There Are Many Ways to Skin a Cat
Over time, I’ve learned something important: there are many ways to get healthy, and there’s always an element of subjectivity in what “improving your health” actually means.
A quick story
Years ago, an older lady used to train in a gym I worked in. She was in her late 70s. Every weekday, without fail, she’d come in and do the exact same resistance-training routine.
If I put on my “exercise professional” hat, I’d say it wasn’t the best programme. It wasn’t harmful, but it wasn’t what I’d suggest if I were aiming for improving strength, muscle mass and bone density.
But here’s the thing: she loved it.
She did it every day.
She felt good doing it.
I could have given her a “better” programme… but would it actually have been better for her?
Maybe she wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much.
Maybe the extra complexity would’ve confused her.
Maybe, by trying to optimise, I’d have actually made things worse.
(You can read more about that in: Optimal… for what?)
And this is where the placebo effect becomes relevant. If we believe something is doing us good, it often does — not magically, but through behavioural, emotional, and psychological pathways that have a very real impact on our physical health and wellbeing.
This lesson doesn’t just apply to exercise – it applies to almost every part of health.
When it comes to health, many paths lead to the same place
Exercise, nutrition, lifestyle habits – there isn’t one perfect approach. You can take many paths and still arrive at the same outcome. And sometimes the “less optimal” approach is better because it aligns with your beliefs, your identity, and your life.
Nutrition is the same
I’m not in any one dietary camp.
I can see benefits and drawbacks of being vegetarian or vegan, following keto or carnivore, and everything in between. These aren’t necessarily approaches I encourage, but I also wouldn’t deter someone from trying them if they felt it was right for them.
The one “model” of eating I probably align closest with is Intuitive Eating.
Intuitive Eating
Intuitive Eating was created by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in the mid-1990s, building on early anti-diet movements from the 70s. It’s built around principles like:
Letting go of rigid food rules
Listening to hunger and fullness cues
Building trust with your body
Reducing guilt around food
Eating in a way that honours both physical and emotional needs
It’s a solid philosophy.
But even solid philosophies exist within a context – and it’s important to acknowledge that Intuitive Eating was created before our current food environment exploded into what it is today.
Our food environment has changed dramatically
Back when the ideas behind intuitive eating were forming, food culture was different. The principles made sense in a world where:
food wasn’t available 24/7
ultra-processed snacks weren’t engineered to hit a “bliss point”
delivery apps didn’t exist
you couldn’t order a full restaurant meal to your bed at midnight
Today, we live in an abundant, hyper-palatable, always-available food environment. You could realistically live alone, barely move, and still have three highly-calorific meals a day delivered to you in bed (if you tipped the driver enough). That has never existed in human history – and it is a serious challenge.
In that context, pure intuitive eating becomes much harder for many people.
Which means most of us need a slightly different approach.
So what do we do instead?
We create guidelines, not rules.
Frameworks, not prisons.
Not rules that leave us feeling guilt or shame when we “break” them – but flexible guidelines we stick to most of the time, while giving ourselves permission to bend them.
Some examples:
Intermittent fasting – not as a magic fat-loss tool, but because time boundaries reduce mindless grazing.
A daily protein target – not strict, but a rough aim to improve satiety.
Indulgence with intention – enjoying treats because you truly want them, not just because they’re there or you’re bored. Making them part of a moment, an occasion, or good company.
No phone while eating – to increase awareness and reduce overeating.
Shopping rules – don’t buy the snacks you overeat, but enjoy them out of the house.
Simple plate structure – half veg, quarter protein, quarter carbs, most of the time.
These aren’t diets.
They’re personalised constraints – positive constraints – that support better choices without feeling restrictive.
Billy Connolly said it well
He once joked:
**“If you eat brown bread for your whole life and I eat white bread for my whole life, how much longer are you going to live than me? A fortnight? Ten days?
And it isn’t a fortnight when you’re eighteen… it’s a fortnight when you’re in an old folks’ home, pissing your pants.”**
it’s funny — and it’s true.
The point isn’t life extension at all costs
If you don’t look after yourself, your quality of life will diminish.
But if you become so fixated on health, rules, and optimisation, your quality of life will also diminish – just in a different way.
Tim Ferriss uses a phrase I think about often:
“Are you enhancing your life… or are you avoiding death?”
They’re two very different things.
The bottom line
Health isn’t about finding the perfect plan.
It’s about finding the right plan — the one that fits your psychology, your preferences, your values, and your real life.
Sometimes the “best” programme is the one you enjoy.
Sometimes the “optimal” diet is the one you can sustain.
Sometimes the most effective path forward isn’t about being perfect — it’s about being human.
Just like the woman in the gym, the best approach is the one you’ll actually do — and the one that adds to your life, rather than taking from it.