Episode 143: Finger Lickin' Frightening! 28 Days of Fried Chicken

Fried chicken for every meal sounds like a stunt, until you see what 28 days of ultra-processed food does to a real body and a real mind. We sit down with Mo Gilligan’s Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy and follow the thread from “harmless takeaway” to cravings, mood shifts, and health markers moving alarmingly fast in the wrong direction, including a jump in HbA1c that edges closer to type 2 diabetes. It’s the kind of watch that makes you look at your shopping trolley differently the next day.

We talk honestly about ultra-processed foods and addiction: why some products are designed to keep you reaching for the next bite, why hunger can feel louder after a weekend of processed snacks, and how “just use willpower” misses what’s really happening in the brain and body. We also get into food and mood, because the documentary captures something many of us recognise: low energy, feeling flat, and that sense your sparkle has been dialled down. If we keep calling it a mental health crisis while ignoring what we’re eating, we’re only treating the symptoms.

Then we widen the lens to the system behind the food: environmental damage from intensive farming, water contamination, antibiotics, and the human cost of production lines where dignity is treated as optional. It’s heavy, but we finish with practical power, what we choose to buy, how to bring the 80-20 rule back the right way round, and how to eat well without demonising food or living on kale.

If this conversation lights a fire in you, share it with a friend, come and tell us your thoughts in the Facebook group, and please subscribe and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.

For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support the show, you can buy us a coffee HERE. Your support helps us continue creating episodes and improving our recording setup.

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Alcohol is everywhere, so what happens when you quietly step away from it and realise you do not miss it? We talk candidly about going alcohol-free, from choosing a sober year after a birthday drink to stopping after New Year with no big plan at all. The surprise is not white-knuckling through cravings, it is how quickly “not drinking” can become your norm and how much headspace comes back when the daily debate disappears.

We dig into the real reasons we reach for a glass, especially the stress trigger after a hard day. That little voice can be loud even when you are a moderate drinker, which raises an uncomfortable but freeing question: is it the alcohol you want, or the pause? We share a turning-point moment in a fancy restaurant where the wine added nothing to the view, the food, or the company, plus the not-so-glam reality of poor sleep and feeling flat the next day.

You will also get practical ideas for what to drink instead, without falling into the “replace it with sugar” trap. We chat through sparkling water with lime, tonic as the actual star of the old G and T, the social stealth of zero per cent beer, and why zero wine still has a long way to go. Alongside the lifestyle side, we touch on health benefits like improved sleep quality, calmer mornings, and encouraging changes in blood markers even when weight loss does not show up.

If you are sober curious, cutting down, or simply tired of negotiating with yourself, come and join the conversation. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review, then tell us: what would change in your life if alcohol was no longer part of the equation?

If you enjoyed this episode, here are two more where we talk about sobriety with experts Anna Sudbury and Sarah Williamson.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.

For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support the show, you can buy us a coffee HERE. Your support helps us continue creating episodes and improving our recording setup.

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Episode 141: A Pain in the Menopause! – World Menopause Day Special

Chronic pain can creep in so quietly during perimenopause that you start doubting yourself and then someone else doubts you out loud. With World Menopause Day focusing on chronic pain in midlife, we sit down and speak plainly about what so many women experience: aches that spike as hormones change, appointments where symptoms get brushed off, and that exhausting sense of having to prove you’re not “just being emotional”.

We explore the menopause and pain connection through a few different lenses: oestrogen decline and inflammation, why joint pain and frozen shoulder show up so often, and how conditions like fibromyalgia can become a catch‑all label when tests don’t give neat answers. We also talk about the brain’s role in pain pathways and why the mind‑body link is real without being a reason to dismiss physical symptoms. If you’ve been passed from GP to physio to specialist and back again, we share a practical idea that can change your next conversation: build your own symptom timeline and ask whether your pain tracks your hormonal shifts.

We also zoom out to the bigger picture: midlife pressure, work realities, and the slow progress in women’s health research and NHS support. Our aim is empowerment, not perfection, and a more human approach to what women need during menopause, whether that includes lifestyle changes, pacing, or a thoughtful conversation about HRT.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs to hear it, and leave us a review so more women can find honest, evidence‑based menopause support.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.

For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support the show, you can buy us a coffee HERE. Your support helps us continue creating episodes and improving our recording setup.

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.