I like, like, you know, if the fat goes a bit crispy, you know, then it's good.
What I don't like is like that.
The jiggly fat? Yes.
That's the best it hit in my house.
No, no, no.
We'll cook with it on, but then I cut it off.
I think that's an important tip, because at least if you get some of the fat
juices as you're cooking it, then you kind of get the best of both worlds.
And I'm with you.
I kind of cut it off if it's really visible.
And for us, what really hits home with the meat club that we love is the mince.
We are a mince family.
We go through so much.
We have it every morning for breakfast.
So, you know, I know you just said about not having the same thing every morning,
but we are that family, unfortunately.
And we do your beef mince with the egg scrambled in a protein wrap.
And that is a hit for everyone in my family, except my babies who's drinking milk right now.
Hey, hey, and welcome to the 40s Formula, your go to place for insightful
discussions on navigating the 40s and thriving in this transformative decade.
We're your hosts, Jasmine and Amanda, two women that are passionate about exploring
the challenges and adventures that come with turning 40 and what lies ahead.
Amy Bell is a mum of two girls and the founder of the Meat Club,
a sustainable produce delivery company based in Singapore that delivers high
quality ingredients from Australia and New Zealand direct to your door.
A former lawyer, Amy started the Meat Club after experiencing cravings for good
quality meat during her pregnancy with her daughter, Harriet,
but found it difficult to find affordable quality meat.
So an idea was born and the Meat Club was formed.
And I, for one, am so glad for those cravings.
Amy is joining us on the 40s Formula today to share how she manages life as a busy mum,
an entrepreneur and how she still finds time to incorporate healthy habits into her day.
Hi, Amy. So good to have you here on the 40s Formula.
We're really excited to speak to you.
Like a lot of ex-pat women, you came here as a trailing spouse over 10 years ago.
And since then, you have had two kids, you've set up two businesses
and you're also prioritising your health.
How do you manage to balance all of that?
I think like any mum, being very, very organised,
first and foremost, making sure that we have a bit of a schedule,
making sure that we're prioritising the right things, making sure that
the girls feel like we're present and around.
I have to say that I've got a lot better at it now than I did when we first started out.
It was a very different story going back 10 years.
I think at that time we were just in survival mode and doing everything and
anything we could to make sure that the business was working,
that the girls were getting fed, getting sleep and just juggling living life
as an expert in a very new and different country.
Yeah, that must have been quite tough, you know, because I feel like Singapore is so
different to sort of being back at home.
We've got some great things that can help us, like having helpers and things like that.
Whereas back home, you have the support of your family.
How do you find sort of making sure that you can prioritise all of these bits
so that you're not feeling like I'm leaving stuff behind?
You know, like, do you think that having the helper here is working in your benefit?
Or do you think that people back at home are basically thinking, oh, she's got help.
So maybe she should be doing more.
It's a great question and one that I actually really struggled with, if I'm honest.
When we first moved, we came to set up Guzman and Gomez and I had a job,
actually, at the time, and I was working full time.
We didn't get pregnant until after we were married.
And it wasn't until Harriet, our eight year old girl, was about eight months old
that I finally caved into the idea of getting a helper, I think, as an Australian.
And just given my own kind of work ethic and background,
I was very much of the opinion that I can do everything and I will do everything.
So we were flying up my mum and my mother-in-law to help me out at a time.
However, something was going to give and that thing was always going to be me.
So we did eventually cave in to getting a helper,
which was the best decision we ever made, not only just for me, but also for the family.
I think I really struggled with having those initial conversations with friends
back home, and I actually hid it from them, if I'm honest,
because I did feel a sense of shame that I should be able to be doing everything.
And having that help, I felt like maybe they couldn't relate to me anymore.
Or they would have thought that I couldn't relate to them.
So it is a very different experience, for sure.
I think having now benefited from someone
in our house for the past eight years, I'm extremely grateful for their support.
And I think you can do what you want with it.
You could be very hands off if you wanted, which is fine.
But you can also be very hands on and
decide where the boundaries are for you and your family.
In our case, we have
somebody that is wonderful with our children, our two girls,
and she will cook and clean and do all the jobs around the house,
which means that I can be, I guess, a very active mother and run the business
on the side or together.
And as a fellow mompreneur,
something I always say when I'm working with women in this area is you're a mother.
You don't have to be a martyr.
And I think that there's this kind of underlying, especially in the media,
this underlying thematic that it's like women that are mothers that are trying to
work just have to be a mess and you have to be stressed out and it has to be awful.
And you have to be fighting for everything that you do.
And it's like if you can introduce help again in Singapore in the form of helpers
in other countries in the form of like baby pods or mommy support groups or
whatever it may be, take the help.
Suffering is not cool.
Like it's not a vibe.
It's not a look. What are Gen Z saying?
And we don't have to be on that train if we don't want to.
And like you mentioned that there's guilt and shame around it.
And I'm glad that you're commenting, as I often do, that you don't.
We can change the narrative. We can.
And I think if you switch it on its head to just being extremely grateful,
there is so much that you can benefit from from feeling that way, talking about it.
And I think in hindsight,
I think a lot of my friends would have liked to have talked about it more than we
probably did. And if anything, they would have probably
followed me over to Singapore if they knew the extent of it.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And my help has actually gone back to the
Philippines currently and just trying to get everything done is so tough when you
are trying to do it all on your own.
So, yeah, especially when you have kids and you're trying to run a business.
It's hard.
And unfortunately, we don't have the family support here.
So we can't just ask a mum to come over and just watch the kids while we
get ready and go and do some meetings and stuff.
So, yeah, it definitely, definitely helps.
Your upbringing was interesting because
I feel like back in the 90s, everybody was going through this sort of low
fat, low cholesterol, margarine, convenience foods.
But you had a different kind of approach to food from your family.
Yes. How was that?
Well, I think I remember distinctly my parents shifting their diet to begin with.
And if I do go back, I have to look at the timelines.
I would have been myself in grade six when I was actually diagnosed with Candida,
which is not to be confused with anything around gluten.
It's more and it can be because it is wheat and yeast based.
So I was actually put on a very strict diet from a very young age.
And that was just to curb the symptoms that I was feeling at the time.
So being in your mouth, everything to me was tasting very metallic.
And my mum initially thought that I had tonsillitis.
So when she was treating me to begin with, we were making all these juices at home.
Pineapple, for example, orange, all very acidic, which was soothing.
Very, very soothing at the time.
It was actually feeding the Candida itself and making it a lot worse.
And it wasn't until we went to a naturopath
where she correctly diagnosed me with Candida.
And I remember coming home from that initial appointment
and being very upset by the fact that the list of foods that I could eat was shorter
than the list of the foods that I couldn't.
It literally fell down to the to the fridge floor.
And I did that for about six weeks.
And being young, I think I remember being
getting ready for school and mum was packing my lunchbox and I couldn't
pack all the traditional snacks that I'd become accustomed to,
which were not necessarily healthy at the time, but very convenience orientated.
And then after those six weeks, I started to really relish in the way
that I was feeling, the way that my food was making me feel.
I enjoyed it enormously to the point that I remember mum packing me chicken pesto
sandwiches while my girlfriends were having like a Vegemite sandwich.
And everyone wanted my lunch.
So I would definitely have my chicken pesto.
You can throw the Vegemite in the trash and pass the pesto on over.
Exactly. So I started to really enjoy it.
And I think as a result, I just broadened my exposure to different foods very quickly.
And it was, you know, it's very common now to be talking about whole foods.
But back then it was it was just kind of a given for me.
Fast forward a few years after that,
my parents, who were not particularly, you know, they didn't drink an enormous
amount, but they decided to take themselves on a very famous diet now called the liver
cleansing diet, and it must have been 12 years at that age.
And my sister and I both decided, well, if mum and dad are doing it like we males
will do it, too. They gave us the option.
And we just sat down and said, you know, why not?
Let's just give it a try.
And that was another iteration of a very whole foods diet.
So I think as a result,
my whole life has kind of come around to what is catching up with very common terms
now being whole foods orientated, not having processed food.
And that's really the philosophy that I carry now.
And I carry into the diet for the girls and all of our dinners and meals at home.
Just as a quick side, can you describe some of the symptoms of Candida?
Just because I think maybe some of our listeners wouldn't be familiar with what
that would look like. Definitely.
Whether or not you want to include this in the podcast itself,
but another very common term for Candida is thrush.
So thrush is obviously found in your vagina.
Candida is often found in your esophagus and your throat.
So in my case, it was swollen glands and
unfortunately, like pus in my mouth at the very back of the glands.
And I think the most prominent symptom for me was just that metallic taste.
Everything was tasting like I was eating a bar of steel.
And it wasn't until I started that initial diet to get rid of it that things curbed itself.
And I thankfully, other than in year 10, I haven't had a serious bout of it.
It's all about just maintaining it.
And I think that comes naturally now because I kind of stick to the diet naturally,
not through design. It's organic in a way.
So what sort of foods then are you feeding
your kids now just to sort of go back to the way you were brought up?
And do they sort of rebel against the sort of things that you give them?
Are they quiet? You know, this is good.
Oh, they definitely have a sweet tooth, which I credit to my husband.
They love chocolate, love lollies, which we never deprive them of.
I always just say to them, look, if it's your choice,
just monitor how it makes you feel and you can go for it if you like.
I don't think deprivation is smart at any age.
We all eat as a family.
So breakfast, we've now come to a point in our careers where I prioritize having
mealtimes together, so we'll all sit down for breakfast before we go to school
and the office, and then we all sit down for dinner as well.
The girls will eat what we eat.
And I think that's my biggest
lesson for them is,
I'm sure you've all read of it, the green eggs and ham.
Yes, of course.
Yeah. So I always comment back to that.
I was like, you know, he hated the idea of green eggs and ham,
and then he eventually loved it.
So just don't look at something for the for the appearance sake.
You've got to try it as well.
And if they genuinely don't like it, then that's fine.
I just would like them to try it to begin with.
So your question was, what do we have?
I laugh because we try and mix things up a lot.
I think Candida was a big wake up call for me at a young age that you can't eat
the same things all the time.
I look at people that make the same
protein shake every morning before work and I'm like, well, that's great.
But you're probably missing out on a lot
of other micronutrients by not changing what you're having.
So for us, it's yeah, we change a lot.
This morning we had scrambled eggs and avocado toast.
The morning before it was pancakes with
we make like a little protein mousse.
Every day is kind of different.
What's your protein mousse?
Oh, it's a beautiful blend.
I'll plug for her.
It's an Australian girl, Rachel Finch.
She has Kissed Earth, which is a brand of protein powder.
So we get the chocolate, the vanilla and the strawberry and it's delicious.
So you can actually mix like just one
tablespoon of this protein powder with a dash of any type of milk.
It can be cows, it can be nut based.
And once you stir it, it makes like this paste, which to me is just delicious.
Yeah, it's not for everyone, but I certainly love it.
So we put it on the on the pancakes.
We have toast. Yeah, we mix it up a lot.
Lots of fruit and veg, lots of clean
protein and then obviously carbs and stuff as well.
So you founded the meat club here in Singapore.
What led you to start up the meat club?
So I was actually made redundant.
So we moved here as a lawyer in a former life.
I had started a condiment business in Bondi when we were living there and then came
up here to work as a kind of like a in sports consultancy.
I was doing a lot of sports law back home.
I was working in that firm for must have been 80 months to two years,
fell pregnant with Harriet and got made redundant around the same time.
Were you like a female Jerry Maguire by any chance?
That would have been amazing.
No, it was a lot less glamorous than that.
And I think at the time I had started a
it's ironic vegan soft serve business here in Singapore.
So I was importing a product from Australia.
Unfortunately, that didn't do so well.
So that closed and I sold part of the business, but closed the rest of it.
And then I kind of was at a point where I was pregnant.
I was looking for work.
I wasn't sure what the next step was.
So my husband was frantically setting up Guzman and Gomez here in Singapore.
And one day I just realized I was becoming a vegetarian by default, not by design.
I wasn't eating any protein at all and I was craving red meat at the time.
Now, this is 10 years ago.
So the options for fresh meat and seafood at the time, I think,
were very different to what they are now.
I went to Cold Storage and I bought Josh along with me and I said,
look, can you please go and buy the two of us and I fill up steak?
Like, I just need this so badly.
I've had a really bad run of choosing red meat lately.
I'm obviously doing something very wrong
because I couldn't eat anything that we were buying from the supermarket.
We couldn't afford what was at the local butcher.
So it was like a catch 22 between quality and cost.
Hey Amanda, what's more challenging than
finding good quality, nutritious food for your family?
Probably juggling life in your 40s.
OK, yes, you're right there.
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And now back to the show.
Anyway, I went to Cold Storage, took him to the butcher area
and I went and did the rest of my shop.
I was at the checkout line.
I'd forgotten he was with me.
I was like, oh my God, where is he?
So I went back to where he was.
And here he was with his phone out and just obsessed looking at all these costs
on his phone, getting at his calculator.
And he very quickly described to me that the landed cost of beef for Guzman
and Gomez from Australia was roughly $11 a kilo at the time.
And what we were looking at was 44.
Wow. So we did some research.
There's no there was and there is continues to be no import tax for meat.
And we just decided very quickly that there was a gap in the market that we
could potentially serve if we found the right suppliers.
We knew that we didn't want to retail space, given our experience with Guzman
just from a staffing rental point of view as a startup.
We knew that we also needed reoccurring revenue.
So subscription model was the only way we were going to make it work.
And and that was really it.
So I can credit Harriet to the craving and my husband to doing the numbers.
And then I guess me to, yeah, getting it going.
It's incredible.
And I'm so glad because I love the quality of your meats and even your fish.
And I appreciate that very much.
And it makes things so much easier.
You know, like you can just get it delivered and it's fresh and it tastes great.
And, you know, you can you can really tell the difference rather than when you just
go to your supermarket and you pick something up.
Like I bought some steaks the other day randomly from the supermarket.
And I just felt like there was just too much fat, too much.
It didn't feel like, you know, a healthy piece of meat.
And then, you know, no one really eats that much fat off the steak.
So you end up cutting it off.
And then you're left with like this tiny little bit of lean meat that you can actually eat.
So I'm going to hit you right there.
I can definitely tell you everyone in my household eats the fat off the steak.
I'm the only one who does it.
I'm the only one.
I live, so my husband's Singaporean Chinese and so my in-laws as well.
And like the fat is the best.
I cut off that big fat rind and they're like in it to win.
So that goes a little bit longer.
I like certain parts of I like, like, you know, if the fat goes a bit crispy,
then it's good. What I don't like is like that jiggly fat.
Yes.
No, no, no, no.
But I will cook with it on.
But then I cut it off.
I think that's an important tip, because at least if you get some of the fat
juices as you're cooking it, then you kind of get the best of both worlds.
And I'm with you. I kind of cut it off if it's really visible.
And for us, what really hits home with the meat club that we love is the mince.
We are a mince family. We go through so much.
We have it every morning for breakfast.
So, you know, I know you just said about not having the same thing every morning,
but we are that family.
And we do your beef mince with the egg scrambled in a protein wrap.
And that is a hit for everyone in my family, except my babies.
He's drinking milk right now.
But my toddlers and us, it's something that the four of us can agree on.
And it makes it so easy in the morning to just have that mince and kind of constant supply.
I appreciate that. That's amazing.
So you're also into sort of health and fitness.
What are your go to exercises that you tend to regularly partake in?
That's actually changed a lot, I would actually say, in the last even three months.
Yeah, really recently.
So I'm actually 39.
I'll be 40 in March of next year.
I will allow it.
39 plus.
But I think I've got to a point where I've always been extremely sensitive to my body,
whether or not it's hormonal changes, craving changes, emotional changes.
And that's come through, I think, a lifetime of being very physically active and fit.
My sister was, she was an Olympian.
My brother-in-law was an Olympian.
He went on to win Kona Ironman a handful of times.
So the Fredinos are very well known in the triathlon world.
I'll just put it out there.
I'm very young, yeah.
And I think, yeah, as a kid growing up,
exercise was just part and parcel of life.
It wasn't something that was ever forced on us.
It was something that we wanted to do.
And being in triathlon and swimmers before that, it was always geared around more
endurance kind of exercise.
I remember distinctly when we first moved here, partly mental, like coping mechanism.
I was running every day just to kind of, yeah, manage everything.
And that was a really good level for me.
But I find now as I'm reaching my 40s,
that endurance is not necessarily the one for me anymore.
I'm finding I'm getting like niggly joints in my knees.
So I've cut back my running.
What probably was six days a week, 10 years ago to maybe four times a week,
maybe three years ago to now maybe one or two times a week.
And so I'm really, really enjoying learning more about what's happening to to me and
what will eventually be inevitable as I approach my 40s and beyond years around
the importance of strength training, the importance of having protein early
in the morning, the importance of just listening to yourself and giving yourself
permission to do different stuff.
So I've really enjoyed discovering F45.
I'm very, very, very, very late to that game.
But I think I always had a fear of getting injured with F45.
And that's not been the case.
I love going to the gym now, of which we benefit in our condo.
We've got one
Pilates. So I really mix it up.
No, two days are the same.
I guess it's a little bit like my diet.
I really mix things up.
If I did weights this morning, I might go and do stairs even tomorrow.
So that's a level of cardio, but it kind of incorporates a bit of what would you
call that, like a hit? Yeah, yeah, I'll go with that.
Yeah. So it's changing a lot.
And I can't say I have a routine down pat because every day I kind of, yeah,
just see how I feel and then take it from there.
I was out with a friend the other day and
she was just asking me, like, how do you prioritise when you're busy
fitting in the exercise element?
And it's one of those things where it's just become part of my life.
And I will just, you know, if I've found some time instead of sitting down,
having a cup of coffee, I will be like, OK, I finished what I'm doing now.
I need a break. I'm going to go to the gym.
How is it for you? Like, how have you
incorporated it into your lifestyle so that it's not a chore?
It's not something that, you know, you're like,
oh, I have to go and do this.
How have you managed that?
For me, I have always been a morning exercise person.
If I exercise or move in the afternoon or evening, it's something very light,
like it might be a walk with a girlfriend or going down to the pool with my girls
and having a little swim. In the mornings, it's usually up around
six o'clock and making sure I'm back before they wake up.
I just love that time with them when they're in school, obviously the whole day.
It's quite precious just to make sure that you have that morning time together.
So I'm always back in time for that.
But I think there's probably two elements to my approach to exercise,
and that is a full credit to my mum when I was a swimmer as a kid.
I remember her picking me up at primary school and we were on our way to swimming
training, and at the time it sounds excessive,
but we would have been training 11 times a week.
So that's morning and night every day.
And we were going in the afternoon and I said to my mum,
Mum, I just don't feel like swimming this afternoon.
And she's like, that's fine.
My sister was sitting in the front.
I was sitting in the back and she just said to me, she's like, look,
this is what's going to happen.
I'm going to drive Emma to swimming training
because Emma was still keen to go.
And she said, then I've got to go and do job A, B, C, D, go and get dinner ready,
come back and get Emma.
And then she had a long pause and she said,
oh, you can go swimming with your girlfriends.
And she didn't say anything else after that.
There was no pressure around.
I had to do it or that it would make me feel better or that I needed to do it for
my mental or physical health.
It was just something or an element of fun.
And she pulled up at the pool, said, what are you going to do?
And I said, I'm actually going to go and some of my friends.
Amazing. Yeah.
And I think I really credit that approach because it was never forced upon us.
And
I've sounds a bit weird, but I would always get up before her to kind of get
ready or she would be getting ready herself before I was up.
And my mom, this is.
So I think to address the question in a roundabout way, one, it's always been
there as part of my life and two, for me, it's always about doing it in the morning
and giving yourself permission that if you do sleep in,
then you might find a pocket of time after coffee or after lunch to go and do
something like not having that guilt factor all day that I haven't done it.
Oh, my God, I haven't done it yet.
And I think I was guilty of that in my 30s.
I'm much more forgiving for myself now.
If I needed to sleep in, there was a reason for it.
And I can always do it a bit later in the day.
Do the girls see that you prioritize your health as well?
Are they sort of seeing that mommy takes
the time out to go and work out, definitely eat in a particular way?
Hey, Amanda, do you know of a really easy way to give your kids some good gut bacteria?
I do indeed. I'm giving my family a Keezy Wellness Elderberry Boost.
They come in these little sachets.
You just rip them open, pour it right in your mouth.
That sounds like fun.
And I bet I could add that to their smoothies and some Greek yogurt, too.
And what I love about a Keezy is that you can take it any time of day.
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Now back to the chat.
Yeah, we talk about it a lot.
I think, again, not because of any other reason, that it's just something I enjoy
and I love it and it's fun.
And whether or not it's something with a
girlfriend or if it's by myself or if it's with Josh, we yeah, we just always
prioritize it over other other activities, really.
And it's the same for food.
And that's brilliant.
And I think, you know, kids will pick up on what your parents do rather than,
you know, just being told what to do.
Exactly. I think there's a lot that they can learn through seeing, you know, they
don't necessarily need the the the here and the why.
And if they if they have those questions, then we go through those as well.
Yeah. And that was to be my question for you, which is, you know, obviously you
grew up in a home where there was some element of diet culture.
You know, your parents are doing the liver cleanse.
You had to go on the Candida diet for your for your condition.
How do you kind of insulate your girls from diet culture?
Or do you not?
You know, do you just simply say, hey, this exists and these are the elements,
you know, that we incorporate in our home and this is how I eat?
Because I do feel like your girls at six and eight are getting to the age where
they're going to be bombarded with.
Oh, my gosh, I'm so conscious of it.
And yeah, it's a really good question.
I remember this.
I never remember my parents talking about it in the context of a like diet, like
Candida diet or liver cleansing diet.
It was just something that they were doing and we were part of.
Or in my case, I had to for that period of time.
I think now we never really mention the word, not because of its connotations,
but just because, yeah, I feel like there's just so many variations,
so many fads, you can get so well caught up in everything.
The best thing I can do for them is just to help them understand the
what food does and how it makes you feel.
That's really the only important thing.
And I'm super conscious of of what social media and magazines and
books that they're reading will have on their mental health.
And I'm very conscious to kind of not necessarily shield from them,
because I think that's an impossibility is just talking through it and making sure,
you know, I certainly don't count calories and have I never weigh myself.
It's more about a feeling.
So it's kind of when those conversations may or may not come up,
just talking about how I approach it and they can kind of find their way as well.
I think being a boy, mom, I don't have to sort of worry too much about that.
So my boys,
they understand that, you know, there are certain foods that they need to eat,
like the proteins can help them get bigger muscles, help them grow taller,
help them play better at sport.
And, you know, the sugary carbohydrates things, that's pure energy.
And there's a time and a place for that.
That's kind of the way that we sort of manage at home.
And they'll always try it.
They'll always be like, after tennis, can we have ice cream?
Or, you know, can we have a frair Rocher or whatever it is that, you know, is at home?
And we will say, OK, fine, you can have it because you've done your sports.
I know it's not really the best way to look at it,
but I do want them to understand that certain foods will help you in certain ways.
And you need to prioritize those before you can have the stuff that
might not benefit you in the long term, especially if you have something where
I used to be quite addicted to eating sweet food.
And I think part of that process of what I went through growing up,
I do worry that, you know, is that what's going to happen to the boys as well?
Like, will they get to this point where they'll go and have six or seven chocolate bars in a row?
And you probably see them do it at a party, right?
Yeah, they just have like free reign.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, I'm going to go to town.
Make yourself really sick.
And then you won't want to do it again.
It's such a good lesson.
The way that I actually address it with
Harriet, because she's she's definitely the one to like ask for sweets and ask
for chocolate and ask for ice cream is I will very often give her like a like
a chocolate smoothie for breakfast with like with her toast, which is, you know,
it might be with coconut water or like a cashew milk or something.
And so the lesson there is you can have the same cravings.
You can satisfy your cravings.
It's just that you don't have to do it with an ultra processed product,
which I'm very, very mindful of, even at their age, to make sure that they understand
the difference between, you know, one packet to another, not necessarily for like the
not for the physical aspect of it, but just more the nutritional aspect.
More than anything else.
We were out for dinner and I think there were a bunch of kids there.
My son asked if he could have some juice because all the kids were having juice.
And I said, well, we've already said you can have dessert afterwards because he
really wanted a cornetto.
And I was like, you can have the dessert.
But do you really want to have the juice?
Or would you rather have the dessert?
He's like, oh, no, no, I'd rather have the ice cream.
Yes, exactly.
That's the right choice.
You know, because I think sometimes you look at juice and you think, oh, it's
fruit and it's, you know, it's fine.
Yeah, but actually it's all the nutrients have come out.
It's just sugar.
And like you mentioned, you know, when you were having your pineapple juice.
Yeah, it tasted great.
And the candida were probably loving all that sugar.
It was, but it wasn't, but it wasn't healthy.
I still actually can't drink pineapple or orange juice.
I get an immediate reaction from them.
Yeah.
But giving your kids a choice, I think, is so empowering.
This is like what my mom did.
And it's like, do you want do you want to have that chocolate or a lolly?
You can have one of the two, but don't maybe not have both.
And if you really want both, then that's up to you.
But just see how you feel.
Yeah. And you know, it's so funny how parents sometimes are so scared to talk
to their kids about food because they're like, oh, I don't want to give them
an eating disorder and I don't want to mess with their thing.
But it's like think of talking to food with your kids, talking about food with
your kids, the way that you would talk about money.
You have to teach them how to budget.
You have to teach them how to invest.
If you don't, your kids will go into the real world and just blow it up.
Right.
And it's the same exact thing with nutrition literacy.
If you don't provide them a baseline education about nutrients, then when
they're left to their own devices, they will have no idea how to handle it.
And we're only human.
We respond to impulse.
And it's like the same thing.
It's like if you don't want them to open 10 credit cards and spend to the limit,
then you sure don't want them to go out into the real world and binge on six
candy bars because they just don't have the knowledge.
So for us, it's like we give them the
knowledge now so that they can make smarter decisions in the future.
And I think parents can can do that with
money and somehow block it with food.
Yeah, definitely.
Amy, it's been absolutely wonderful having you here.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've enjoyed it a lot.
But before we finish, we do have one final question.
And we want to know what's your 40s formula?
What would you say to people listening
about what they can do in their 40s to help them really thrive?
That's a great question.
I think I've actually said it once or twice already
because I'm doing it a lot for myself at the moment.
And that is give yourself permission.
There's so many things that can that that can lend to.
So give yourself permission to sleep in and go and exercise later in the day.
Give yourself permission to skip going out for a meal if you don't feel like it.
Give yourself permission to take time out to understand your body and what's
happening to it as you age or give yourself permission to
step away from a toxic relationship or friend.
I think that is at least my mantra for me at the moment as I'm trying to navigate
what's going to happen, because I feel like maybe some of it started.
Maybe it hasn't. Maybe it's all in my head.
I don't know. But I really want to be prepared for it.
And I think if you're prepared, if I'm at least prepared
by giving myself permission to understand what's happening, to research about it,
listen to topics on it, speak to people like yourselves,
then that's probably probably my best
mantra that I would pass on to anyone else.
And I think it's wonderful.
I think having permission to just be yourself is is important.
And I think it will help not only with your
sort of mental health, but also your physical health as well.
So that's amazing.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Thanks so much, Amy. Thank you.
This is Paul, our editor.
He's a 25 year old unmarried Singaporean guy listening to the ramblings of 12
older women on everything from menopause to weightlifting to sex.
So, Paul, what's your thoughts on today's conversation?
Hey, guys, what's up? Paul here again.
You know, for this episode, Amy, I really
enjoyed when you mentioned that your family prioritizes breakfast together.
And I think it's pretty cool.
And it's something that my family doesn't do. But it's really amazing because it's
such an important meal. Plus, you know, you guys get to spend family bonding time
together, which is really nice. Also, I love the quote when you mentioned
give yourself permission to take time and understand your body and what's
happening to it as you age. And, you know, I think many times in this day and age,
we are always busy and stressed and we don't really have time to take a pause,
take a second and slow time down and, you know, really care for ourselves.
And I think that's that's pretty important.
So pretty cool. I'll catch you guys in the next one.
I'll see you.
Guys, you know how much we love coffee.
And if you want to show us some love, you know, you can get us one.
Just visit BuyMeACoffee.com slash the 40s formula. Cheers.
We recently had a review from Abhidip NC on episode eight with Priyanka Ray.
This episode is a must for all gender agnostic.
Priyanka takes us through a journey and quite frankly teaches us to pause,
reflect and resume. Thank you Abhidip NC for listening to the episode.
It's so great that we have male and female
listeners that can relish in what is being said by our speakers and guests.
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Bye.
Because one would wake up, then I'd have to wake the other one up and feed him.
And it was it was intense.
So intense.
But to be fair, by they were ourselves until we got to about one years old.
And then I felt like all their teeth came out.
They came out super fast.
Then they were angels and I was like, oh,
they were so much easier than my own.
Yeah, they just need to get through that biological.
Yeah.
So you've got two girls, two girls, six and eight.
Oh, good ages.
God, I can't wait for that time.
Yeah.
Cannot wait for that time.
No baby paraphernalia at all anymore.
Yeah, I would have liked a third, to be honest.
But my husband was pretty adamant that that was going to be it.
I think financially that was his biggest
driver at the time, because we were just so strapped for cash.
And I think now it would have been like, oh, yeah, like we could always make it work.
Right.
It just doesn't matter.
Once the baby's there, you know, no one's sending it back.
Exactly.
It's true.
And I came from two.
He came from three.
So it was like a bit of a role reversal that we had changed up.
Was he the third by any chance?
He was the first.
I feel like if he was the third, he would be like, let's go.
Exactly.
Oh, dear.