People ask me about nutrition a lot, which makes sense given that it's one of the areas I work in. But what they usually want is a meal plan or a list of "good" and "bad" foods. I don't do that.

Why I stopped counting

I counted calories and tracked macros for about two years. I was meticulous about it. And technically it worked: I hit my targets, I looked healthy on paper, I was eating "clean" by anyone's definition.

But I was also miserable. I thought about food constantly. I felt guilty when I went over my numbers. Social meals became stressful because I couldn't control what was being served. I'd mentally calculate every plate that was put in front of me.

That's not a healthy relationship with food, even if the food itself is healthy.

What I do instead

I eat based on how things make me feel. Not in a vague "listen to your body" way, but in a practical, learned-over-time way. I know that if I skip breakfast I'll be irritable by 11am. I know that too much sugar at lunch makes my afternoon foggy. I know that I sleep better when I eat dinner earlier rather than later.

This isn't intuitive. I didn't wake up one day knowing all of this. I paid attention, experimented, and built a picture of what works for me over months. That's what I help my clients do too.

A typical day

Breakfast is usually scrambled eggs with spinach and sourdough, or overnight oats with berries and seeds. Something with protein and fibre that keeps me going until lunch without thinking about food.

Lunch varies but it's usually a big bowl of something: grains, vegetables, some kind of protein. I batch cook a lot of this on Sundays so I'm not making decisions at noon on a Tuesday.

Afternoon I'll have a snack. Usually an apple with almond butter or a handful of nuts. Sometimes just a cup of tea and nothing else if I'm not hungry.

Dinner is whatever I feel like, honestly. Pasta, stir-fry, soup, fish and vegetables. I don't restrict anything. If I want pizza, I eat pizza. What I've noticed is that when you stop labelling foods as "bad," you naturally gravitate toward balance because you're not rebounding from restriction.

The point

Nutrition doesn't need to be complicated and it definitely doesn't need to be punishing. The best approach is the one you can maintain without thinking about it constantly. For me, that meant letting go of the spreadsheet and learning to actually listen.