, the cravings went. I could get rid of the antidepressants because I wasn't depressed. I was just inflamed and shattered. And I could take control of my life and I could actually hack into my brain networks to either improve my sleep, improve my cognition, improve my resilience, so improve my sense of humor in the face of adversity, basically gain control of this mysterious thing called the brain, which led me to eating better, moving more, just not losing my temper as much, and actually getting out of bed thinking, you know what, I fancy doing something exciting, as opposed to let's go downstairs, let's get the kids to school, let's put on daytime TV, and let's just watch that until it's afternoon TV and just feast through it. Well, not feast, just graze through it, very sluggish, almost just like I had Vaseline over my eyes and sort of like earplugs in and I was wading through mud was how I felt. I didn't realize that that's another word for inflammation. And by literally finding out this new term biohacking, what that was is hacking into your own biology. It's nothing from outer space. It's just you understanding your biological chemical processes a little bit. And so you can tweak it throughout the day for what works for you. That became a lifesaver. I mean, I cannot tell you. I don't know where I'd be right now. Well, I'd be a lot heavier and, well, I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd just be moaning. And I can moan. I can really go negative, by the way. So, yeah, I was really lucky that it was Matthew, really, who was the gateway to that, because otherwise I still would have been on a whole grain diet. I'd have still been like, you know, trying to control calorie intake. And I've been trying to do my, you know, 10,000 steps a day, and it's just such beige, debilitating, unempowering advice. It is literally useless trying to do that. It's literally looking at weight loss through a 1970s lens, and we deserve more than that. We deserve instant gratification because that's what we're— kids of the '70s and '80s and '90s, and we know we need instant gratification. And that's what biohacking gives me.

Control. Yeah. And I'm really excited to dig into that as well. And I think so many people are confused by different messaging and like, oh, this is supposed to be healthy or not. So we're going to dig into specifics around that too. But what I'd love to ask you is what was the most difficult part to change? Because I'm sure a lot of people listening like, oh, well, I've tried and I keep failing, I can't do it or whatever. So just so people understand as well, like, what did you find most difficult and how did you overcome that?

That would be exercise. Because my doctor would say, well, you're putting on weight, well, you've had 4 kids, like, you know, somehow my fault, you know, well, you've had, you know, you're getting older, you've had 4 kids, so, you know, what do you expect? Just be grateful you're kind of healthy, sort of attitude. So you just need to eat less and move more, was, was. And so trying to exercise when I used to get not out of breath, but just I'd huff and puff around the house and we're just talking like a flight of stairs.. There was no spring in my step, there was no bounce. And to be honest, going outside, I mean, I was living in central London at the time, so I mean, you got some beautiful parks there, but I couldn't see the parks. All I could see was the drizzly sky, the traffic, the cold. It was really a miserable experience. So what I didn't realize, I was lacking dopamine. And dopamine is your ambition hormone. It has you seek out, it takes you— in fact, it can work really against you. Dopamine, not only can it make you get outside the door because you signed up to a marathon and you want the glory. It can also take you to the fridge to go and get another snack. It's the movement that takes you there and the anticipated joy, which normally with dopamine is a bit of a letdown. So say if you go to the, to the fridge and you make yourself a snack, the exciting bit is going to the fridge. The eating of the said snack actually doesn't bring you much joy, maybe 1, 2 seconds, and then it dips right off. And then you start having to find something else to boost the dopamine. Exercise works a little bit differently because you can really boost it. However, I digress. How, how I got myself into exercising was actually not exercising at all. It was changing my body temperature. So I learned about cold exposure, which meant I didn't actually have to leave my bedroom, which I was cemented to most of the time anyway. Once the kids went to school, I did spend a lot of time in my room, just like watching TV, like I said, and bringing snacks up. So I read about, uh, being able to boost dopamine 200 or maybe up to 600%, which is the equivalent of having like a glass of wine, by just jumping in the cold shower for 15 seconds. And I know it sounds awful, but that was— that is a much faster way than taking any tablets or the detrimental way of having a glass of wine in the morning or even having a croissant, which, where it's cold, you know, it's going to give you energy. It doesn't. It actually lowers your energy output because you're digesting and carbs send you into a carb coma, and actually it makes you seek more sugar as your insulin drops off. But we can go into details about later. So basically what it was, it was me getting in the cold that actually gave me a boost in dopamine, which after maybe a couple of weeks gave me a little bit of a swagger about myself that I was doing something that is— it was very fringe at the time, so we're talking about 7 years ago. So I felt a little bit confident that I was doing this really uncomfortable thing for 15 seconds, learning how to breathe, just for 15 seconds, man, 15 seconds. It changed the trajectory of my inner monologue about myself, which had the knock-on effect that when I went outside and it was drizzly and it was cold, I kind of embraced it as in, yeah, I'm out, I'm doing this, rather than looking at the negative. My brain chemistry changed, and the possibilities started happening. Like, I've been outside, because a lot of people don't go outside. It's not available to them. It's not because they're lazy. It's not because they're self-sabotaging. It's because they don't understand they need to just tweak the dopamine levels in their brain, and things will start, beyond your control, will start slotting into place. I mean, what was it? Me being me, I thought, right, I'll sign up to do something. So I did this thing called Tough Mother, which is like an obstacle course. And, you know, I did it on my own and I didn't have anyone sponsor me or anything like that. I just did it for me so I could just tick that off my little list. And now I could do it easy peasy. But back then, you know, climbing up an A-frame and I've got vertigo and, you know, I've had the kids and, you know, when I run too fast, I wee myself, you know. So to do something really challenging like that, which by the way, it doesn't matter when you do Tough Mudder, mother, because you're wading through mud anyway. But, you know, doing like these assault courses, it didn't mean that you had to do a personal best. There was no sprinting involved. There was just like these little challenges that you had to get over, like, you know, going under nets and things. So I wasn't competing against people. I was competing against me. And actually the camaraderie there really boosted me. So doing something like that rather than signing up for a flat race, is probably a little bit better. And if you can do it with a friend, you will have an— you'll remember it for the rest of your life. So it was, it was the mental obstacles that got me into running. Now I run every day virtually, and I'm lost without it. So I did it before I came into the office today, a downpour, deluge of rain. And again, I thought, well, good, I'm out in it. I'm championing myself and I'm getting out in the rain. I mean, it's only water, it's not acid rain. But, you know, there's these little mental things that normally would have kept me indoors and self-sabotaged by You know, doing circuits of the kitchen, going into the cupboard, back into the fridge and doing like the salt and vinegar crisps followed by the Cadbury's biscuit. You know, we all know the cycle. We all know that's what happens. And that's just, you know, your brain has just been hijacked by these companies, these big food companies, and not knowing how to hack into certain chemicals is— it's hard work. Using willpower alone, using your own mental strength to get out the door is bloody hard. So anyone who can do that, I'm like, hats off to you. But is it sustainable? Eventually the wheels will fall off and you'll start self-sabotaging and just not going out. And, you know, you've got to understand how to tap into these brilliant hormones, brilliant energy-giving, sleep-inducing giggle-inducing, you know, joyful hormones, because hormones are often just— they get a lot of bad press. But you know what? They protect us. They make us laugh our heads off. They make us cry in the right place. They make us feel in love, you know? So if you just focus in on the bad ones or the lack of the good ones, you know, let's talk about how to get into the joy. Let's talk about how to get into a deep sleep. Let's talk about how to get moving. Let's talk about the solution rather than the bloody problem, because we all know the bloody problem. We read about it every day, you know, particularly as women.

Yeah. And the beauty is that there are solutions as well. I mean, let's look at biohacking hormones, right? And I think first is like also that distilling, you know, what are the, you know, the hormones and like, oh, hormones are so complicated, you can't regulate them. But as you were saying as well, along with the dopamine, right, that cold exposure first thing in the morning, and you're putting up to 600%. I know studies from up to 500%. So whatever it is, but it's tremendous way to start the baseline, right?

It's just better than baseline.

And the beauty is that it's actually prolonged over a longer period of time as well, which is really beneficial, especially for ADHDers. I also have that as well. I know we can discuss a little bit later, but also the fact that you've already done something to win your day first thing in the morning. So you've already done like a big win. And I think psychologically it's like, well, I've already achieved a cold shower. So if I go— going outside is easy in comparison or going to do this is easy. So it sets you up to sort of start winning as well, right?

Correct.

Yeah. Confidence. Exactly. And sort of self-achievement versus like, oh, I missed that. I'm not doing that and I'm just being lazy now and I'm not doing anything as well. But let's talk about biohacking hormones. Davinia, what are some of your favorite things and can you maybe just set the landscape just a short overview for my, for my audience.

Sure. Well, I mean, we all have a different cocktail of hormones that work in synergy with our personality. And so the one-size-fits-all approach for me doesn't really wash. And what stresses me out wouldn't touch you because we've had different traumas in our lives. And I'm not talking big stuff. I'm talking about traumas in our lives. Like this morning, somebody cut me off, you know, and I had to slam on the brakes. We've got different responses going throughout our chemicals, you know, and the, and the fact that our doctors generally take a blood test and say, yeah, your blood's normal, off you go, you're obviously depressed, have some antidepressants. Yeah, that doesn't wash with me. So I really wanted to dig into it with my second book, Hack Your Hormones, and lay out the ones, the main ones that we should all be familiar with, that we do have the capability for shifting. And, um, yeah, just, just mixing it, like I said, that individual cocktail, so that throughout your day you've got control of how you respond to a certain situation. So for example, I'm 45, clearly perimenopausal. That actually starts when you're 35, which has only just been acknowledged. So that's been like 10 years of people just telling women in my generation, yeah, just, you know, obviously you just need to eat less, move more, and take antidepressants, which of course is going to compound the problem because you're probably going to pile on weight with the antidepressants while your liver can't detox properly. Again, again, again, none of this is ever discussed in your doctor's surgery because they don't know. Because I don't know why. I don't know why we've not invested in women's health because of 51% of the population. However, back to positivity. So for example, something that I find very important as you generally age is PMT and PMDD and That can really impact, um, family life. You know, once a month you've got 2 weeks of this sort of like rage coming in, and it seems to be exacerbated as we get older, whether that's because we've got full-time jobs, we've got children, we're taking care of the elderly. There's a lot put on women at this point, and this is when our hormones are a little bit skewiff. And what I find phenomenal is that no one in the medical field really acknowledge estrogen dominance in women. And so what estrogen dominance is, we don't sort of get taught this at school at all. You've got good and bad estrogens and basically we all have estrogen in our body, but some estrogens we are absorbing from our environment, from plastics, from deodorant, from perfumes, xenoestrogens they're called. And you combine that with your already circulating estrogens, protective estrogens So you use your protective estrogen that obviously gives you great skin, puts a little swagger in your step, gives you a good mood, confidence. Once you've used that, then you're meant to wee it out, go via the liver, or it ends up in the toilet, put it that way. Quite a lot of us have very poor detox capabilities through one reason or another, just the environment we live in, or, and we end up with estrogen dominance. This estrogen recirculates and becomes toxic. And you add as well all the environmental estrogens in there that we are consuming. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm drinking a drink here that says, oh yeah, it's got, you know, CBD in it and it's sparkling. And I know this is just going to be tap water. And I'm quite sure this, this aluminum can has got something dodgy going on. And this is me. This is my job. You know, I'm meant to be a biohacker, but I'm, you know, crazy, orthorexic, lunatic, and not even drink. So I'm aware that we've got these estrogen, these xenoestrogens, and men are getting it as well. And children, they're getting a lot of estrogen dominance. So their body— and it's a very aggressive hormone, estrogen. That is the aggressive hormone. Testosterone is often called the bad guy. Testosterone is your competitive hormone. It's estrogen that turns nasty. So when I discovered that I could help detox it with a great supplement called DIM and calcium D-glucarate and some of the little bees and things like that, I was like, what? I can stop the PMT just by supporting my liver? And my boobs aren't engorged and I don't get dodgy skin. And I'm like, wow, that is 2 weeks of the month that I'm not on edge and I'm not losing the shit with my 4 little guys, you know, who need a soft and gentle one sometimes. Don't get me wrong, they need, they need the firm hand of the law sometimes. But, you know, if I'm exhausted, I've got PMT and it's 7:00 at night and I've still got to change the beds and the uniforms full of mud because they've been playing outside, you know, I'm going to blow my top. And that's not fair on them when I can quite easily take some, something to support my detox pathways and just be the mum I want to be because that impacts your mental health as well. What's mum guilt like? Mum guilt is awful. When you kick off on the little ones and they look at you, that at the time you feel justified, give yourself 3 minutes later, boom, here comes the mum guilt. They've probably forgotten about it. But, you know, you live with it for the rest of the day and then your energy goes down and then it all compounds again. So giving women the opportunity to detox and understand that they're— and men actually, and men, because men are, you know, that they're— the risk of breast cancer must go up with them, all these man boobs and this estrogen circulating, all these hips, and they're getting cellulite. And we are, you know, I find that flabbergasting that this isn't being investigated and doctors are just turning their back on it. Just because there's not been a study on it doesn't actually mean it doesn't exist, right? What waiting for? Who are we waiting for? For someone, doctor, to tell me, oh yeah, your symptoms that you've had for, well, 35 years, yeah, you were right. You're not bloody wrong, doc. I know my body and I know my mood and I know when I feel anxi— and I know what that hormone is.

It's estrogen. Yeah. And also, I mean, you know, more and more studies coming out showing that testosterone levels worldwide for men are just exponentially decreasing over time as well.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't have any testosterone anymore, do they, at all? I mean, that is a real worry for me. So obviously I give my boys a lot of meat. We have a lot of red meat in our diet. I try and give them eggs every day.

We keep—

I keep away from wheat as much as possible. Obviously, when they're at school, it's different. If we do have wheat, it's fermented like sourdough. So yeah, I'm trying to eat as ancestrally as possible to boost their testosterone, but I will be taking their levels and just trying to tweak it with certain— I mean, I do sell a testosterone booster that men can take as well, because the last thing we want is men struggling with their weight too, just because of a hormone imbalance due to toxic estrogen loads. Because estrogen is a powerful old hormone, right?

Yeah. And also plastics, everything as well. It's, it's so detrimental and it's hiding everywhere. And I think that's probably part of it. Like, who would fund the research to do it, right? Hopefully somebody may be listening at a university and thinks this is a great idea.

But they can't, though, can they? Because Big Pharma will have to pay for it because no one can afford it because they're the richest guys on the planet. So this is the catch-22. So it's a case of maybe I just get everyone to write in. I'll just ask my followers, just let's just write in and do our own study because to be honest, Big Pharma don't even base it on women like us anyway. Half the time it's like students. I mean, what have I got in common with a 22-year-old girl?

Nothing. What's scandalous in that the FDA banned women of childbearing age from research in 1977 and it was only in 1993 that they re-allowed them in, but the gold standard had been set because women are too complex. Too complicated, right? So that's why we've been missing from a lot of clinical research.

So for all the ladies out there, when any doctor says to me, oh, you're touting misinformation or anything, I said, well, to be honest, you are the guys who turned off the tap. So, sod off. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired than everybody else is. So, you know, if you're just going to shove me on antidepressants and tell me to move more, put the blame on me and tell me to go and check my breasts once a month, I'm going to lose my shit with you. Yeah, no offense, but yeah, I think some doctors are coming around to the way that, you know, that they're stepping away from that sort of thinking. But a lot of them still get really aggressive with me. I'm just surviving, you know, I'm just a mum surviving.

So, you know, this is it as well. I mean, I have very interesting conversations. I have a funny letter actually, one of post once that I repeatedly refused to take. I had some lung issue. He was convincing me I was an asthmatic and I said, I'm not an asthmatic. And during the actual doctor consultation, he was showing me the video on how to use this a steroid inhaler. I said, I don't take medication, I'm not interested. He's like, no, no, but watch the YouTube video on how to take it. I was like, I'm not going to take it. He prescribed me 3 different inhalers. He said this was acute situation, I had to do it. I said, I'll be fine without it. And the letter he wrote to me afterwards was quite funny and like repeatedly refused and against medical advice. And I said, there's another way. Anyway, I sent him a follow-up about the protocol I did and never heard back from him.

So of course you didn't. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're not interested. A lot of them aren't interested. And it's like, it's like medicine didn't happen before penicillin came. And that's like, what? So what do we do? Just wing it for a millennia? Or we just like, I don't know, botched it all together? I don't know. There's a lot of wisdom in ancient nutrition and there's a lot of wisdom in ancient medicine and Ayurveda and everything. And the fact that we just, we can't bring the two together just is like just two stubborn kids, isn't it?

But I think if you look, it's always like follow the money. So look at Stanford Medical School, Harvard Medical School, who's financing that, right? We've got Big Pharma behind it. It's all about diagnosis, prescription, diagnosis, prescription. And all I'd say for people also listening, like, just think about like, what could be the underlying cause and like, think about addressing that. And I think that's where Eastern medicine has been doing for millennia, and also what we were previously doing as well. But we digress a little bit. I want to jump into biohacking, Divinia, right? What are some of your favorite biohacks and what does biohacking in general mean to you? I mean, you mentioned a bit before.

For me, biohacking is just taking control of my chemistry. Basically, it's my mental health that I'm most protective of over my physical health. However, when my mental health seems to be in top, top form, on top form, my physical health does as well. I look after myself. I put the right ingredients in me. I, you know, I exercise, I move. I move more, I take the stairs at work, just little, little things that add up, add up every day to be physically more, you know, I do a bit more stretching, I sleep better. So for me, everything, the root cause is the mental health because all movement begins in the brain. So I feed my brain and the body follows. It's one of my mantras. Just get the right ingredients in your brain and then all of a sudden stuff starts to happen. So favorite biohack would be, you know, getting outside in the morning, getting sunlight, or daylight into my eyes. I live in the north of England where sunlight is a rare commodity. So unfortunately, if you're in sunnier climes, you can do it in 3 minutes. All you need to do is get like the blue sky in your eyes. You don't need to look at the sun. Grab a coffee. I always fuel with MCT. Those medium-chain triglycerides hit my liver, get converted into ketones, which is the brain's one of the favorite fuel sources. Is over and above glucose because we know glucose is sugar and, you know, it comes with a comedown. And once again, I want my mental health to be tip-top. I don't want to be stuck in a craving 5 minutes after I've consumed something. I hate craving anything. That's why I avoid sugar throughout the day. So again, I get up in the morning, sunglasses, never wear any sunglasses, by the way. The receptors in the eyes are the gateway to your circadian rhythm. So by going out in daylight in the morning, I set my, I set my body clock by introducing the light to my eyes and on my skin. It's a message goes to my brain to say, okay, great, it's morning, let's liven up, let's send out a pulse of cortisol. Cortisol gets a bad rap that it's the stress hormone, but it's also the— if you didn't have any cortisol, you would die. So you really do need cortisol. There's a few hormones you can do without, but cortisol, is over and above any hormone your body will make cortisol. So it will make it over and above estrogen, progesterone, dopamine. Cortisol is the one that gets you out of danger and makes things move. So that gets you out of bed in the morning. So facilitating that cortisol spike in the morning because you're going to get a spike at least once a day actually sends a message to the brain. So say it's 7:00 in the morning. That sets an alarm clock for 12 hours later for your body to start pumping out melatonin, which is the darkness or the sleep hormone. So it's very important if you struggle with sleep that you get outside and get real light in your eyes because you can sit in it. You could sit in your kitchen with overhead lighting, but there is nothing that— there is no— that the lux value between electric lighting or indoor lighting versus even an overcast day is it's literally night and day. So you get outside there and you do your— I don't know, maybe you could even send some emails if you're that way inclined, but just make sure you get that natural daylight. Get your ketone coffee, which is MCT oil or keto powder, which I actually— full disclosure, I sell it. The reason why I developed the MCT powder is because the oil is quite ferocious on your digestive system when you first start.. So I've developed a powder that has got grass-fed butter in it, MCT powder, and a little bit of acacia fiber just to slow the digestion down, yet without spiking your insulin. So you're not going to come out of ketosis, you're going to keep yourself in a ketone state. And I do that throughout the day because I find that mental energy for me is increased when I'm fueled on ketones and not sugar. Uh, so that means I have no carbohydrates throughout the day. So when I get home at night and I get the kids from school, out comes the sourdough, out comes the cheese, out comes all the potatoes. That's when I literally get my— I call them cozy foods because then I, once I've eaten that and I have a family meal, loads of meat, very heavy veg stews, that sort of thing, bone broth stews, everything really nutrient-dense with the carbohydrates, loads of salt, loads of pepper. Very wholesome, suddenly I'm shattered. So by then I hit the really heavy carb coma, which is great timing for me because I'll start getting a bit snoozy and I'll put the TV on and I'll just ride that carb coma wave into sleep. So I'm like, why would I have a sandwich during the afternoon and have a semi-carb coma at 2 in the afternoon when I've got to make decisions? I just don't get that, that thinking of people. Oh, you know, I need a sandwich, you know, for my lunch. I'm 'But you're going to be shattered at half one.' 'Well, what?' 'Oh, well, I'll have a coffee and a cake.' And I'm like, 'No, you're just going to store that around your belly, and then you're going to be miserable that you've got belly fat and you're bloated.' It's like— I mean, obviously, you're of the same mindset of me. Follow the money. Kellogg's. Eat little and often. Yeah. A Mars a day helps you work, rest, and play. No, it doesn't. You know, so I had to come out of that mindset and said, 'What for?' Fat? Fat as a fuel? No, you need whole grains. But what nobody seems to tell you is you have whole grains, you have your granola, you have your overnight oats, you mix it with saliva, it's turned to sugar. And that's, that's all it is. It's just another— that's why people find it so hard to give up because they're addicted to sugar. It's not the oats, oh, and they're a great fiber provider and all this, and it gives you sustained energy all day. No, no, you're not. You're knackered. You're knackered. You're addicted to sugar. Let's call a spade a spade, and that's what it is. You need to change your fuel source, then you'll start shredding weight, and then you'll, you'll opt to— and then you'll become metabolically flexible. I'm not saying cut out carbs unless you really want to get super skinny, but I mean, who can be bothered doing that? It's not 1997. But you know, you want to get lean and, uh, and nimble and, you know, and think sharp, but then embrace the coziness at night and that for me is biohacking time in everything.

It's beautiful because I think, well, first of all, some people hear fat and they're like, oh, you know, fat is so bad. And then I think just a little bit of history behind that. I think it was what is in the '50s originally the chart came out that fats are unhealthy. But the food industry, I think really from the '70s and '80s went all into low fat and fat is bad and we're going to put tons of sugar in it. And in the US, if I go into the supermarket, then I read the labels there are breads that are packed with sugar and everything else, not just sugar.

I mean, everything else, you know, MSG, the lot is in there.

Yeah. And so I think that it's almost empowering and it's a mindset shift as well for people to know that healthy fats are phenomenal for you, your body, your brain love it as well. So I'd love to ask for some of like, what are your favorite go-to foods? You were talking about red meats and a few things like that, but particularly also fats. Fats, because people are a bit like, ah, fats. But also, what are the ones that you say, like, I avoid no matter what?

Okay, so what we've got is a situation here where there's, um, you've got omega-3 and you've got omega-6, and you're meant to eat the omega, uh, 6 to 3. So 6 being, um, in the ratio. So, well, I was reading that we should be, we should be having it like maybe what was it, 4 to 1. So, you know, you have 4 times the omega-3 than you'd have of omega-6, but we're having it 16 to 20 to 1. So we're having 16 times the amount of inflammatory omega-6s. So the PUFA, polyunsaturated fatty acids. So your— we call it rapeseed oil in the UK. So you got canola oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil., and we also call it vegetable oil. So all those peanut oil, everything that you, that you fry something in, that's good. It's very crispy. Anything that you want to have a mouthfeel like a cereal bar, that gooeyness and everything, vegetable oils. So let's just overarching call them vegetable oils. So your canola oil and your rapeseed oil and your sunflower oil, those vegetable oils are in everything because they were touted as heart-healthy. Because Ancel Keys, a scientist, decided to do a study whereby he concluded that heart disease was triggered by a high saturated fat diet. And he went across the whole— he studied across the world, but he failed. He neglected to include basically France and the Netherlands in this, who are the biggest consumers of saturated fats. Of course, the French butter and dairy industry, their beautiful unpasteurized cheeses that they have in abundance. Yeah, he neglected to put them in the study. So he cherry-picked the study and they have the lowest rate of heart disease and strokes. So that has since been debunked. Even Ancel Keys himself in 1997 said, yeah, I concluded that wrong. Sorry about me. Yeah, let's forget it. But oh no. We still go with it. You need to have low saturated fat. So you've got your margarines and you're still saying it's heart healthy, even though I think on the front cover of Time magazine it said bring back butter. Yet still we don't talk about it. Doctors still say you need to lower your cholesterol to— and you're like, absolutely not. Cholesterol helps manufacture hormones. Are you crazy? Yet literally cholesterol, dietary cholesterol does not cause plaque in my arteries. At all. No. I mean, in fact, the American Heart Association has got a little paragraph in, in their book. I mean, the rest of the world take the, the lead from the American Heart Association guidelines. And it actually says dietary cholesterol is no longer a molecule of concern for overconsumption. However, where's the press been? Tiny little black and white paragraph, no pictures, no glamour, nothing. And you've got to dig through it. Page 7553. Appendix Z, you know, so there's been no press on it because guess what? To have these oils is so lucrative and they are so addicting. It makes no sense for big food to switch back to butter and dairy when we didn't have cancers, when we didn't have Alzheimer's in the rates that we didn't have heart disease in the rates that we have now. So I, I've spoken to Kate Shanahan at length about this. She's a brilliant doctor. Got to read her book, Deep Nutrition. I spoke to her at length about it and she said she actually would argue that these are the, these are the culprits that are giving us heart disease. These oils are the ones that are so inflammatory. They shouldn't be in our food chain at all. Yet you go to a supermarket and try and find something without seed or vegetable, you are going to be hard pressed. It's really— and I think it's worse than sugar. Sugar. It's— it— I really do. I think the body understands sugar. I think it goes, yeah, we've had it since, you know, the— I mean, not in the abundance that we've got, but I think we've had sugar since the dawn of time in honey and fruit. So the body goes, yeah, okay, I can deal with glucose. But this stuff, this stuff is like— it's not a food, it's a detergent. You know, it's a detergent. So it will literally get stains out of your clothes. We've got, um, the— I've got 4 boys, so they play rugby, and for some reason the school has them in white shorts. I don't understand that. I'm like, so you're gonna put them in a muddy field with grass and put them in white? Brilliant, thank you. Anyway, I digress. But the stuff that gets the stains out, the grass stains and the mud stains out of like white cotton, uh, is veg oil. That lifts it out. And also if you've got outdoor furniture and it's been out for all winter and you want it to look shiny in summer, you put Veggie Oil out on it and it will, and it will literally pull all the dirt out of it. So what it is, it's a detergent and it's like, so I mean, I liken it to when you wear waterproof mascara, you have to take it off with an oil. It's the same sort of stuff. So when you put this in your mouth, which by the way, the mouth is the beginning of the gut. So within this mouth, the start of your gut, you're communicating with your brain. Brain, because all the— right the way down your digestive tract, you've got mucus. And in that mucus, you've got little receptors, hormonal receptors, that have a direct messaging system to the brain called the gut-brain axis. So when you consume something, instantly the body knows it can break down— it can break it down into amino acids. So it knows what amino acids are, have been consumed, what's available to make proteins, i.e., to heal. So for your vision, for your hair, for your nails, for your bones, for your jawbone, whatever for your gut. So as the body, as the body registers the cocktail of amino acids you've just consumed in the food, it sends a message to the brain saying, hey, you know what, we've had a load of amino acids because we've had a steak. Let's stop eating. We're fine. They send out the satiety signals, the satiety hormones kick out. But if you put this stuff in your mouth and like I said earlier, it will clean garden furniture. You put it in your mouth straight away, you are stripping the gut of that mucus. And of course, the hormone receptors will retract to protect themselves. So as you're eating, even if it is full of amino acids, so say you've got a hot dog or whatever. So, I mean, of course, shocking example, or pizza, you know, so you would have amino acids in that because of course you've got the cheese and everything. But if you've— if that base has been made using this veggie,? It's going to strip the mucus, it's going to strip the hormones. So therefore the brain never gets— it goes, I know I'm eating, but we've not got any amino acids, so we better eat more. So that's, so that's what makes these foods a gateway drug to eating more. And let's face it, these big companies, we're talking like there's 5 of them in the world, they don't care what you're eating because they probably own the next thing you're going to eat anyway.. It's not like there's a monopoly really going on and they all feed into each other. Excuse the pun, but literally you have something like, say, Pringles or something like that. You're going to probably have something sweet to finish it off because your brain's going, we're still hungry and digesting, but we've not got anything. You're eating like paper according to your brain. You're eating newspaper or something. This has got no nutritional value. Get more, you know. So this is where the cravings come from. That's why it is in every processed food because you will kick off binge eating. You will. And that to me is horrible because you're never satisfied. You never go, that was good. So that's why I don't touch it. First of all, it's going to wreck you, definitely wreck your cell membranes. I mean, this stuff can penetrate anything, including your neurotransmitters. So for me, again, brain health, I feel sluggish, I feel hungover after I have it, but also it will settle under the skin. So if you get sunburn, it's going to oxidize. Oxidize. I'm sure that's the reason why we've got so much skin cancer, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. We have tons of this stuff and then we go outside and we oxidize. And of course, you know, you're damaging your skin. We forget, we treat skin in isolation from what we're eating. It's like, why isn't there any crossover? Why is there no thought? I'm one massive machine. Surely you wouldn't treat— anyway, but as I said, it's like looking through medicine through a 1970s lens all the time.

That's what we're dealing with. No, this is— I know the damage and for the inflammation effect of the oils, but I think I really liked your point about it being actually more dangerous than sugar because we know how detrimental sugar is also for the brain, for insulin resistance that leads to Alzheimer's and all these other metabolic conditions as well. But to look more closely also at those, those oils as well. So people just to be really, really aware, just to give the caveat, and I'd like to hear your view, but for me, the exceptions to the rule around olive oil, cold-pressed olive oil ideally. Coconut oil is obviously great for cooking. I have an odorless one as well, so you don't taste all your meats tasting like coconuts. It gets a bit boring.

Yeah.

Macadamia oil and avocado oil. Do you have anything else to add to the list, Davinia?

Well, I mean, I cook in a lot of butter. I sometimes mix the butter with the olive oil and just do a fish in that, or lard if I'm high frying something. I mean, if I'm doing potatoes, it'll be goose fat, really crispy potatoes. So I'm trying to use local. I live in the countryside, so there's a lot of butchers around here that just give it away. Same with bone to make bone broth. They give it away because the market's just not there. They say, oh, just for your dogs. And I'm like, no, it's actually for me and my kids. And they're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, it's not pre-war UK. I'm like, I know. I'm actually making bone broth because I'm a kick-ass biohacker and I'm like, you're crazy. Next. I mean, there's a lot of ways to do this. I mean, everything I've mentioned is free, really. You know, you literally can go to your butcher and say, have you got any bones? And they'll charge you maybe a pound or a dollar or something, put it in a bag and they think it's for the dogs. I'm like, no, mate, that is going to be unbelievable bone broth. And then of course you can cook in, you can cook in animal fat. It's got very high smoke point. Point. So yeah, I mean, and with them, olive oil— really lucky to be, um, in South Europe, in the southern part of Europe a lot of the time, and we can get— you can get really cheap, high, high, high, um, polyphenol levels olive oil down in Spain and Corfu and stuff. So it's great. And do you know what, I think that that's something I'm really going to try and up taking because I, I have tons of MCT oil because I'm all about the brain, but because I like the instant energy. However, I really should be looking at the polyphenol content. I should be doing something a little bit more nurturing, but you can see I'm dopamine-driven.

I just like, give me more energy, you know. I have my moments too. Um, Davinia, for people who have sugar cravings, and I have a tendency for a sweet tooth if I let it, what is a protocol you recommend to help them sort of detox and stop that?

Oh yeah, that, that's super easy actually. Um, so you can pick up something called, um, L-glutamine powder. It's amino acid, tastes a bit like talc. Just putting it out there. It's not going to taste like some gorgeous almond cake or something. But when you— my mantra is get ahead of the craving. But if you forget and it comes on you quickly, this amino acid under the tongue, so half a teaspoon under the tongue, leave it 30 seconds, chase it with— definitely chase it with some fat. So if you don't drink tea or coffee or golden milk like turmeric latte, just take a teaspoon of MCT oil. I must admit I've still got a sweet tooth, so I lean into stevia an awful lot just for the psychological hook that I've got. The great thing about stevia is apparently it's anti-inflammatory, but also it won't spike your insulin and it won't wreck your gut microbiome. So yeah, get yourself a flavored stevia, as in natural vanilla, that really takes the bitterness away from it. So you're going to do half a teaspoon of L-glutamine powder under the tongue, 30 seconds, chase it with either a hot or a cold iced coffee with MCT oil in, really creamy. And yes, see how you get on and just give yourself psychological pause that you're probably in a state of habit. So you get a cue that it's 11:00 and you're snacking then, but give yourself about 3 days and you can really rework the neurochemistry going on and those signals by introducing ketones, by introducing that amino acid. And the brain will rewire very, very, very quickly until 11 o'clock is a cue for something else like, oh, I better go to the loo. And then you've got, you've got yourself out of that psychological sort of treadmill, you know, of 11 o'clock, 4 o'clock. They're the key ones for snacking, 11 o'clock 4 o'clock because everyone does lunch. I mean, I don't, I don't do lunch. I don't do it anymore unless if I'm premenstrual, I might do. 9 times out of 10, I'm just fine just hitting the collagen powders that I put in my turmeric lattes and stuff. So I'm still having— I still have calories. Remember, I have tons of calories in the form of MCT oil, but I just don't feel the need for food anymore. And I'm not like underweight, you know, I'm not underweight. I mean, I'm a hefty 10 stone. I'm only 5'5", so I'm a good 10 stone. So I'm muscle dense, you know, I'm not like this skinny thing. So yeah, I, I'm kind of happy with my, you know, my strength and overall leanness, but without being weak, you know.

Yeah, even though I'm not eating. Yeah, revolutionary for some people, Davina. So let's talk about like what you like what you eat or don't eat during the actual day, because I'm sure some people think, oh, she's just starving herself, like she's not actually eating. And let's talk about your fasting, intermittent fasting routine, and how that works for you, particularly because of hormones, right? So there is that warning around careful to not overdo it with longer prolonged periods of intermittent fasting for women because it will impact your hormones as well. But you are topping it up and having other nutrients as well, right? So Can you walk us through your typical day?

What are you actually consuming? Okay, so I get up in the morning and I don't do religious fasts or water fasts because I don't like it. You know what I mean? Like I said, I mean, I'm a— I'm an alcoholic by nature. I gave up booze 15 years ago now, but I— God, I do not like craving something. My brain will take over. And if I want something, I will do anything in my power to get it. So the last thing I want to start craving is a piece of toast. You know, that's just going to interrupt my brain. You know, I'm just going to be thinking about that instead of thinking like I'm dealing with an accountant about tax or something. And all I can think about is toast. No, that's not going to work for me. That's rubbish. So, no, I— like I said in my book, I say I count chemicals, not calories. So I have a very calorie-heavy diet. So I get my calories from MCT oil, but I also top up with nutrients. So I get up in the morning and I'll have electrolytes immediately. So I will have— I sell something called ElectroTide, which has got dandelion tea in, and that actually helps you get rid of water retention because a lot of us are slowing down with our lymph. They slow down. I think it's super important to try and flush out the toxins from the night before. But it's also got a balance of electrolytes in it. So potassium, sodium, which balance out really well because those, those electrolytes create an electrical current in your brain. That's why we— that's why they're called electrolytes, that they are electrical. They will charge together. And I need them in my brain to kick my little sluggish grey matter off in the morning because I'm about to embark on yet another bloody school run, which isn't zen, no, because we can't find our ties and the dog's got out and it's raining. And like this morning, a blazer's been left outside, outside all night soaking wet. And you know those blazers, well, they're like, I don't know what they make them from, but they are industrial wool. I mean, it's like T-Rex wool. But it just, it's gonna take a week to dry off. So that's how my morning starts, you know, and then we can't find like the book bag, blah, blah, blah. So I need as much chemistry going on in my brain to not lose my shit in the morning. So I start off with electrolytes, no calories in it, sweetened with stevia again, because I like that sweet taste. That will give me a little bit of energy, get outside, put the kettle on, get outside if it's sunny. I can have, you know, 3 minutes just looking outside, let the dogs go out for a wee,, come back in, and then the kettle's boiled, and I will do my, um, some organic coffee. I just use instant because I, I'm not one of these flipping coffee ninjas who just have to have this, that, and the other. I just, I'll just settle with instant coffee because I'm always late at this point. So I will put a teaspoon of coffee in. I will put a teaspoon of bovine collagen in. I have bovine collagen because the marine collagen I could have manufactured marine collagen, but when I started doing my due diligence on it, I'm like, well, first of all, why is it twice as expensive? Turns out it's because they've got no supporting industry around it. There's no other industry that wants fish scales and things, whereas the bovine industry has the leather trade. So that's why that's cheaper. It's not because it's a superior collagen type. It literally is just expensive because there's nowhere else to sell. There's nothing else to sell on. Also, when I try to understand— okay, I was speaking to a manufacturer and I said, okay, so I need to guarantee the batch every time. I want to know exactly we've got the same fish every time. So that's impossible because we don't know what the fish is going to be. I said, what do you mean? So what can you guarantee? It's not got shark or dolphin in it? He said, well, not really, no. I'm like, okay, well, what about crustaceans? He said, not really, no. And then I started digging and I'm like, I'm like, well, hang on a minute. What about the microplastics in the sewage? And he went, yeah, yeah, we— that's something we can't guarantee. And then when I took a little bit of a deeper dive, they don't test for any sort of like any toxins that could cause neurological distress to humans because it's different on land to what comes out of the sea. There's different laws. So I'm like, not only is it more expensive, not only is it one type of collagen, It tastes— it stinks of fish. And so you need to mask it with sweeteners and everything else and bleach it. And you, you don't know what it's eaten and you don't know where it's from. I said, okay, I'm going to go for the bovine. So I've got Swiss bovine because I literally know what blade of grass that cow has been raised on. And I know that they've been treated humanely and that they've been outside and it's nothing to do with South America. We're not chopping down rainforests or anything like that. That we are Swiss, 100% Swiss bovine collagen, which, to be honest, as a warm-blooded creature, I think the synergy between marine collagen and bovine collagen, I'd lean towards the bovine because it's warm-blooded. I mean, that's just to point it out there, as my curious mind would say. So when I spoke earlier about the body, the gut always seeking amino acids, collagen contains like 18 amino acids. So that's what the body is seeking. So I, by putting a teaspoon in and keeping it below 2 grams, which is a teaspoon, you're not going to kick off liver synthesis and you're not going to, because the liver will turn protein into sugar. That's what happens if you have too much of it. So you just keep it below 2 grams. The gut, i.e., the mouth registers these amino acids as you you put it in your tea, your coffee, or even a glass of water, you won't taste it. It's flavorless, odorless. Your body will register that and go, oh, thanks very much. Yeah, we've got our building blocks. You can get on with your day. And I'm not going to bug you with signals to go to Starbucks and get yourself a brownie because the craving isn't there. So I have in my coffee, my instant coffee, I have a teaspoon of coffee, teaspoon of collagen, probably a tablespoon of MCT and keto powder. Which is calorie high. However, my body will convert the fat in that. So remember, just, just because fat on your body is spelt the same as fat you consume doesn't mean it's the same thing. It's really lazy science, you know. So this is fat that my body, my liver, will consume, and it will convert without going via the digestive— so technically we're still fasting. It goes to the liver and the liver will convert it into ketones, which it will put in the bloodstream. From the bloodstream, it goes straight to the brain and my brain goes, ah, ketones instead of glucose. Great. No peaks and troughs because that's what glucose does, peaks and troughs in insulin, which causes the trough is the craving. So you're seeking more. So yeah, it'll sustain you for hours. And I just have— and people say to me, how many do you have a day? I said, as many as I want. If I want 10 of them, I'll have 10 of them. Because, but isn't this loads of calories? Who cares? There's no chemicals. My body's reacting differently. It's using it as a fuel. I probably need more because I'm thinking harder. That's all. So that's what I do throughout most of the day. If I'm really peckish, I'll go downstairs. I'll probably have, uh, I'll get myself like pâté or something like that. Pâté, avocado. At the moment I'm doing guacamole, with a ton of prawns in and lemon. And, and I'm trying to stay away from carbs during the afternoon because again, I just get a carb coma and I'll switch off then. So like I said earlier, my carbs will be later. So yeah, I'll just have some— I'll have some cheese, piece of meat if I really want to. But 9 times out of 10, I'm okay. As I head into winter, I'm more likely to do like a bone broth soup with just, with just maybe like a beef bone broth with some spices in, loads of chunks of beef, and I'll have that in a flask and I'll have that. But really, my big eating comes at night and I snack right the way through, through Netflix. I love it. Sat down, eat it with a big cheese board, sourdough, bit of chutney. Yeah, I mean, it's great stuff. And also protein shakes. I always have protein shakes made of bone broth. I swerve all the vegan pea, soy-based ones. Again, soy will wreck— it's, it's another endocrine disruptor which I'm led to believe, uh, boosts estrogen, bad estrogen. So again, PMT, man boobs, cellulite, low mood, engorged breasts, belly fat, back fat as well. So yeah, I, I'm bloating, so I avoid that. And the thing is with plant-based protein is we all know it comes from China. We all know that the glyphosate laws are nothing like what we have in Europe. So I'm sorry, I'm not dancing with that devil. Thank you very much. I want to know that my bone broth— I want to know my protein is real protein, not something— well, just an industrialized byproduct, really. You know, it's just more chemical load. And again, that's going to impact my liver, which is going to impact my brain, and then I'm going to feel sluggish. And then, oh my God, will I be drinking again? I mean, the knock-on, the root cause is, is the amount of chemicals that we've got in our bodies. The root cause of brain fog is the amount of toxic chemicals we've got in our bodies. And we've just got to unpick it and just be aware that even though it's got gorgeous plant-based packaging, it's a chemical shitstorm. Just turn it around, count the ingredients.

If you see soy, if you see sunflower oil, put it back. Exactly. And just know and be super aware. So let's say people listening are all empowered now and they're like, okay, no more oils, etc. But what if they have a lot of toxins in their body? What would you recommend in terms of detoxing? Right. So first we just omit it, but how about saunas and other modalities to help expedite the detoxification process?

What would you recommend? Well, I definitely need support with my detox. I do have quite a sluggish liver just because I know, because I've done DNA tests, I don't convert NAC very well to glutathione, our master antioxidant. So I support my liver as much as I can. I don't drink alcohol, but I do get stressed, so that ends up in the liver. I do travel a lot, so I'm up and down into London I'm living in the 21st century. I'm surrounded by chemicals. You're kidding me. I cross the road, it's like 10 lorries go past. Of course. So for me, detoxing the liver, the fastest way for me to do it would be to do a niacin flush, which is great. So niacin is vitamin B3, and it was actually mentioned a lot in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a guy called Bill W., who was a big advocate of it. He developed Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a spiritual program, but he also found vitamin B3 really helped stop people relapsing. And I just think a cheap little vitamin like that, it should be on people's radar, but it's not. A doctor will just tell you to, I don't know, cut down a bit. I mean, why are you— oh really, you want me to cut down on wine? How silly of me. I should have realized that That was the answer. Oh yeah, like I'd not thought of that. Drinking wine in the morning, you moron. I'm not doing it through choice. So the reason why you drink is because of a depleted neurotransmitter system. That, that's that. But you know, doctors don't acknowledge that. They just tell you you've got a lack of willpower. No, you've got a lack of nutrients, um, often triggered by trauma as childhood. That can rock your neurotransmitters. And again, Sometimes it was just like me, I've got ADHD, so I'm low on dopamine. So I sought— I seeked it out there, and it was wine that gave me the dopamine and bread. So, you know, you could take— I mean, you could have put heroin in me, I would have thought, and I said no thank you very much. But take away my wine and my white folding bread, we've got an issue. We've got a major issue. So yeah, it's like know the devil, and my devil is those two products. Um, yeah, so what I need to do to detox is, um, I got myself a little pop-up sauna because, I mean, I can't really afford one of these big fandangle biohacking ones, they're about £15,000. But I needed a sauna because when I lived in London there was one, uh, in my gym and I used to really enjoy going in there because I just started my biohacking journey and it was infrared. So where do you get an infrared sauna in the north of England? You don't, but you buy a little pop-up one, it's about £200, and I have used it virtually every night since lockdown. So we're talking like 3 years, and I swear it saved my marriage. But it's really good for things like estrogen dominance, for PMT, or for just actually feeling a little bit less than. So a low serotonin. So if you feel a little bit like not cozy, you know, you feel a bit antsy, it's the best, fastest way to do it apart from increasing the cold would be to hack your the heat as well. And the great thing about these little pop-up infrared saunas, you can fold them down next to your bed. But I sit it right in front of my telly next to my bed, which, by the way, my husband has decided to use as a storeroom for his tools because he's a builder, because the site got robbed and some of the tools went. So now I have to navigate in our already tiny house actual orbital Sander's next to me. But anyway, and we wonder why I need to detox. I'm just like so stressed because he won't put it in the garage because he thinks that's going to get robbed as well. However, no, I sit in this little sauna for 45 minutes watching TV and you can take some vitamin B3, niacin. And what it does, it's— take a very small dose to start off with, start off with 50mg and you can work your way up. Your tolerance goes really quick. But it makes you flush almost like you've had an allergic reaction to something, but it's just your blood vessels dilating. Feel a bit of adrenaline in your stomach as well, but you're flush. And what it does is it releases— it gets into the fat cells where you store an awful lot of estrogen and toxins in your fat cells, and it releases it and you can sweat it out. Phenomenally quick detox. I think the firefighters in 9/11 did this when they were in that chemical fire.. And you can actually see the chemicals coming out like black. And there's a YouTube video of a guy coming out of a chem— he was in a chemical fire, looked perfectly normal, did the niacin flush protocol and used a white towel to wipe away the sweat. And it was black, like these little micro chemicals that were in there, heavy metals and stuff. So it's a really cheap, fast way to do it. And I generally chase my my sauna, which I do most nights actually whilst watching Netflix with a cold, cold shower. And what that does is that, that first of all puts me in fight or flight. So my sympathetic system kicks off. So you get a bit of the shock, but then all of a sudden when the body adapts, it says, oh, it's okay, we're not dying, we're fine. The parasympathetic hormones kick in and my body already knows what time of day it is because my— I don't wear sunglasses. Acids, so it knows it's nighttime. I've already had the carbohydrates, so it's already getting ready for bed, and it just releases even more of the parasympathetic hormones like your oxytocin— cozy, loving— like your serotonin, and then which then trips into melatonin. So yeah, I, I get ready for bed. And another great thing to do if you're really, um, if you chatter a lot in your head before bed is get yourself a little spike mat about £11, $12 on, on Amazon and just lie on that for 10 minutes and just watch the TV. I mean, I'm not anti-TV. If you really struggle with sleep, you could get blue-blocking glasses, which these are. I just got them on Amazon again, like a tenner, and it blocks the blue light because, you know, you need to protect your eyes. Again, a message in the brain of what hormones to pump out. If you really have trouble sleeping or you get twitchy legs, you could take magnesium glycinate, very popular, uh, to just relax you. And one of my favorite things for a chattery brain is taking L-theanine, another amino acid that just really calms that brain down. In fact, when I have afternoon coffees, I have an L-theanine capsule, super cheap, you know, and it just stops insomnia later. So I can still have that caffeine lift while I'm doing the school run at 4 or 5 o'clock without worrying about the impact on my sleep like 5 hours later at 10 o'clock. So L-theanine, really good for occasional— well, constant panic as well. I know a lot of girls who've come off anti-anxiety and just gone on to L-theanine and then tapered off. It increases your GABA. GABA is your anti-anxiety hormone, and it just gives you a sense of, I'm okay, takes the edge Really powerful, but it doesn't make you drowsy, so you can still drive.

Brilliant.

I mean, I think every woman should have it, really. In fact, everyone should have it, and teenagers. In fact, I gave it my son before his exams this year. He was sitting his big exams at school, and he had those just before, because it helps you focus as well.

It stops all the panic in the head. Brilliant. Yeah, that's super helpful for kids, especially in school and the exams pressure as well. So that's, that's a good follow-up. Davinia, I normally ask the question if, but I'm going to use the word when with you. So when you live to 150 years old with excellent health, how will you be spending your time?

Hopefully on the beach. I think, you know, I need sunlight, I need sunsets, I need constant contact with the earth, I need to see vast space. So yeah, I'm going to find myself a nice beach and I want loads of coconuts. I want loads of fresh fish, fresh meat, basically Robinson Crusoe style, but obviously with really good Wi-Fi because I'm super nosy and I love watching Netflix and reels of cats and dogs. That's my guilty pleasure. But yeah, so yeah, desert island, people I love available on the phone. So yeah, and they can come visit when I invite them, but otherwise Otherwise, yeah, leave me to it.

I've had enough. Amazing. Divinia, what excites you most about the future of health and well-being and longevity over the coming years and beyond?

The fact that we can like stop fearing getting old and suffering and Alzheimer's. I mean, I'm looking into, um, uh, using MCT oil to— I'm looking at studies actually about MCT oil being used as to alleviate Alzheimer's because I think everyone is terrified of Alzheimer's. My mum died of cancer, so obviously I'm looking at this estrogen dominance thing. She had breast cancer, and the fact that nobody talks about it is crazy. I'm like, you know, of course it's going to be— it needs to be discussed. Of course women are getting breast cancer because of estrogen dominance. You crazy. I'm just looking forward for someone, some powerful person to come in and say the conflict of interest within the health system is so bad, we're shutting the whole thing down and starting again.

That would be amazing. But I think— I mean, look, it— there are some benefits for people who, who need it.

So I, I don't across the board just say like no one is, is good. But I think there's always someone profiting. Even if for every person that they, that they cure of cancer, you know, some guy's getting rich down the other end. And I, I find that crazy because, you know, most of the medicines were developed generations ago, and all we do is tweak it and just re-patent it. So really, the brilliance, the brilliance should be for humankind, not for one particular pharmaceutical company. You know, that's what I think. But yeah, I love the fact that people are now questioning it. They go, hang on, because I never used to— like, oh yeah, you're a doctor, you know more. But now I understand.

I'm like, what are you talking about? That's not right.

They don't have any nutrition training. And that's the real— or endocrine. They don't know about hormones either. So if I was to say to a doctor, yeah, I've got anxiety, what do you think of L-theanine? He'd say, oh, I don't know about that. No, I wouldn't advise that. I don't know enough about it. It's a friggin amino acid that you get in green tea. Come on. You know?

Yeah.

But meanwhile, you can have this diazepam to an addict. You're right. You can have diazepam. I'm a junkie, man. You can't give me that. I mean, fair enough, I'm a junkie when it comes to white bread and wine, as we said. But, you know, even so, that sort of thing could take me back to—

Tendencies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's my daughter. Yeah. And so I think it's so important that people realize it's about empowering yourself, making choices, getting educated, and you can turn your whole life around and just live so well for longer. And that's the benefit. And I love your philosophy in terms of like, get the brain right. The body will follow. So beautiful. Davinia, where can people follow you, see what you're up to and learn more about you?

And we'll link this all in the show notes. Oh, great. Okay. So on Instagram, it's @davinia_taylor, D-A-V-I-N-I-A Taylor. And I do actually have a company called Willpowders because literally I'm sick of people having to use their own willpower to try and lose weight. So that's why I brought out these powders so you can put it in your tea and your coffee and just be able to press pause on that compulsive eating. So yeah, Willpower has got tons of information, loads of blogs there, and I've written a couple of books that you can buy on Amazon. So that's, um, It's Not a Diet and Hack Your Hormones. And I'm going to be writing another one next year, so I'm looking forward to that.

But yeah, I'm here, there, and everywhere. Amazing.

Davinia, do you have a final ask, recommendation, or any parting thoughts or message for my audience today? Yeah, just, um, you can literally start your day at any time, right? So you can— if you mess up at breakfast, don't worry, we can tweak it at night with like— just think, just think of the— your shower and your bath as two of your best friends from now on. So if you have a bit of a dodgy day, Fill your bath up, get some Epsom salts in it. That's the magnesium that your body can transdermally absorb. Sit in there, listen to a podcast, 40 minutes, get so hot that the pulse is in your head, and then turn on your shower ice cold. And you've just done your first bit of biohacking. So I think, you know, so even if you don't start the day right, even if you don't, if you've been scoffing all day and having like takeaway cafe food or whatever, you can finish your day right. And I think, I think ending the day sometimes is easier. It sets you up for a good night's sleep, you know? So you don't need to buy all this fandangled equipment. You've got your bath. You don't even need the Epsom salts, to be perfectly honest. Fill your bath up. You could actually just put some bicarbonate of soda in it. You could put some apple cider vinegar and do a detox bath, actually, if you've not got that in. But the whole point is altering your your body temperature and just feeling the impact of that on your body. And by the time you've come out of a bath after 40 minutes of that hot, hot bath, you cannot wait for that ice. And I think, you know, make sure you get it all down the back of your neck and up the soles of your feet. And just 15 seconds, you might actually want to do more. And yeah, you've started biohacking.

But definitely get some MCT oils in your kitchen and start your day with some MCT It's a game changer. Beautiful, Davinia. Thank you so much for coming on today and all your wisdom and insights.

It's been such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for having me.