I Used to Live by Food Rules. Now I Have Almost None.

For most of my adult life, I thought the secret to finally getting nutrition "right" was more rules.

I tried every diet going (the full, painful and slightly embarrassing list is in my story). Keto told me carbs were the enemy, carnivore told me plants were and going plant based told me the opposite (talk about extremes). The shake diets told me meals were optional and juice detoxes told me they weren’t necessary at all. On top of all of that, I added in some rules of my own: no carbs after a certain time, keep nothing "naughty" in the house, skip breakfast or slash calories if yesterday had been a "bad" day. And worst of all, if I were to break one of these rules the rest of the week was written off, so I might as well start again on Monday.

I wasn't following rules because I loved them. I followed them because I thought they were safe and that they would make it EASIER to get to my goal. If every decision was already made for me and there was nothing to think about and nothing to get wrong (although they forgot to make rules for when things did go wrong). Rules meant control, control meant results, and results (I was sure) meant I would finally be happy.

However, as many of you are probably familiar with, it didn't work out that way.

The rules never solved the problem

What I didn't understand back then was that rules don't remove the hard part of eating, they just move it. Instead of deciding what to eat, I spent all my energy policing what I wasn't allowed to eat. Thinking about it to the point of obsession, resisting it for as long as I could and when I inevitably caved in and ate far too much of it, I would then feel guilty and invent a stricter rule to make up for it.

The more rules I had, the more space food took up in my head. And the scale? It barely moved, or it moved and came straight back, sometimes higher than it started.

Rules are rigid and life isn't. A rule doesn't know you slept badly, or that you lifted heavy this morning, or that it's your child's birthday party. It just says yes or no. The moment real life gets in the way (which, if we are honest, is pretty much every single week) the rule breaks and we feel like we have failed yet again.

What changed

When I trained as a PT, I learned about nutrition for the first time. Not food lists or diet rules, but the actual science of how the body works and slowly all of those rules that I had been following for years started to look a little ridiculous.

Then came more study, more qualifications and, most importantly, years of working with real women living real lives. All of it taught me the same thing: life is messy and unpredictable, and rules were never built to fit it. Trying to make them fit is like buying your toddler one pair of shoes and expecting them to last until they start school. They might fit beautifully for a few weeks, but life keeps growing and sooner or later something starts to pinch.

When I reflect on it, I can see that the more I understood, the fewer rules I needed. Which surprised me, because I expected the opposite. I thought knowing more would make me stricter, that I'd end up cutting out anything that wasn't "optimal" and agonising over every bite, but instead it did the reverse. Once you understand WHY your body needs what it needs, you stop needing someone (or some diet book) to tell you what you can and can't have.

There are no good or bad foods, only context

I will admit that this is the bit that took me the longest to trust, even with the experience and knowledge and qualifications, and it is where the SCIENCE comes in.

No single food is "good" or "bad" on its own. What matters is what that food does for you, in that moment and as a part of everything else you eat. Context is everything.

A bowl of white rice isn't "bad carbs" when you're fuelling for a heavy lifting session (it's exactly what your body wants). Toast and jam isn't a failure when you are feeling sick and it's the only thing you can stomach. A quick sandwich grabbed between school runs isn't "falling off the wagon," it is lunch. And a coffee and pastry with a friend on a Sunday morning isn't something you need to earn back at the gym. It's just a pastry and that's ok.

These days, I don't look at a plate and ask whether it's "good" or "bad." I ask what my body needs from it today.

Sometimes the answer is protein and a pile of vegetables and sometimes it's carbs, and plenty of them and sometimes (shock horror) it's the thing that makes the evening feel nice. All of those can be the right answer.

But this isn't a free for all

Before anyone takes that as permission to live on biscuits, cake and crisps, let me be clear. Fewer rules does not mean nothing matters.

Some foods do more for your body than others. Protein helps you build and keep muscle and keeps you full, fibre keeps your gut happy and your energy steady, plenty of plants, regular meals and enough water are all things that matter a lot.

And what about the foods that are less nutritionally supportive? They feel great in the moment and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but if they make up most of what you eat, most of the time, your body will let you know. Your energy will dip, your sleep will suffer, your training will stall and you just don't feel GOOD.

BUT, and this is the important part, they DO still have a place. A place on purpose, without guilt, and without a "fresh start" on Monday to make up for it. When a food stops being forbidden, it stops having so much power over you (if you want the science behind that, I've written about it in Are you really addicted to food?).

Balance isn't a rule, it is what happens naturally when you understand what your body needs and stop fighting it.

"But you're a macro coach. Aren't macros just more rules?"

This is a fair question and it is important to understand the reason behind tracking macros.

Macros aren't rules, they are information. They don't tell you what you can't eat, they show you what you ARE eating, so you can make choices based on what your body needs instead of what a diet taught you to fear. A cookie fits, pasta fits, rice fits etc. The point is to understand how it all adds up, so you can stop guessing and stop panicking.

That understanding is the whole reason I have so few rules now. I'm not white knuckling my way through the day. I know what supports me, so I can make a call in the moment, whatever that moment looks like.

What coaching women has taught me

Every woman who comes to me arrives with her own rulebook. Some rules came from a diet she tried years ago, some from a magazine, some from a well meaning friend, and some she can't even remember picking up. Most of them have never been questioned, they have just been obeyed.

The work isn't adding new rules on top. It's taking the old ones apart, one at a time, and replacing each one with an understanding of WHY. Once a woman knows why protein matters, she doesn't need a rule about it and once she knows a single meal can't undo her progress, she doesn't need a rule to protect her from it.

The beautiful thing that I love seeing is that ah ha moment when they get it. The fewer rules she has, the calmer she gets around food and the calmer she gets, the more consistent she becomes. And consistency (not perfection, not willpower) is what gets results.

Fewer rules, happier me

I still find it a little funny how younger me would have freaked out at how few food rules I now have. Fewer than at any point in my life and yet I eat better than I ever have. I am stronger, I have more energy, I look better and food takes up a fraction of the headspace it used to.

Rules gave me the feeling of control but it was understanding that actually put me in control.

That's what I want for every woman I work with. Not a longer list of rules to follow, but the knowledge and the confidence to not need them.