mp3 TinaToft Final 100524

This is a podcast episode featuring Tina Toth, a highly respected Ayurvedic practitioner and author. She shares her journey from starting a small sandwich business to becoming Europe's largest independent sandwich manufacturer. After selling the business, she pursued Ayurvedic medicine and trained in India. Ayurveda focuses on prevention and finding balance in mind, body, and spirit. Mindfulness and chewing food properly are important aspects of Ayurvedic practice. Welcome to Feeding the Best podcast where I invite extraordinary people to share their challenges and successes in life and business, as well as any food stories they may have, the good, the bad, and even the ugly. So my name is Hannah and I help high performers break through destructive eating cycles and overeating disorders so they can enjoy food and live their most fulfilled lives. Today I am so excited because I've got a dear friend, Tina Toth, on here with me. She's a highly sought after Ayurvedic practitioner. She deals with diet and lifestyle. She's also a medical herbalist and nutritionist who has mastered the science of Ayurvedic medicine and bring it in to work alongside Western medicine. She's the author of two books and she's also a highly respected public speaker. And if that wasn't enough, in the 90s, she started a little sandwich business in her home kitchen, which grew to become Europe's largest independent sandwich and party food manufacturer, with two of her customers being Waitrose and Sainsbury's. Welcome to Success, Tina. Hello. Lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me, Hannah. Tina, we first met in 2001 on the beach in Antigua. I think it was first our husbands got together because they've both got a massive passion for beaches, the racing sailboats and the beer. Indeed. I think it starts with number three. I think it really does start with number three, the rum bar. You know, we got together, the four of us, and we really clicked. We were there with our young families who were looked after during the day and we just had so much fun that year, didn't we? We did. And so much so that we had more holidays together afterwards and maintained that friendship. Yes. And now what's your journey from then to here and how much has changed? And I've even been on a couple of your retreats and one of them was actually life-changing for me. And we'll go on to that a bit later. You know, this is a big build-up, but I promise I'm getting there. Tina, you've had several very successful different careers in your life. Take us back right to the beginning and share what your career path looks like. Yes, I have had a number of careers. I tend to think of them sometimes as different lives within one life because they're quite varied. And that's why I do say to people, never think that where you are is where you're going to end up because life is full of twists and turns. But it started out for me at about 18 when I did my nurse training, general nurse training. So that was three years. And then after that, I decided to have fun and I went off and joined the airlines. I joined British Caledonian and then British Airways for a few years and had a great time doing that. Saw the world and that was lovely. And then after joining the airlines, I met my husband and we had, I got married and had a daughter. So that put a stop to my gallivanting around the world. I had a great time. And yes, then I had Victoria, I had my first child. And then after that, I started a sandwich business, which was really my husband's idea. And he'd always, he was working in, he'd always had this idea to start sandwiches on a larger scale, but we started it very small. And of course, he had a career at the time, so, and I didn't because I'd stopped working to have a daughter. So we'd lost one income anyway. And I was one of those women, we're all different, but I wasn't completely satisfied with just being at being at home, not just being, but being at home all day in a different area, no family around me. So to start working was the best thing that I could do. And so I started this small business in our kitchen. And it grew from there. And after a number of few years, my husband gave up his job and the company car and all that sort of stuff. And we both went into it full time. We had a number of, we had a number of small factories. Yeah. And so it just grew. 15 years later, we finally sold the business, but it was a big journey. I always say it took its pound of flesh, as it were. But there we are. So that was my main career from that point of view. And then when we sold Toft Foods in 2001, I think it was, that was a time for reflection. I mean, I was completely burnt out. We were both completely burnt out. It was a time for reflection. I had always pursued a yoga type. I danced in the past when I was a teenager and, you know, ballet and that. And I've always loved yoga, loved the exercise element of it. But as I got older, I enjoyed more the spiritual side of things. And then, and so with this time of reflection, I decided to pursue what I'm doing now. What were the reasons? Is there any particular reason or a particular moment that turned you to Aria Veda? Well, when we had Toft Foods, I'd always been interested in the food. The company grew quite quickly. It was one of the top hundreds of fastest growing companies in the country at that time. This is in The Times. And this was before, just before we sold it, we sold to Unique PLC. I'd always, I had sort of steered myself really within, we employed about 500 people at the time. I had always had an interest in food, in food design, in food development, in food technology of how the whole thing fits together, taste and so on and so forth. And obviously from a commercial point of view as well. I think the health side of the development just grew and it was something that I'd always nurtured. And then when we had sold the business and we were living abroad at the time, I just decided that I felt that we need, you know, I needed to do something else. I was doing yoga, but there was something missing and I missed the food elements very much so. I missed the food elements in my life and what I'd been doing. I just by chance happened to be, I think I mentioned this to you recently, but by chance I was in London and I saw this food course being advertised. I thought, oh, I should go to that and it was purely by chance. It was an Ayurvedic food course and I remember thinking this is holistic, you know, this is going back a number of years, you know, the word holistic was not used as it is today. But I went along and had a look and there was an Indian Ayurvedic doctor there called Dr. Kulkarni and it was quite a life-changing experience to hear him. There were a couple of hundred people in the hall. And essentially what I felt he was doing is he was holding a mirror up to Western health. And that's how it felt to me. And he was talking about personal responsibility and choice, what was happening with the Western diet in terms of heart disease, diabetes too, diverticulosis, you know, digestive issues. And I'd never heard this angle, this way of looking at it. I suppose I was steeped in, as we all were at the time, you know, it's just happened. But actually I never thought of the fact that perhaps we could take a little bit more responsibility and look at our health. And there were no health food brands around at that time, you know, there weren't many health food brands. And so I was hooked and it just resonated, it was like a light bulb moment. And I thought there's definitely more to this. And then I went off, literally a time later, I went off and trained with him in India at his clinic, in his Ayurvedic clinic in India. And that was it. And then I, that was probably about 15 years ago, perhaps a bit more, I've trained ever since. And I believe that there's this eats, meets West, you know, we've got so much right in the West and we haven't, we've got so much wrong and likewise. So it's this blend of the two that we can work on our health a little bit more. Yes. And I think in Western medicine, we tend to deal with symptoms. You have an ache or a pain and you look to try and stop that ache and the pain. You don't look for the root cause of it. But in Ayurveda, it's a completely different, it's about prevention. We were sharing the other day when we chatted, it's a completely different philosophy, which I think everyone would actually benefit from knowing a little about, don't you agree? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is it in a nutshell, Ayurveda is very much about prevention rather than cure. So it's how you live your life. It's finding that balance, that harmony. The other element that is so important in Ayurveda, which is now becoming more prevalent, quite rightly so in the West, is the mindfulness. And so the human physiology, it's not just about what's happening on a cellular level, what's happening physically with us. We can keep going to the gym and running around the block and doing whatever physically, eating diet foods if that's what, but in actual fact, if the mind isn't involved, so it's got to be a three-pronged approach. And that is, it's got to be the mind, body, and the spirit. And essentially everything comes back to what we eat, but it all begins in the mind. Oh, I completely agree. And all the problems around food and overeating, which is where I specialize, they're all steeped deeply in the mind. And it's the mind that I have to deal with first before we can take them on the journey. And when you talk about mindfulness, I think also, and one of the things I get my clients to do is chew their food. Well, it's really important to chew the food, just on a, again, it sounds a very, very simple thing, but when you start looking at Ayurveda, you realize that the very simple things are what count. It's not the big things, it's the small things because they add up to better health. And if you don't masticate the food or if you're just having smoothies all the time, you're not masticating the food, so you're not releasing the right digestive enzymes. The signals don't go to the brain to tell the stomach to expect food, it hits the stomach far too quickly. And, you know, we can cope with these things now and again, but if that becomes the norm, that's when the imbalance arrives. So if we're having smoothies every day, because it's quick, because it's convenient, and we're piling in every ingredient we can think of under the sun because it ticks a healthy box. So we've got in there spinach, avocado, banana, berries, seeds, nuts. I mean, you can imagine all that, and your stomach goes, what the hell are you sending down here in a liquid form, and it's trying to process it all, and there's no time involved. The process is missing. And the other thing is, food should be enjoyable. It should look pleasant. It should taste pleasant. We have what we call the six tastes in Ayurveda, which is sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and astringent. And we say, if your meal has those flavours or those tastes, then your mind will be satiated. And if the mind is satiated, then the body will be satiated. So you know it's when you've eaten that food, and you think, you know, that was just right. That food was just me. But if you're just cramming everything in because it's meant to be healthy, it's just ticking the Western box, essentially. It's not ticking any other box. Yes, getting your five a day, which used to be what they say, you need a lot more now to get the nutrition that you want, because of the way of the processing, you know, in the manufacturing industry, which to me, is a crime against humanity at the moment. It is. I mean, you know, since the, we sort of say, since the Industrial Revolution is when it really all began, and where food was taken, you know, and there was huge benefits to the Industrial Revolution, of course there were, but when you look at the way food was transported around the world relatively quickly by boat then, before we had planes, so things started to change then. I mean, Ayurveda, as you know, is 5,000 years old, and the human physiology has taken time to evolve. And we have a saying that unless something has been around for 100 years, what of interest is? Let me see what's happened in 100 years, and we're not here for it. But if things are moved around quite so quickly, they don't ripen on the trees. We are eating, in the northern hemisphere, Kiwi in January, you know, and again, on occasion, it's not going to do any harm, but if it's regularly done, it wears the body down. The body is an engine, and it needs looking after. Yes, so much so. That's another thing, you know, if your mind's not satiated, then you'll still feel this hunger. But it's also, if you're not getting the right nutrition, you will also still feel hungry. Your hunger will never be satiated. And I think this is the thing with binge eating, this is another element to it. Because people are grabbing fast food, highly processed food, all the nutrition's been stripped out of it before the ingredients actually form the final food process. You know, scientists have manufactured it in a science lab, and we're shrumming it down our throats quickly because we're running for a train or the next meeting or, you know, whatever it is that we're doing that our hectic lifestyles lead to, your body is not getting the nutrition. And you can never eat enough of that type of food to ever satiate your appetite. It's not until your stomach says, I cannot take any more of this bowl, some people actually stop eating, which is horrifying, really. It's just sort of swelling up so much, if it's sort of things like smoothies, and there's so much volume there that it's sort of like, you know, sloshing of all these. And it's so complex, you know, more than one protein at a time, you know, one of the things I suggest to people is eat one protein. You don't need five. You don't need to have three different types of meat and a fish and this and a cheese and everything else in a meal. One protein is enough. It's just taking it down a notch and simplifying things. Yeah, absolutely. So let's, let's move on now to spice and herbs, because I know this is one of your favorite, well, it's one of my favorite topics, but let's put it that way. We in the West tend to use herbs and spices to make food taste better. And I believe we're completely ignorant, and I wasn't until you started telling me about it, about the value of these herbs and spices. Share with us a little bit of that, because your kitchen is like a pharmacy. Yes, and all our kitchens should be a pharmacy. If you go back to our ancestors and our grandparents and things, they had things in their kitchen cupboard that would help us with certain things. We have a saying that was full of these things, but for every ailment on the planet, Mother Nature has given us a cure. So for every imbalance, there is a balance. And life on every level, physically, mentally, emotionally, it's all about finding that balance. But spices and herbs do a number of things. They are little powerhouses. They are powerhouses of vitamins and minerals, whether it be dry or fresh, there's no preference there. It doesn't matter whether you're using dry ginger or fresh ginger when it comes, both are very medicinal and very healthy. But as well as these herbs and spices, and I call a herb and a spice the same thing, so let's call them all herbs, because when we say spice, people tend to think of hot, spicy food. And in fact, herbs, rosemary is a herb and a spice, and that is not hot and spicy. But when we look at the powerhouses of vitamins and minerals, and if I take a couple of examples, cinnamon being one. So cinnamon, as well as it being a little, it has lots of manganese, magnesium, it's very high in vitamin K, and so many other vitamins and minerals in it. It's how it works too. And one of the things, it's a really good point, a good idea to have cinnamon in the morning because cinnamon acts on the pancreas. And as we know, the pancreas, that little tiny organ that sits behind the stomach, that releases insulin and it triggers the release of insulin. And vitamin K and cinnamon help balance that. So cinnamon, when we have cinnamon in the morning, it helps balance our sugar levels. So that's just one little thing. We also look at something like turmeric. Now, turmeric, as we know, has been in the press of late in the last couple of years, and people are taking it in the capsule form, which I don't necessarily suggest, to be honest. I do believe that we should have these things in our food if we can, rather than taking them in capsule form. But that is typical of the West, you know, we want a pill for everything instead of looking a little bit deeper and saying, how could we use this in our cooking? Turmeric is a wonderful spice because it is anti-inflammatory, it is anticoagulant. So if you have a little cut in the kitchen, a little tiny cut, you could put your finger into some where the cut is and it will clot the blood. So it's anticoagulant, it's antiseptic topically. So there's all sorts of... It also has the six tastes in it. Turmeric is one of those that has the six tastes. Saffron is another beautiful herb and spice, again, full of magnesium. They would take magnesium capsules, but actually we could have herbs and spices because there's magnesium in the herbs and spices. And they're accumulative, they're only small amounts. So it's just little and little. You couldn't eat a whole spoonful of cinnamon, so you cannot overeat it. And then there's European spices. It's not just spices that are grown out in the East, but we look at rosemary in our gardens here, all the lovely European spices that we grow. And we need to use them more and more in our cooking because they are packed full of vitamins and minerals. Which is what our pre-prepared foods are lacking. I mean, a quick fix to eating ready meals and pre-prepared foods is to have... I mean, whether we live in an abundant garden or whether we live in a small apartment, we have a windowsill that we could put a little pot of rosemary on it, which would be there all year round. And we can take that pot of rosemary and chop it up and put that into a ready meal. And that's not going to be something that you cook from scratch, but there are levels and there are things that we can do to help facilitate having ready meals if we've got those really busy days. Certainly can. And it's so helpful. Just it adds a different flavour to your food, doesn't it? I mean, there's nothing like fresh herbs in your food. I mean, fresh basil, even on a pizza. It's just delicious. So much nicer than these heritage herbs you used to get in jars that are probably about 800 years old. By using herbs and spices in our food, we can beef up the natural vitamins and minerals. We can beef up our satisfaction, our food satisfaction, because it triggers in the mind. And then they also have a medicinal process for us. So, for example, come Christmas time, we use a lot of heavy spices because our bodies are cold and so we need warm spices. So we use in a red wine punch, for example, we use cloves and lots of things like that. To use cloves in the middle of summer, we would have to reduce it practically. Well, we take it back down to nothing because we couldn't use cloves then. So spices change the dimension of food and they also benefit us in so many ways. There are cooling spices. So we know in the summer we put cooling coriander leaf on our salad and it's quite cooling to taste. We call it the Vipak of the taste. But the post digestive effect of coriander leaf is it's quite heating. So it starts off cool, but when we consume it, it's heating. However, the seed, the coriander seed, which is the king of that particular plant, is very, very cooling indeed. So if you remember when you came on the retreat with me, I made coriander juice for us all because it cools, it goes through the liver. It's very cooling. It cools the blood. It's great for hot flushes. It's great for hangovers. So it's just a teaspoon, three teaspoons of coriander seed. I mean, there are lots and lots of things that are, cumin seed is very high in the B vitamins. So if you're deficient on certain vitamins, then you can use more of these herbs. So that's why I tend to make up little parcels of them and printing them on the food at the last minute or at the beginning. And the reason why I make them for my patients is because they're very easily burnt. And so they're tiny little seeds, you know, the coriander seed or the fennel seed or the cumin seed. And they're little powerhouses, as I say, of vitamins and minerals. And so they're very easily burnt. And when they're burnt, they become very acrid. And so over the years, I just thought, you know, it's easy if I make it for you. So I release the oils and then that sort of powder, of course, is different. You can't burn them because they're powder. But anyway, herbs and spices. A little in the summer, all the herbs that you can have in the garden or on your windowsill, a rosemary pot, some basil you can get in the different flavors. I had chocolate basil last year. I grew that one. It was incredible. So it was the leaf, but it did have a flavor of chocolate. Mint basil. Well, mint in itself is lovely. You know, you can put that into your homemade lemonade. I mean, if that's not that difficult to make, a homemade lemonade. And then put the leaves in it. And then you're getting the release of all those vitamins and minerals. So it's a wonderful way of getting nutrition into children as well. Yes, because you could always add these to their foods, can't you? You know, especially children that hate vegetables. How many children hate green vegetables? Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, by putting in some of these herbs and spices, they tend to react quite well to those, you know, if they're timely. You know, rosemary, a sprig of rosemary in a stew or in a sauce and then taken thrown out at the end. You've got all the benefits of it. Tina, your current business. You've got a fantastic website, a beautiful website, tinatofts.com. You provide natural solutions for well-being, which are inspired by Aria Vader on this. Who are your main clients and what health issues do you help? My main clients are women. It's just gravitated that way, being a woman. I think that we sort of identify with what we're going through. The type of conditions that I, it's varying. I mean, Aria Vader itself, the actual meaning of the word Aria Vader means science of life. Aria being life and vida being knowledge. And so as a practitioner, it covers everything, essentially. There's an opinion on everything for everything. The type of niggles, some things at the moment, I'm seeing a lot of women with obviously hormonal issues because there's a lot of that, a lot of breast cancer. I'm seeing some of my clients, a lot of breast cancer and digestive issues, bloating, Crohn's disease, reflux, acid reflux, that sort of stuff. And the other thing that I'm seeing an increase in at the moment is kidney disease. I'm seeing a lot of kidney disease. Yeah, so I'm doing at the moment a lot of low sodium and low potassium diets to help people with that. But hopefully if I can see women when they're younger before these symptoms or issues become a problem. So to start talking to women before their perimenopausal to discuss if their periods aren't going well, if their periods weren't going well for them and they were suffering with symptoms at the age of 14 and 16, it needs writing then. We need to sort it out. We need to help redress the balance, the hormonal imbalance. So that's essentially what I'm doing. And some of the issues are just small things that won't go away, like the bloating. It just niggles away, getting bloated, feeling tired, fatigued, that sort of thing. And just general discomfort. Yeah, and I think just feeling out of balance, knowing something isn't right. And I think when that happens, we must really pursue that because we should be feeling healthy. You know, if we're getting more than three colds a year and our immune system is low, we need to get on it. It won't just write itself. We need to start digging. And we go to our GP and he says, I can't find anything wrong with you, but you know that there's something not right. Then you have to keep digging. You have to keep digging. You have to try to discover what it is that's creating and causing that imbalance. Because if it's something in the mind, whether it be emotional, a relationship, a job, bereavement, any of that, if it's not addressed, eventually these things will manifest into physical disorders. Yes. And I'm also really excited because you're launching an Ayurvedic weight loss program imminently, aren't you? Can you share a bit about that? Well, the weight loss program, I've had a weight loss program and a detox program. I've separated the two out because the sum to detox is quite different, really. If somebody has a couple of stones in weight that they wish or that from a health point of view they need to lose, then we need to lose that. We need to really get that off, especially if it's damaging the health, you know, and they're heading towards diabetes, too, and one thing or another, and coronary heart disease, and so on. And it's really, they're really struggling. So that health needs to be addressed. That weight needs to come off and addressed. And then once that is done, then we can look at detoxifying and focus on that. Because to detoxify is, a couple of times a year, is really important. So, and I've written a book on both of those that come with the whole plan. But where the detox can be short and sharp, I mean, every detox every night when we go to bed, that's a detoxification. A weight loss plan is highly personal and highly bespoke and may take up to three to five years, you know, as a long-term plan. And that's fine, because very often that weight didn't arrive in six months, you know, it arrived over perhaps a decade, or even two, or even three. And so we cannot look for, in my view, we have to be realistic and say, if it took that long to get there, there isn't a magic pill that's going to make it just fade away in a month. And that's not the sensible way it goes. So if that is the case, then I'm not going to be able to help somebody if they have that mindset. So, yeah, so it's a plan that's bespoke and it's like, you know, yourself, you're dealing with the mind. But when I'm doing this, of course, I will make the recipes and the diet plans and the whole lifestyle plan to go along with the actual weight loss. And then I'm making those, you know, there's no use me making recipes or developing recipes for people with foods that they don't enjoy or they've never eaten in their life. You know, somebody, you know, then I need to, I need to glean what type of foods people will like and what they will tolerate. And I need to gradually change their taste buds as well. And so that they, you know, very often people are deficient in protein, for example, and they could be very overweight, but be hungry because a lot of empty calories and, you know, they're not getting the protein and they're getting very fatigued if they're not getting enough protein. So there's a lot of there's a lot of discovery to find out what what is being eaten. And before we can, you know, start working towards having decent proteins and decent foods within their meal plan. From what I've heard and having been on several of your retreats, everyone that I've met is highly respectful of your methods and your ways and the food is absolutely delicious as well. As I said, I have been on a couple of your retreats. I think the first was a yoga retreat in Spain and then the second was a bit later. It's a five day detox retreat in Tarifa with 10 wonderful women. It was a trip I went on because I was intrigued. I thought I just need to detox. It's about April and honestly, after Christmas and winter and just eating some of my comfort foods, drinking probably a little bit too much wine here and then, I just thought, oh, that would just be so lovely to go somewhere beautiful and just refresh and renew and a bit of yoga and things I don't normally do. I went there, but what I didn't expect was this life changing switch. It was like for me, a switch was turned. For anyone that doesn't know my story, I struggled for over 30 years with bulimia on and off. Sometimes I'd have a couple of years remission, but as soon as I realized, oh my God, I've got control of this, I would self-sabotage. It was ridiculous and I was so locked in this, but I was of the fixed mindset that if you eat too much, you put on weight. So I come to your detox route. I knew it wasn't going to be juice alone or fasting. I knew it wasn't going to that and I knew there was going to be delicious food because people don't always understand what detoxing is and basically it's putting the good stuff in instead of the bad stuff. That's detoxing indeed. Yeah, and I think the first breakfast I sat down, they had a lovely breakfast and they said, well, that's course one. Now we've got course two and three and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, so I've had more than I normally eat for breakfast anyway. And then there were two more courses and I thought, well, I better go along with the program because that's why I'm here. Let's see what happens. Two, three course meals a day, delicious varied foods made by this incredible cook, Linda, who has made them to your direction. And at the end of it, I left feeling fantastic. But also when I got home, I realized I'd lost weight and that just blew my mind. You can actually eat good, healthy, wholesome food and a lot of it and actually lose weight. And I didn't actually have much weight to lose at the time. But I think the learning and the switch that turned in me is, my God, it's easy. Yeah. And I think you relaxed more then, didn't you? You sort of, it was a life changing thing. I didn't know about the bulimia before the retreats and there were lots of lectures and talks and things. Yeah, I mean, the food was ayurvedically balanced or tridosha so that everything always had the sixth taste. Yeah. So it was balanced from that point of view. The portion size was, it was the other thing. You know, it wasn't, there weren't huge, there wasn't a side portion of chips, which sometimes we do, I believe. I know that I do. I do a side portion of chips because my meal is not substantial enough and I'm hungry. I've been running around, I've been doing this, that and the other. And I think sometimes we do, we have some quick chips then. But in actual fact, if I was at home cooking, I would have made sure that I'd had enough protein and enough vegetables. I wouldn't stop and think about it every time, but I'd just cook a meal that I wouldn't necessarily think of making chips because I'd have enough of my nutritious food there. And I think if we're eating nutritious foods, we start to, the mind, it's breaking that cycle and it's hard if people are feeling low. They've been going through mental turmoil as everybody does because we're all humans and there's always something going on in our lives. And so it's sometimes hard to find the energy to make the changes. But one of the reasons that we, when we detox is we detox at the change of the season. I work very much with the rhythms of the planet, if you like, and the rhythms of nature. We don't want to be doing that in December, for example, or November when, you know, you're just starting to lay down layers and the body naturally wants to hibernate. And come the spring, the whole planet is working with you. You know, we want to get out there. We want to sort of make changes, get our hair cut, do this, do that. So we want to lose a little bit of weight. And it's quite natural to want to lose a little bit of weight in the spring. And we should. We don't want to be carrying the stodge and the heaviness of winter, both mentally and physically. So that's one of the reasons why we detox in the spring, so that we get rid of that whole winter weight. And if you do that every year, and it's not a diet as such as a calorie controlled diet, but if we detoxify from that point of view, then we emerge into the summer as we should be. Because what happens is every year we add another couple of pounds and another couple of pounds and another couple of pounds. And come July and August, you're not going to get rid of them because it's right in the middle of summer. Everything's happening. Everybody's on holiday. Everybody's going to diet then. And nobody wants to do it. But in the spring, it's like we merge out. We go, yes, we've got that energy. We want to make changes in our life mentally and physically. And that is the time to work, you know, to get things on side, get all your ducks lined up in a row and then go for it. And for anyone that actually does want to make some changes, having listened to you now, you have a three-step plan available, don't you? Yes, I have a three-step plan. And that is to, essentially, it takes people through a journey to get them to an inner controlled manner for them, essentially. The first stage of that is a discovery. So that's me discovering everything I possibly can about my client. So their medical history, both current and historical, the menstruation that they've had over the years, the births that they've had, any illnesses and so on, the life that they're living, the jobs that they do. I mean, when you think, you know, you go in to see a GP for 10 minutes and you've got, this is why we can't get it sorted out. And don't criticise it because, you know, I know everybody's under pressure, but a consultation or the discovery stage is at least an hour. If I didn't know you and I needed to find out where your imbalances were before we even get to your diet, I need to get to know, I need to get to know about you and what's happening and try and discover where those imbalances are. So there's the discovery stage, which is me gleaning as much information as I can. And then the second stage is me making it bespoke. So finding out what you will do and what you won't do, because it's all very mildly having all this information. And if I say to you, look, I believe you should be running five miles every day. You say, well, I'm not going to do that. So there's no point in me coming out with this plan. Or it might be, I'm saying meditate and nobody wants to. So we have to bespoke it to what's right for what can fit into their life. If they're working shift work, then they can't organise meals and meal planning for them that allow for that to happen. If they have a family of four children and the children are all at school age and they're cooking for the children as well as for themselves, you know, I need to bear that in mind when I'm doing a diet plan for them. So you need to, by the way, do one for the family as well. So we do that for the family, do that for you. But everybody is different. And so, you know, sometimes people are travelling a lot as they're working and they're travelling a lot on a plane here and there. So they want help with choosing food in restaurants all the time or when they're on holidays. And everybody is quite different. So Tina, now looking back over your past life, now we've done a brief run through and skipped over much of it and all your extraordinary achievements. What advice would you give to your younger self? The advice I would give, buy shares on Amazon. I would probably have had more children. I would have believed in myself a little more. So many women in particular, well actually people in general. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. If I, this is the advice I give to my daughter, this is the advice I give to women when I'm talking to them, is to believe in yourself. You know, and I said before about when you go to your GP and you've got something that there's a niggle, keep on about that niggle. Don't say, don't let anybody tell you it doesn't exist. If you believe it exists, it exists from a health point of view, but also a career point of view within your family, whatever it is, believe in your intuition. I love that. I absolutely love that. We tend to comply to society's needs to a certain extent. Especially women. We're sort of trained by our parents to be a certain way. Men always seem to, or boys always seem to get away with so much more. They do. They don't, but they don't worry what people think as much. I think as women we do. And I think as well, for women, they can get into a circle of friends that may not be serving them, you know, from the schoolyard to the office to whatever. And it takes quite a strong woman to not conform and fit in. And, you know, we get lonely and we need to, so we do things and we compromise. But if we keep compromising all the time, then again, that will manifest in a disease, whether it be in a relationship or a friendship girl group. And it's hard. You know, I see it with women where they've been in the same friendship group and they say that they, as much as they love their friends, they'd like to change them sometimes. I get that. Yes. I've got a very small group of very close friends, you know, and we don't see each other that often. Like you, I see you probably once every five years or so. But it's always just lovely to reconnect when I do see you again. Being around more people like you would have really served me when I was growing up. Without that. That's fine. Yes. It's a shame that we're so far apart, but, you know. Yeah, exactly. We can learn and we can teach our daughters and other women. And again, it's that self-belief. Believe in your self-intuition. And if you think these friends are not really for me, you're going to have to start making manoeuvres. Not easy. Quite interesting, I think, especially now. I mean, I'm in the 60s now, 63. The wisdom that comes with age and experience. And I don't actually, I didn't really find myself till the mid-50s and suddenly become who I was. Yeah. And my own self. Don't find yourself, Hannah, you know. But who am I? Who am I? It's quite a funny one. I think looking back with the wisdom and the observations that you accumulate, I think that advice is so valid. Believe in yourself. Yeah, for sure. Sometimes it's the fun bit. What foods do you actually hate? And it's a story. Yeah, there are things that I, things like, chemically things like mayonnaise and stuff. I eat them. Don't get me wrong. If it's nothing else, I eat them. Things that I dislike in food, I suppose, is food. Say, for example, in the middle of winter, being given a cold salad. I would start with that. It's a bloody shock. Yeah. How do I, I can't eat, you know, a limp lettuce leaf in the middle of winter. You know, you just think you want a nice warm bowl of soup or something like that. So incorrect eating like that is what I don't like. But I don't think there are foods that I dislike. I think you can do something with all foods. Even if it's a ready meal, you can put fresh herbs on it, as we've said. And if it's take-out pizza and the whole family's there having fun and laughter and love, then it's the most nutritious meal on the planet because there's a lot of love served with it and we should enjoy those sorts of occasions. So it's not taking it too seriously all the time. And that's fun. And also families seeing us relax around food because as mothers and as life givers, we're constantly wanting everybody, especially with our children, to be eating correctly all the time. But it's nice for them to not sometimes and enjoy that too. And also learn the effects, that they don't feel too good the next day when they've eaten so well. So there, marzipan. I don't like marzipan. Oh, but I love it. But I swap with you. I eat all the sugary icing. No, I don't want the icing. Don't want the icing at all. So yeah, that sounds good. But I don't want the Christmas cake either. Oh, lovely. And what is your favourite food, Gina? My favourite food is... Or meal, if you want to put it that way. Yeah, meal would be anything. I mean, when I cook for myself. But if somebody else was cooking for me and they made me something that was perhaps not very nice in the sense that, you know, you think... And they said, it's all I've got. And they'd thrown it together and they were being so kind and loving. Then it would be the best thing I've ever had. If somebody said... There's a saying, isn't it? If somebody makes you a cup of tea and they say, all I've got is some canned milk. And you sort of go... And you just think, you know what? You would never drink it again. It was the most delicious drink you've ever had. Because it was their kindness and thoughtfulness. And they were just trying to help you. And that sort of thing is my favourite sort of food. If somebody just wanting... You know, when they put a bit of love in it. Yes, yeah. I think food served with love is completely different. Yes. And that is what I say to mothers. When they're cooking for their children and they've got a job to do. And then they come home and they're cooking... Or even if, you know, they've got so much going on at that phase in your life, that little bit of your life. We can say it now because we've come through that stage. Is to, again, have a bit more self-belief. Don't stick to the rules too rigidly for your family. Have fun with them. That is more important that you have fun with them. You know if they're eating ready meals every day, that you're going to, at the weekend, cook them a lovely roast chicken and a nice roast dinner and a rice pudding to follow. And then crack on on Monday back to the ground stone. And if that's what you can do, then that's what you can do. And then you've got a very happy family, very balanced, happy family growing up. So... Wonderful. Good. Thank you, Tina, for being such an excellent guest. And certainly your achievements are extraordinary. And I love your philosophy with food. So much of it I've taken on board and Mark and I use in our daily life. You've got me eating chickpeas again. I've avoided beans like the plague. I'm never going to eat beans again. And I think that's partly because one of the eating programs I went on was food separation. Splitting your carbs from your proteins, creating them. I decided beans weren't the one for me. And I was trying to get rid of eczema at the time. But that system worked for me and I never ate a bean since. And it's bonkers, isn't it? It is bonkers what the brain thinks and what we train ourselves to think. Indeed. And I think just touching there briefly on beans and lentils, because I get asked this question quite a bit, but I think this is quite a good one, is that people say when they eat too many beans and pulses and things, they get bloating. Very often when they do, it's because they're not rinsing them well enough. When you're rinsing, and obviously if you're having canned beans, that's different. But I'm talking about cooking them from, you know, when you soak them overnight and you're rinsing them. So when you do, if you, instead of just rinsing them in a colander under the tap, if you put the colander in a bowl of water and let the water run until it moves, agitate the beans or the lentils with your fingers. And if you do, and then throw the water away three times, you will see it come clear. So that cloudy water is what's causing the gas. Yes, I have to say, I don't have an issue with that, which is surprising, but neither does my husband. So I'm not doing the right things. Must have rinsed them enough. Yes, you're rinsing the beans properly. You're amazing training, of course. Oh, well, thank you so much. Look forward to speaking to you soon, Tina. Thank you. Likewise. Lots of love. You too. 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