Mikki Williden, PhD

Mikki Williden, PhD Registered nutritionist, whole food, health, nutrition, sport nutrition, primal, podcast Mikkipedia
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Forever grateful that I get to move my body before the sun rises. A lifetime of habit at this point, and as a runner for...
28/04/2026

Forever grateful that I get to move my body before the sun rises.

A lifetime of habit at this point, and as a runner for over 35 years, I often joke that we are either about to get injured, injured, or getting over an injury.

I ‘feel’ like training maybe 60% of the time. The possibility of feeling amazing during the session (which is unpredictable a lot of the time), the feeling of achievement and satisfaction afterwards, and the immense calm I feel once it’s done. And that I almost always feel better afterwards regardless of how I felt to begin - and this is better physically, emotionally, energetically are all the reasons I will always go.

Science will point you to the best time of the day to train for strength, speed, hypertrophy, power. In real life though the best time to do this is when nothing else competes for your time and attention. Personally it’s early AM - I LOVE getting up early, it feels like I am winning the day when I do that. And no decision fatigue as it’s already decided. I can focus on this, then get on with my day.

I chuck my clothes on the bathroom floor ready to be put on. I know what I’m doing for the session (ie I have a plan) and I look forward to my pre workout drink and coffee as I have an early AM email catch up to check in on research, tasks etc. and I don’t have the opportunity to talk myself out of it.

View from this AM jog, then a swim (together one of my fave low intensity sessions). 🤗

27/04/2026

If intermittent fasting has worked well for you to drop body fat, that’s great. It often creates structure, reduces overall intake, and for a period of time, it just works.

But I see this a lot. The same person who once felt sharp, energised, and in control during a fast starts to feel flat. Hunger creeps in earlier. Mood dips. Energy and concentration aren’t what they were. The fast that used to feel easy now feels like a grind.

You need to listen to this biofeedback. These are signs you may need to pivot.

In this phase, adding in 40–50g of protein earlier in the day can be a really effective method. A whey protein isolate or a good quality plant-based protein can do the job without blowing out calories.

You’re supporting satiety, preserving lean mass, and often stabilising energy and focus across the day.

It doesn’t mean IF “stopped working.” It means your physiology, your training load, your stress, or your body composition has shifted. And your strategy needs to shift with it.

What got you here may not get you there.

Holding onto a method because it used to work, despite worsening biofeedback, is where people get stuck. Adjusting your approach is not backtracking at all, so it’s important not to stay wedded to any idea or method just because it worked, especially in the face of evidence that it’s no longer the case.

26/04/2026

If you’re in pain, fat loss is not the priority your body is working toward.

Chronic pain changes everything. It disrupts sleep, limits movement, ramps up stress, and makes even simple decisions feel harder. Then on top of that, you expect yourself to diet. That’s a big ask.

Your body isn’t thinking “great time to lose body fat.” It’s trying to manage a stressor. Pain is a signal that something needs attention, not something to override with more restriction.

I know it’s frustrating. You feel like you should be able to push through because you’ve done it before. But pain is different. It adds physiological load. It changes your capacity.

So instead of chasing fat loss, set a floor. Too often women I talk to are in this cycle of pain, but also guilt and shame that they can’t also nail their deficit. Now isn’t the time.

Keep it simple. Protein at meals. Regular eating. Movement as you can tolerate it. Prioritise sleep where possible. Maintain some structure to your day.

Often, this is what gets you back to a place where fat loss becomes possible again. But it comes after you’ve reduced the overall stress load, not before. And focus on resolving the pain through seeing the appropriate practitioner.

You don’t need more pressure right now. You need a plan that matches your reality, and a bit more grace while you’re in it.

FYI I really like these two products - because they taste like the real deal and they are low sugar/low cal.Some of the ...
25/04/2026

FYI I really like these two products - because they taste like the real deal and they are low sugar/low cal.

Some of the non alc ciders and beers can still rack up on calories if you’re having 3-4 of an evening - if they are 99 cal a piece and you enjoy one, no big deal. But if you’re having a few, it’s worth considering IMO.

22/04/2026

HRT doesn’t build muscle.

It’s a helpful tool, of course. A lot of women start HRT and expect to suddenly see more muscle. When that doesn’t happen, it feels confusing, like something isn’t working.

The reality is that muscle is built from consistent resistance training, enough protein and progressive overload over time. HRT doesn’t replace any of that.

What it can do is support the environment your body is operating in. HRT plays a role in recovery, reducing muscle breakdown, and muscle repair. It allows you to feel better from many of the symptoms that keep you from getting a quality sleep. So with HRT, you may recover better, train more consistently, and maintain muscle more easily. But it allows the process, it doesn’t drive it.

And then there’s the other piece. Seeing muscle is not the same as having muscle.

If you’re not seeing definition, it’s usually down to body fat levels, fluid retention (which can increase on HRT), or not enough training stimulus. Not the HRT itself.

So if you’re on HRT and not seeing muscle, look at your training, your nutrition, and your consistency over time.

HRT can support the process. But you still have to give your body a reason to build muscle.

22/04/2026

If your protein is on point, your fibre is solid, and you’re eating a decent volume of food, but you’re still hungry, you’ve got an energy problem. At that point, it’s very likely you’re simply under-eating calories, and no amount of discipline is going to override that long term.

The fix isn’t to double down and “be better.” It’s to increase your intake, usually by bringing up either carbohydrate or fat, depending on what suits you and your training. Because even when fat loss is the goal, you shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly battling hunger just to get through the day.

White-knuckling your diet might work for a short window, but it’s not a strategy. Persistent hunger is a signal that your body isn’t getting what it needs, and ignoring that tends to make things harder, not easier. Energy drops, adherence slips, and what started as a controlled approach can quickly unravel.

A well-set fat loss phase should feel structured and manageable. You should be able to go about your day without thinking about food every five minutes or relying on sheer restraint to stay on track. If you’ve nailed the fundamentals: protein, fibre, food volume, and hunger is still loud, it’s worth adjusting calories rather than pushing harder against it.

PS of course there are people w real food noise this won’t work for. But try this if you haven’t already.

22/04/2026

There’s a lot of noise at the moment around “natural GLP-1 boosters” foods or supplements being positioned as nature’s Ozempic. It sounds appealing. Eat this, add that, and you’ll get the same appetite control as a medication.

But that’s not how physiology works.

Yes certain foods do increase GLP-1. Protein is a big one. Fibre and minimally processed carbohydrates slow digestion and stimulate gut hormone release. Fruit, resistant starch, and meals with some structure to them all contribute. Even fasting can enhance the effectiveness of GLP-1 stimulation apparently. That’s part of why whole food diets tend to be more satiating than ultra-processed ones.

But the magnitude matters.

The GLP-1 response from food is modest and short-lived. It’s part of a broader, tightly regulated system that helps with satiety in the moment. Medications like semaglutide are operating on a completely different level: pharmacological doses, longer half-life, sustained receptor activation. 1000s times for several days. Not 10x for a few minutes.

So when something is marketed as “nature’s Ozempic”, which is everywhere, it’s usually taking a small, true mechanism and overstating its real-world impact.

That doesn’t mean those foods aren’t valuable. They absolutely are. A diet built around protein, fibre, and minimally processed carbs will support appetite regulation, glycaemic control, and overall metabolic health. That’s your foundation.

But it’s no sub for the effects of a GLP-1 agonist and if only people stopped marketing it as such.

Build your diet on principles that work. Just don’t confuse supportive physiology with pharmacology.

You are human, designed to move. It is part of our DNA.How you frame exercise and movement is everything. If you see it ...
21/04/2026

You are human, designed to move. It is part of our DNA.

How you frame exercise and movement is everything. If you see it as something you ‘have’ to do, like a task. A box to tick off when you’ve got the time or the motivation, then when life gets busy, it’s the first thing to go.

People who move no matter not, for who movement is non negotiable (be it a mobility session, a hard session, a light session, but just moving their body) have made movement part of their identity. It isn’t something that is pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

They’ll do it if they’ve got 60 minutes, or if they’ve got 8 minutes. It isn’t ‘exercising’ for exercising sake, it is just part of who they are. And when it’s part of your identity, you stop negotiating with yourself. You don’t sit there deciding whether you feel like it. Feelings don’t come into it. You just get up and do something, in the same way you’d brush your teeth or make your coffee.

For some it is how they have always been. For others, like me (who wrote fake notes to get out of PE), it is a learned behaviour, that has been practiced for decades at this point. This is why I know that it can be this way for you. Because if you’re not active and reading this and thinking ‘it’s all right for you, you’ve always done it.’ I haven’t, actually. Sure, at this point it’s been decades. But it hasn’t always been this way.

People who don’t move don’t yet know how much energy, vitality and motivation comes from movement. They might think that they need these things in order to get out the door, but it is the other way around. This is built in to our mitochondria and metabolism and is just waiting for you to unleash it.

Start small, start somewhere, start thinking of yourself as an athlete (as a human, you are in fact an athlete) and witness in real time the identify shift that comes from movement when you make it part of who you are, not just something that you do.

20/04/2026

If you feel like you’re doing everything right, but nothing is changing, it’s worth stepping back and looking at the full picture rather than zooming in on the one “off plan” meal.

It’s easy to blame the croissant on a Saturday or the dinner out with friends. But in most cases, that’s not the thing driving fat loss resistance. What matters far more is what you’re doing consistently, day in and day out.

A pattern I see a lot is this: someone is eating “keto-ish,” then increases protein (which is great in theory), but nothing else changes. Fat intake stays high, protein comes up, and suddenly total calories are higher than they realise. On paper, it still looks like a “good” diet. In reality, it’s just a more calorie-dense version of what they were already doing.

That’s where things stall.

Because fat loss doesn’t respond to how clean your diet looks. It responds to energy balance over time. And it’s very easy for a diet built around high-fat foods plus added protein to overshoot what your body actually needs.

So instead of worrying about the occasional meal out, look at your baseline.

What does a typical Tuesday look like?
What does breakfast, lunch, and dinner actually add up to?
Where might calories be creeping in without you noticing?

That’s where the leverage is.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s alignment between your intake and your goal. And most of the time, that comes from tightening up the repeatable parts of your week, not eliminating the croissant.

20/04/2026

When you cook foods like potatoes or rice, the starch granules absorb water and swell (this is called gelatinisation). It’s what makes a raw potato inedible but a cooked one soft and digestible. But if you then cool those cooked carbs, some of that starch reorganises into a form that resists digestion. This is called resistant starch.

Resistant starch does exactly what the name suggests: it resists being broken down in the small intestine. Instead of being rapidly converted into glucose and absorbed, it passes through to the large intestine where it becomes fuel for gut microbes. From a gut health perspective, that’s a win. You’re essentially feeding your microbiome without needing to add anything unusual to your diet.

From a carbohydrate perspective, it effectively lowers the amount of available carbohydrate but here’s the important part: we can’t accurately quantify how much at home. The amount of resistant starch formed depends on the food, how it’s cooked, how long it’s cooled, and even how it’s reheated. So if you’re tracking macros, you still count the carbs as they are on paper. Think of any reduction as a bonus (for low carbers) if that’s your intention, not something to rely on for precision.

It’s also worth keeping this in perspective. You don’t need to start batch cooking and refrigerating every potato or serving cold rice at every meal. The metabolic impact of a meal is influenced just as much (if not more) by the overall meal composition. Protein, fat, fibre, and even the order you eat foods in can all influence blood glucose response. So while resistant starch can blunt the glucose rise slightly, the real-world effect is quite individual and often modest.

However, regularly including some cooled-and-reheated starches can be one simple way to increase fermentable substrate for your gut bacteria, which in turn produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, compounds linked to gut integrity and metabolic health. That’s a win.

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