Wellness Unfiltered Episode 4 Transcript — Friendship, Flying Beauty & Mid-Life Wisdom

[00:00] Intro

Lee: Well, hello out there! You're Lee...

Irene: And you're Irene!

Lee & Irene: And this is Wellness Unfiltered! Yay!

Irene: Well, we are back in the cabin, waiting on those cicadas to provide the soundtrack to our pod, and I'm feeling very serene.

Lee: Mmm, "Serene Irene." I'll take a kilo and a half of that! For anyone joining us in the cabin for the first time, this pod is where we strip back the marketing hoo-ha and get real in our worlds of beauty, health, and wellness.

[01:30] What's Popping?

Irene: All right Lee, the tea is hot and I'm fit to pop! We are delving into friendships, the magic of laughter, and how to look like Bo Derek in your mid-life.

Lee: Yes, we are. Allow me to introduce my favorite duo from the very popular Over the Back Fence podcast: Nicola Dale and Di Edwards.

Nicola & Di: Yay! Thank you! Wow, who are we, Di? Thanks for that lovely warm welcome.

Lee: All right ladies, so let's get into it. We're all in the 50-plus bracket, and I've noticed that we've kind of been rethinking our sense of ourselves, especially in these middle years. Di, how have you redefined your sense of self?

Di: I think, particularly now because I'm in my mid-60s, I'm actually feeling younger than I've ever felt in my whole entire life. Because of attitude. And the mind can take over your very being — but I think for me, it's been letting go of the things that I can't change. And how empowering that has become for me.

Lee: And Nicola, you have been a flight attendant for 30 years!

Nicola: Come fly with me!

Irene: One thing I notice when I do travel is your skin is so beautiful and hydrated. How do we keep it like that when it gets so dehydrated in the sky?

Nicola: Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate is the number one key. Eye drops, lip balm, a thick moisturiser. And post-flight — I've just started skin needling and LED medical-grade light therapy. Since then I've had comments — I've got a glow about my skin. And the flight attendant quick-fix? Bright lipstick always does the trick.

[08:15] Daily Rituals & Connection

Lee: What is one simple daily ritual that instantly makes you feel more "you"?

Nicola: Walking the dog, my morning coffee, and at least once or twice a week a Yin yoga class. Walking in nature is my thing.

Di: For me it's gratitude. I wake up and I am grateful for breathing. And I go into the ocean and I squeal like a child — I come out a different human. The ocean is full of magnesium, salt water — it's healing. Nature's gift.

Di: Remember how daggy it was when someone said "I'm going to hug a tree." Now I don't care who's around — I literally hug those trees in the forest. If you switch your mind off and connect, you'll feel the energy of a tree that's 200 or 300 years old.

[12:30] Friendship Evolution & Mid-Life Health

Lee: I've noticed with Irene and I, our friendship conversations have turned from career and babies to bowel health and glass air fryers. How do you feel about that evolution?

Di: In my 20s and 30s I was a busy girl — hosting TV programs, everyone saw me as this incredibly confident woman. And I was crumbling inside. I now look in the mirror and say "I see you beautiful. Inside and out." That's not ego — that's self-love. Self-love is key.

Nicola: Friendships deepen as you age. Di and I have been friends for over 40 years — we've gone through divorces, lost our parents, had our babies together. There's a real depth and a true love and respect. And we don't stop laughing. We laugh from when we first met, 40-plus years ago, and we still do.

[23:05] Womansplaining: Self-Care for Men

Justin: Self-care. It's generally not something my mates and I talk about, but I know it's important. Can you give me some womanly ways to self-care for men that don't care?

Lee: Self-care really is everyone care. Say "no" to one thing this week. Women call it setting boundaries. Protecting your time and energy is self-care, and "no" is a complete sentence.

Irene: Building bonds with mates and leaning on friends is even more important for men than for women. Men tend to go through things on their own. Having a group of mates to have a beer with — even just being in the company — that's a man's way of self-care.

Lee: From a nutrition point of view: men don't drink enough water. Having a litre bottle with you wherever you go is a real act of self-care. And cook one real meal a week for yourself — the act of making food for yourself is a form of self-respect.

Justin: Yeah I reckon both those ideas are good. And I love the water bottle idea — to gamify it with volume markers so you can track how much you've drunk.

[38:15] You're On Speaker: Pilates & Inflammation with Lexie

Lexie: I believe my superpower is to help others through the gift of Pilates.

Lexie: They say if you are Pilates fit you're fit for any sport. It's fundamentally about using control and being mindful in your body. If you have injuries it's easy to work around them. And mat Pilates doesn't get enough credit — it's challenging because it's just using your own body.

Lee: Where do you breathe into when you're doing Pilates?

Lexie: Pull your stomach in and take a nice inhale breath. As you exhale, tighten your abs — imagine someone's about to punch you — and exhale from there. Inhale through the nose, exhale out the mouth. You can do this sitting at your desk right now.

Lexie: I'm intrigued by inflammation in the body. As I've hit 44 my joints aren't feeling as lubricated as they were. What would you recommend to reduce inflammation?

Lee: A Mediterranean-style anti-inflammatory diet. Good fats like avocado, salmon, those kinds of things. And turmeric — it has an active compound called curcumin which is very anti-inflammatory. The trick: always have black pepper with it. Pepper contains piperine which dramatically improves how well your body absorbs the curcumin.

Irene: Easy food swaps: berries, leafy greens, cruciferous veggies. Olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocado instead of margarine. Salmon and sardines a couple of times a week. Beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh. And turmeric plus a pinch of black pepper in everything — your scrambled eggs, soups, smoothies.

[31:45] Rant & Rave: The Bro-Longevity Chokehold

Lee: I've got a Rant and a Rave today — a reverse Rant. I want to talk about the absolute chokehold that "bro-longevity" has had on our Instagram feeds for the last three years. We've been in the era of the ten-thousand-dollar cold plunge and the tech bros spending two million dollars a year on their blood work. Wellness has become this real elitist competitive sport.

We've traded genuine community for sterile biohacking chambers. We've swapped a simple joyful walk with a friend for a zone-two cardio session monitored by wearables. Some of us are so obsessed with the quantity of our years that we've completely sacrificed the quality of our days. We're obsessing over not dying — but are we actually living?

I call it the "immortality complex." Real health is about moving, playing, socialising. More analogue than digital, more crayon than keyboard. A dip in the ocean, a game with your grandkids, smiling at a dog, touching the grass. That connection is the real miracle drug that no algorithm can replicate.

Irene: Everything you're saying is really inspirational. I wonder though if there's a happy medium — I do love some hacks. We like some hacks.

[48:40] Closing

Irene: I know I could talk to you forever. How inspiring were Di and Nicola? And Lexie the Pilates master — that was interesting. If you dug today's episode make sure you check out Over the Back Fence with Di and Nicola. Hit subscribe so you'll never miss an episode of Wellness Unfiltered. Until next time: keep smiling and bye!

Lee: Bye! Mwah!