Modelling, Motherhood and the Microbiome | Catherine Hurley Arbibe on Gut Health & Investigative Wellness Journalist Rebecca Newman

From behind the scenes at the world's biggest fashion shows to the science behind the gut microbiome - Catherine Hurley Arbibe shows us a new road to gut health.

Catherine read medicine at Oxford, modelled internationally gracing the covers of Vogue, Marie Claire and Cosmo, and is now the founder of NEWROAD30, a gut health supplement developed with scientists from Oxford, INRAE Paris and Queen's University Belfast. Catherine talks candidly about the reality of life as an international model, what motherhood changed, and how she found her way back to science.

Together with guest co-host and investigative wellness journalist Rebecca Newman, Catherine helps us cut through the noise on gut health supplements, the emerging research on microplastics and three clean living changes that actually make a difference - including the sunscreen question we all need answered.

This is an episode about returning to ours roots, career changes in our 40s, plant diversity, our beautiful brains and finding our way back to something that energises us.

THE WOBBLY MIDDLE is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. Each season, Patsy sits down with women who share their career pivot stories — leaving corporate life and building businesses, breaking back in after career breaks, going back to study, and taking their long-neglected dreams seriously.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a recovering lawyer navigating her own midlife career crossroads. A penny dropped for her when she realised that the restless feeling she'd been feeling was returning ambition. The Wobbly Middle is that in-between space where we know we want change but don't know how to move forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS AJ BELL

Thank you to AJ Bell Money Matters for supporting this episode. The AJ Bell Money Matters podcast is created for women by women featuring news, information and inspiring interviews to help build your knowledge and confidence around finances. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Please click here to show support of our podcast and to find out more about AJ Bell:

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/investment/women-and-investing?utm_source=moneymatters&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=wobblymiddle

📺 Also on YouTube

Want to see as well as hear? An extended version of this conversation is available on The Wobbly Middle YouTube channel — including extra material that didn't make the podcast edit. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/vvifAdOQ2os?si=XnVjDhJhWDndrkYY

Guest Co-Host: Rebecca Newman

Rebecca Newman is an investigative wellness journalist who has written for the Financial Times, The Guardian and GQ. She has a particular interest in the science of the gut microbiome, women's health and evidence-based wellness. She joined Patsy for The Wobbly Middle's vision board episode and is back this week to dig into the science with Catherine.

Key Topics

• Career pivot in midlife — from medicine to modelling to founding a science-backed gut health supplement
• The gut microbiome — why it matters more than we realised and how to support it
• The American Gut Project — the research behind eating 30 different plants a week
• Gut health supplements — what to look for, what to avoid, and why food state matters
• Microplastics — the emerging research and what fibre has to do with it
• The backstage reality — what life at the top of the modelling world was really like
• Clean living edits — three practical changes Catherine has made at home
• Women's health in midlife — plant diversity for a healthy gut

Links

• NEWROAD30: https://newroad.life/?srsltid=AfmBOoo5nHDwZ8p4mpgOQDPPP_osOT6LynaaMgrt7pC48nSCMGHKu00Y
• Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/
• Find out more about The Wobbly Middle: https://thewobblymiddle.substack.com/
• The Wobbly Middle on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wobbly-middle/id1767850643
• The Wobbly Middle on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YhwsBch8Q9vAOUBBfusIv

Time to make your action board🎯 Time To Make Your Action Board

Before you leave — if this episode has you thinking about what you want your next chapter to look like, we have just the episode for you.

Do action boards actually work, or are they just arts and crafts with ambition? In our vision board episode, Rebecca Newman draws on the research of neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart, author of The Source, to explain what's really going on in our brains when we make an action board — and why it might be exactly the tool you need in your wobbly middle. Then theory meets practice as Patsy and Rebecca head to the craft room, where scissors and glue meet cork board, to make their own.

It turns out an action board isn't about magical thinking. It's a daily point of orientation — keeping you facing forward.

👉 Listen to the vision board episode here:

HELP US GROW

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• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — it only takes a moment, and it's one of the best ways to help new listeners find the show. Every review counts.
• Share this episode with a friend — if you know someone who might be in their own wobbly middle, send them this one. Sometimes knowing you're not alone is all it takes.

SHARE YOUR STORY

Made a left turn in your career? We'd love to hear about it. Write to Patsy at patsy@thewobblymiddle.com — your story might just be the nudge someone else needs.

This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.

Thank you for listening and for supporting independent podcasters.