23/08/2026
I’ve never been someone who dives into food for comfort. A bad day doesn’t send me reaching for the chocolate while zoning out watching some nonsense on Netflix.
Growing up, food was fuel. Not particularly flavourful, not particularly considered. You ate it, you moved, job done.
And it worked because I was always active.
The first crack in that logic appeared at 16 when I did my ankle in. Suddenly I wasn’t training. Suddenly my waistbands were having a worse time than I was.
That was the moment it clicked > being active meant I could relax with food. Being inactive meant food needed to be thought about.
University then decided to stress test the whole theory.
First year brought copious alcohol, questionable cooking, and the kind of skinny-fat body that looks like it’s given up but hasn’t quite committed to it yet (even though I was training and playing football a lot).
Second year brought the gym alongside the football, and a body that started making sense again.
Fast forward to 2017-2020. Least active I’d ever been. Predictably, the roundest I’d ever been too. Funny how that works.
2021, I changed things. Not with a complicated protocol or a 47-page nutrition plan, just a clearer understanding of something I’d always known but temporarily forgotten.
Earn your food through the activity you do.
Eat the foods that promote everything you want (energy, strength, recovery, hormone health) and lower the ones that clearly just sit there contributing towards body fat storage while you sit on the sofa contributing towards nothing (high-carb foods and junk, oops, probably triggering someone now)
Not very active right now? Probably ease off the fun, loaded, slightly indulgent stuff.
Training hard and moving well? You can probably eat the high-carb foods now (and maybe some junk)
You’ve earned it.
PB+J on toast after a solid session yesterday.
Earned.
