Nutrition Is Simple,
But It's Not Easy

You are built from the elements you consume.

The oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, chlorine, magnesium and other trace elements that make up 100% of your body come entirely from the food you eat, the water you drink and the air you breathe.

Get too much or too little of a combination of elements, and sooner or later your body will stop working the way it should. Get the right elements in the right quantities, and you'll thrive. That is nutrition in a nutshell.

I've been interested in nutrition for the past 14 years. I've been vegan, vegetarian and carnivore. I've practised intermittent fasting, longer fasting and excessive supplementation. I studied nutrition and coached several hundred people. I've changed my mind about nutrition dozens of times, and I've always tried to overcomplicate something that is fundamentally simple.

Something I've landed on and tell my clients is this: nutrition is simple, but it is not easy. It's simple because there aren't a million rules to follow to eat well. It's not easy because the world you live in presents many obstacles.

Not a million rules, but five fundamentals of good nutrition so that you can get the right combination of elements and thrive. These are the principles that are always true, no matter what diet you follow or what your goals are. It's how you build a healthy body.

Fundamental 1: Eat whole foods most of the time

It is very hard to overeat whole foods.

People have written books about this. Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken, for example. The National Institutes of Health ran a landmark clinical study led by Dr Kevin Hall, and you can read it for yourself here.

For the sake of clarity, whole foods are natural, unrefined foods that have not been heavily processed or stripped of their original nutrients.

Imagine yourself with a massive head of broccoli. 500 to 600 grams of pure green vegetable. The size of two of your closed fists put together. Fibrous and hard to chew. A whole 180 calories. About the same as three squares of chocolate.

If you manage to eat it all, you're stuffed. Full belly. A measly 180 calories of energy. Not so calorie-dense.

But what about elements?

Broccoli isn't calorie-dense, but it's very nutrient-dense.

It contains vitamins C, K and A, and a lot of B vitamins. It has potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and zinc. It also carries bioactive plant compounds: sulforaphane, indole-3-carbinol and flavonoids, which are being studied for their role in inflammation and heart health.

Broccoli is a good example of why whole foods are so hard to overeat. It is not calorie-dense but nutrient-dense. It contains a lot of fibre and water, which quickly fills the stomach. You have to chew it thoroughly, which slows down your eating speed, giving your brain's satiety signals time to catch up. The intact food matrix means that your body digests it slowly.

Ultra-processed foods are the exact opposite in every regard.

Take a bowl of crispy, sugar-glazed cereal covered in your favourite milk. You've likely free-poured 60g of cereal into your bowl, double the recommended amount. The first bites crunch perfectly. Just as the food scientists intended. Then it gets soggy from the milk. You barely need to chew. The food matrix and fibre have been destroyed, so the cereal moves down the digestive tract much faster, allowing you to almost drink it. It's intensely pleasurable. The specific high-concentration combinations of sugar, salt and fat hit the spot just right.

You pour more into your bowl. It's delicious. 560 calories. You're still peckish. You're not satisfied until you feel too full. You're not satisfied until you've consumed way too much sugar and way too many calories.

That's the difference.

Fundamental 2: Prioritise protein

Protein matters because it has two main jobs.

First, protein is the most satiating macronutrient. Eat more protein. Stay fuller for longer. Eat less of everything else. Simple.

Second, protein is made up of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of the body. They make up collagen, keratin and elastin, which build your skin, hair, nails, bones and cartilage, while other proteins build and repair muscle tissue. They also make up enzymes, hormones, antibodies and haemoglobin, to name the VIPs.

Protein sources like meat, fish and eggs are also nutrient-dense. In many ways, animal and fish tissue acts as concentrated nutrient storage. They eat plants, store the nutrients in their tissues, and you eat their tissues. That concentration is likely part of why we started keeping animals in the first place.

Whether you're trying to lose fat or gain muscle, protein is your best friend.

Want to know how to get enough for your body's needs? Hit me up for personalised coaching.

Fundamental 3: Top up on fibre

Imagine there was a new pill or injection. You hear about it from your friend, who saw a scroll-stopping Instagram ad. The ad is adamant that this new thing has been scientifically proven to help you lose weight, improve insulin sensitivity and your gut microbiome, reduce inflammation, reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease, and help you live longer. You'd probably be sceptical at first. You'd let your friend try it out.

Six months later, your friend is 5kg lighter, her blood tests came back improved, and her belly is so much flatter. No more bloating. Feeling spectacular.

You excitedly ask, "Where do I buy it?" It's the right question.

Although such a pill or injection doesn't exist, the main agent isn't fictional.

It's dietary fibre. The most overlooked nutrient in Western society.

Fibre is shown to help us in all the ways this imaginary pill did. You can read the research here.

In the UK, adults eat around 20g of fibre a day or less. Across the US and Europe the average runs somewhere between 15g and 24g. The UK recommendation is 30g a day for adults, and only about four in ten of us hit it. Statistically, most people reading this blog are not getting enough.

Getting more fibre needs to be intentional. It's much easier to get enough if you eat mostly whole foods, but it's not guaranteed.

That friend who changed her health didn't buy a pill. She just started eating legumes (split peas, lentils, black beans), seeds (chia, flaxseed, pumpkin), fruits (berries, apples with skin), vegetables (broccoli, dark leafy greens) and whole grains (oats, barley, bulgur, quinoa).

Get four to five servings of those daily, and you'll be well on your way to a healthy gut.

A serving is 80g for legumes, fruit, vegetables and whole grains. 10g for seeds.

Fundamental 4: Get more variety

William Cowper wrote this in a poem back in 1785:

Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.

He hit the nail on the head when it comes to nutrition.

Let's go back to the elements that make up 100% of the human body. It's quite hard to find all of these elements in sufficient amounts in a single food.

If the body were a house that needed to be built and furnished, you'd struggle to find all the building materials, furnishings, curtains, wallpapers, pots, brushes and the rest in one store. While some stores sell most of the items you need, they probably don't sell everything, or don't have sufficient quantities, or don't offer enough choice for your needs.

It's the same principle with your body and where you get your elements. The more you shop around, the better nutrition you get, and the better body you build.

Most decent-sized grocery stores will contain 40 to 50 different vegetables, 40 to 60 different fruits, and at least 10 different types of legumes. Not to mention the different meat, fish, grain and nut options. Plenty of choice for complete nutrition. All the materials to build and furnish your house.

Aim for 30 different plant foods per week, on top of the meat and fish you may eat.

Fundamental 5: Hunger is OK

People seem to have forgotten that hunger won't kill you in six hours. An average human can survive one to three months without food. Going six hours without eating is not an excuse to pick up that packet of crisps.

We've trained ourselves to be slaves to our stomachs, and it's the downfall of many good intentions.

There are real, physiological reasons why hunger sucks. The hunger pangs come as the stomach muscle contracts and churns. The hormone ghrelin screams at your brain, ordering it to feed. Blood glucose declines. You feel shaky and irritable as the body releases adrenaline and cortisol to free up stored sugars. Your brain's reward centres light up, making you highly sensitive to the sight or smell of food. Your cognitive focus shifts almost entirely towards acquiring a meal.

But the more you sit with hunger, the more control you have over it. Your body is adaptable. You can retrain your hormonal signals, improve your metabolic flexibility and change how your brain responds. The way you do that is by not reacting to hunger the moment it arrives.

Next time you haven't eaten for a few hours, don't go reaching for the first thing available. Take a deep breath and tell yourself, "The hunger will pass, and I won't die".

Nutrition is simple, but it's not easy

Oxygen. Carbon. Calcium. Phosphorus. It reads like chemistry.

This chemistry is rebuilding your body right now. Bone, blood, skin, the lining of your gut. All of it made from what you ate this week.

You don't control everything about your health. You do control the materials your body is made of.

Sit down. Make your menu for tomorrow. Whole foods. Protein. Fibre. Variety.

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