Nourish with Sarah - Holistic Wellness & More

You train six times a week, often early, and people admire your discipline. But you’re more tired, hungrier at night, sleeping worse, and still not seeing the changes you hoped for.” 

This episode is about why the workout is the thing we pour everything into, what it's been standing in for, what it costs a body that's already running on empty, and what movement is actually for once you stop asking it to carry the whole job.

We cover:

• why the workout is the health habit that looks like the capable woman, and why that's the problem
• what the research actually says about exercise and weight
• the five invisible things that decide how your body feels, and why they always lose to the visible one
• what movement does for bone, muscle, pain, mood and your nervous system, and why none of it happens without recovery
• how to tell when training has tipped into compensation, with one question
• the visible promise versus the invisible ones, and three swaps

The question to sit with: would you still do this session if it changed nothing about your body?

Referenced: Thorogood and colleagues' meta-analysis on isolated aerobic exercise and weight (American Journal of Medicine, 2011). Meta-analyses on resistance training and bone density in women. Research on compensatory exercise and disordered eating (British Journal of Psychiatry, 2026). Links below.

SOURCES

1. Thorogood, A. et al. (2011). "Isolated aerobic exercise and weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials." American Journal of Medicine, 124(8), 747–755. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK100236/
2. Swift, D.L. et al. (2014). "The role of exercise and physical activity in weight loss and maintenance." Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 56(4), 441–447. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4578965/
3. Resistance training and bone density in postmenopausal women, systematic review and meta-analysis (2025). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13018-025-05890-1
4. Compensatory exercise among people seeking weight loss, British Journal of Psychiatry (2026). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42343880/

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

A short guided meditation to go with last week's episode on confidence.

Last week I said confidence is built from evidence, not handed out as a trait. This is a way to actually feel that. You'll go back to the first time you did something you can now do easily, remember what it really felt like in your body, come forward to now, and notice the gap. That gap is evidence, and it's already yours. Then you carry it over to the thing you're scared of at the moment.

Do it once today. Then save it and use it the morning of anything that scares you.

Sitting, lying down, or on a walk. No experience with meditation needed.

Pairs with:  I waited my whole life to feel confident. here’s what I got wrong - episode

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

If you've spent years waiting to feel confident before you speak up, post the thing, or say no, this one's for you. I waited most of my life. It never came, because I had the order backwards.

This episode is about where "I'm just shy" actually comes from, why confidence is built out of evidence rather than handed out as a trait, what your nervous system has to do with it, and the small, slightly embarrassing reps that change the story.

We cover:

• the "some people just have it" theory, and why it feels so true
• how a label from childhood turns into a job title
• the one sentence that cracked it open for me
• the research on where "I can do this" actually comes from
• why doing it scared doesn't work from a body that's already braced
• four beliefs to swap, and five things to do this week

The question to sit with: what's the one room where you stay quiet and don't want to?

Referenced: Bandura's work on self-efficacy and mastery experiences. Behavioural activation. Links below.

If the place you keep running out of evidence is at night, with food, my free fourteen day reset is one small kept promise a day. [Sign up here →] 

SOURCES

1. Bandura, A. (1977). "Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change." Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.
2. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W.H. Freeman.
3. Jacobson, N.S. et al. (1996). "A component analysis of cognitive-behavioral treatment for depression." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(2), 295–304. (Behavioural activation.)

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

Somewhere in the last few years, cortisol became the reason for everything: the puffy face, the belly, the three am wake-up, the cravings. And a whole industry turned up to sell you the fix, with the drinks, the panels and the supplement stacks to match.

This episode goes through what cortisol actually is, what those tests can and can't tell you, what the research really shows on ashwagandha, magnesium and the rest, and then the part that matters: what actually pushes a nervous system out of rhythm, and what brings it back. Most of the second list you can't buy.

We cover:

• why "my cortisol is high" means nothing without a time of day, and what a healthy cortisol curve looks like
• the six things that reliably dysregulate a nervous system, and why undereating is at the top
• the unsellable list: what actually regulates it
• when to skip all of this and see an endocrinologist

The question to sit with: would a body eating what you ate yesterday be expected to feel calm?

Referenced: Cadegiani & Kater on "adrenal fatigue" · Tomiyama and colleagues on calorie restriction and cortisol · Loucks on low energy availability · Lovallo on caffeine and cortisol · the Endocrine Society's Cushing's guideline on salivary cortisol · meta-analyses on ashwagandha (Akhgarjand 2022; Albalawi 2025) · Boyle on magnesium · Jamshidi & Cohen on holy basil · Crum, Salovey & Achor and Keller and colleagues on stress mindset. Full links below.

Previous episode mentioned: Why you binge at night even when you've already eaten enough.

If the boring list is the one you've been trying to get to on your own, that's what my free 14 day reset is. One small thing a day, food first, nothing to buy, no Monday required.  [Sign up here →] 

SOURCES

1. Cadegiani, F.A. & Kater, C.E. (2016). "Adrenal fatigue does not exist: a systematic review." BMC Endocrine Disorders, 16, 48. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27557747/
2. Tomiyama, A.J. et al. (2010). "Low calorie dieting increases cortisol." Psychosomatic Medicine, 72(4), 357–364. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20368473/
3. Nakamura, Y. et al. (2016). "Systematic review and meta-analysis reveals acutely elevated plasma cortisol following fasting but not less severe calorie restriction." Stress, 19(2), 151–157. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/10253890.2015.1121984
4. Loucks, A.B. et al. (1998). "Low energy availability, not stress of exercise, alters LH pulsatility in exercising women." Journal of Applied Physiology, 84(1), 37–46. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1998.84.1.37
5. Lovallo, W.R. et al. (2005). "Caffeine stimulation of cortisol secretion across the waking hours in relation to caffeine intake levels." Psychosomatic Medicine, 67(5), 734–739.
6. Nieman, L.K. et al. (2008). "The diagnosis of Cushing's syndrome: an Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline." Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 93(5), 1526–1540. (Late-night salivary cortisol as a first-line screening test.)
7. Akhgarjand, C. et al. (2022). "Does ashwagandha supplementation have a beneficial effect on the management of anxiety and stress? A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials." Phytotherapy Research, 36(11), 4115–4124. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36017529/
8. Albalawi, A.A. (2025). "Dual impact of ashwagandha: significant cortisol reduction but no effects on perceived stress. A systematic review and meta-analysis." Nutrition and Health. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02601060251363647
9. Björnsson, H.K. et al. (2020). "Ashwagandha-induced liver injury: a case series from Iceland and the US Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network." Liver International, 40(4), 825–829.
10. Boyle, N.B., Lawton, C. & Dye, L. (2017). "The effects of magnesium supplementation on subjective anxiety and stress: a systematic review." Nutrients, 9(5), 429. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452159/
11. Jamshidi, N. & Cohen, M.M. (2017). "The clinical efficacy and safety of tulsi in humans: a systematic review of the literature." Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2017, 9217567. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5376420/
12. Crum, A.J., Salovey, P. & Achor, S. (2013). "Rethinking stress: the role of mindsets in determining the stress response." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 716–733. https://sparq.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj19021/files/media/file/crum_et_al.*2013*_rethinking_stress.pdf
13. Keller, A. et al. (2012). "Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality." Health Psychology, 31(5), 677–684. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3374921/
14. On "cortisol face": University of Colorado Anschutz, Department of Medicine. https://news.cuanschutz.edu/department-of-medicine/cortisol-face

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

"I know what to do, I just can't make myself do it"

If you've said that sentence, this episode is for you. You've got more information about how to feed yourself than any generation of women before you, and it hasn't helped, because the problem was never the knowing.

We cover:

• the four reasons knowing doesn't turn into doing, and why most women are running all four at once
• why half the time the plan you "should" be following is fighting your own body, and why your body is built to win
• what stress does to your ability to follow through on anything, and why "just stick to it" has never once worked
• why learning feels like progress, and why that's the problem
• four beliefs to swap, and five things to actually do this week

The question to sit with: what's the one thing you've known for years and skipped for years?

If you want the 14-day version of this, one small thing a day with somebody in your corner, that's my free reset. It says nighttime overeating on the label, but it's really fourteen days of doing rather than knowing. Daily emails, nothing to track, no Monday required. more details below 

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

In 2020 my feed filled up with vision boards and the 369 method and I thought the whole thing was nonsense. but.. I use a version of it every day now.

In this episode I talk about what changed my mind. What I kept, what I left behind, and why I think there's a version of manifestation that is just solid psychology wearing spiritual language.

We cover:

• why it exploded when it did, and why that timing makes complete sense
• what genuinely bothered me about it, and still does
• why "act as if" is the most mocked phrase in manifestation and also the one doing the real work
• the thing manifestation accidentally teaches that almost nothing else does
• the part nobody wants to talk about, and where I've landed on it
• how I use it now, including what I don't bother with

The question to sit with: what would the woman you want to be do today, and could you do it once?

If the identity piece is what landed, the free 14-day reset is where I'd send you next. It says nighttime overeating on the label, but what it's actually doing is walking you from knowing this to living it, one small kept promise at a time.

Daily emails. No calorie maths. No Monday restart required.

[SIGN UP HERE]

Embodied Nourishment, my 16-week coaching programme, is closed for the moment. I'll take new clients later this year and my email list hears first.

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

If you eat properly all day and you still end up in the kitchen at nine o'clock, the advice you've been given was never going to work, because it was written for a different problem. This episode is about the second way into that kitchen, the one that has nothing to do with how much you ate.

We cover:

• two completely different reasons women end up eating at night
• what happens to your mood before and after, measured in real time rather than remembered afterwards
• why "just eat more" changes everything for some women and nothing for others
• the thing sitting underneath both of them, which isn't about food
• what to do about each one, and the question to ask yourself when you're standing there

The question to sit with: what is my body trying to do for me right now?

Referenced: Polivy and Herman on the affect regulation model. Haedt-Matt and Keel's meta-analysis of 36 studies on mood before and after. Whiteside and colleagues on emotion regulation and binge eating. Adam and Epel on stress, appetite and reward. Full links below.

Doors are open. They close Sunday night at 11:59pm.

If this episode described your evenings, that's what Embodied Nourishment is for.

It's sixteen weeks of coaching with me personally. Besides the food story, we focus on your nervous system, because you can't think your way out of a body that never comes down. Then the mindset. Then the identity, which is the part that makes it hold in the weeks that go wrong.

The weight comes off and stays off, because you're not doing anything you'll eventually have to stop doing. Your energy comes back. Your head clears.

And you get the hours back. The planning, the negotiating with yourself at four in the afternoon, the standing in the kitchen at nine, the whole Sunday evening spent writing out a plan you already know you won't follow. Think about what you'd do with that space instead.

Five spots, because I work with you personally. $797 instead of $997. The price goes back up when the doors close.

Find out more [HERE] or DM me the word NOURISH on Instagram and I'll send you everything.

Not ready for that? Start with the free 14-day reset. Daily emails, no calorie maths, no Monday required. Link below.

SOURCES

1. Polivy, J. & Herman, C.P. · affect regulation model of binge eating. Review, Nutrients
2. Whiteside, U. et al. · emotion regulation difficulties predicted binge eating over and above food restriction. PubMed
3. Haedt-Matt, A.A. & Keel, P.K. (2011) · meta-analysis, 36 EMA studies, 968 participants. Negative affect rises before binges and worsens after. PubMed
4. Adam, T.C. & Epel, E.S. (2007). "Stress, eating and the reward system." Physiology & Behavior. PubMed

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

You've probably started again more times this year than you think. This episode is about the restart itself: why it feels so good, why it's the only part of this cycle that has never once let you down, and why I think it's the thing that's actually been keeping you stuck.

We cover:

• why starting again delivers when nothing else does
• what fifty years of research says happens when a dieter breaks her own rule
• why the day one comes before the bad night rather than after it
• what this has really been costing you
• four things to do instead, and not one of them needs a Monday

The question to sit with: how many times have you started again this year? Count them properly, not vaguely.

Everything in this episode is sourced. References below.

Embodied Nourishment opens Tuesday 15 September. Sixteen weeks of personalised coaching to help you stop the binging and lose weight sustainably. It's for the woman who's tried everything and is done doing this on her own. DM me RESET on Instagram to be on the list and hear first or join the waitlist here directly.

REFERENCES

Polivy, J. & Herman, C.P. - the what-the-hell effect and restrained eating research. Overview: Wikiversity summary of the construct · Herman & Polivy's restrained eating classic, SSIB

Marlatt, G.A. - abstinence violation effect. ScienceDirect

 Dai, H., Milkman, K.L. & Riis, J. (2014). "The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior." Management Science, 60(10), 2563-2582. Free PDF, Wharton · journal page

CDC NCHS Data Brief No. 313, July 2018 - Attempts to Lose Weight Among Adults in the United States, 2013–2016 

A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals, PLOS One

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

I say that line a lot. It's on my page, it's in my emails...

And I mean it very specifically. I have an actual list: actual dinners I didn't go to, photos that don't exist, a number of years being stuck in the binge restrict cycle.

This one isn't a teaching episode. Just what's actually on the other side of emotional eating, described properly, and what it cost me to take as long as I did to get there.

We talk about:

• What "healed" actually looks like in real life, in scenes rather than vague phrases like food freedom
• The specific things I lost while I was busy managing my weight, and the one thing I can't get back
• Why women wait, and why every single reason to wait is a good reason
• What I'd say to myself at twenty four, if I could sit down at the kitchen table with her

And the thing I've worked out after saying that line for years: the regret was never about the food, and it was never about the weight. It's about the years you spend being someone smaller than you actually are.

If any of this sounded like your evenings, you're not deciding whether this is possible. You already know it is. You're only deciding when.

Doors to Embodied Nourishment are opening this week. During this launch it's 200 dollars off, and the women on my waitlist get first access, plus a little extra bonus for the earliest ones. [hop on the waitlist here]

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts

If you listened to the last three episodes, you noticed a shape. Cultural pressure to shrink, an industry with a solution, a solution that never touches the actual problem, and then the next solution. The products seem to change every eighteen months, but the pattern never changes.

This is the last episode of the Skinny Pandemic series, and it's the one I actually wanted to make.

We cover:

• The five-step loop underneath every trend, from SkinnyTok to GLP-1s to peptides
• False Hope Syndrome: the psychology of why you go back, and why it isn't a character flaw
• Why "the hope is the product", and what you're really buying every time
• What actually holds up when the trends move on, and the order it has to be built in
• The identity shift nobody sells you, and why it's the only real exit
• Four questions to run on the next thing before you buy it

The question to sit with: what am I actually hoping this will fix?

Referenced: Polivy & Herman on False Hope Syndrome, Current Directions in Psychological Science, and their 1999 study in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. Accessible summary: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/health-and-human-nature/202103/false-hope-syndrome-reveals-big-problem-dieting

Episodes 1 to 3 of this series contain the full sourcing for the GLP-1 and peptide figures referenced here.

If this episode hit home, I'd love for you to join me inside The Nourished Reset: a free 14-day guided experience to help you break free from nighttime overeating, food noise and the guilt spiral, so you can finally feel calm around food and at home in your body. No restriction, no willpower, just real tools that actually work. [Sign up here →]

And if you're ready to go even deeper, Embodied Nourishment is my signature 16-week coaching program to help you lose that stubborn weight, break free from emotional eating and finally feel calm, confident and free around food - for good. [Learn more & apply here →]

If you enjoyed this episode and feel motivated to finally become the best version of yourself, share your thoughts with me on insta and tag me in your stories so I can see and share! 🥰

Connect with me on Instagram here

Get my FREE Notion Journaling Template including 21 Days of Emotional Eating Journaling Prompts