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1. Tracking Everything (AKA Outsourcing My Brain to an App)

Calories.
Protein.
Points.
Targets.

If it could be tracked, I tracked it.

At the time, it felt like control.

What it actually was… was me handing over every single food decision to an app and hoping it knew my body better than I did.

I ate what it said.
When it said.
In the amount it approved of.

And on paper? I was nailing it.

In reality? My body was like, “Hello?? Anyone listening?”

I have PCOS, which means my hunger and energy levels change day to day. Some days I’m hungrier. Some days I’m not. Some days I get full really quickly. That’s normal, for my body.

Tracking didn’t allow for that.

So I ignored myself.

If the app said I was under, I ate when I wasn’t hungry.
I ignored fullness.

I spent a lot of time uncomfortably full, confused, and wondering why I felt rubbish while doing everything “right”.

The longer I tracked, the less I trusted myself.

My hunger felt unreliable.
My fullness felt wrong.
My body felt like something I needed to manage.

And this is the sneaky bit.

Dieting teaches us that we can’t be trusted, so we need rules to keep us in line. (sounds familiar for women i know)

Letting go of tracking wasn’t easy. Relearning hunger and fullness after years of dieting never is. But once I stopped letting an app be in charge, eating became calmer, simpler, and far more supportive.

Not perfect. Just human.

2. Good Foods, Bad Foods (Because Apparently Food Has Morals Now)

I didn’t grow up dieting. I entered diet culture a bit later than most.

But once I was in, food suddenly became colour-coded.

Good.
Bad.
Clean.
Naughty.
Allowed.
Absolutely-not-under-any-circumstances.

At first, this feels helpful. Clear rules. Easy decisions.

But very quickly, food stops being food… and starts being a judgement of you.

You’re good if you eat this.
You’re bad if you eat that.

Which is wild, when you think about it.

Suddenly, eating dinner out, having pudding, or enjoying a cocktail comes with a side order of guilt and self-criticism. And once guilt enters food, emotional eating usually isn’t far behind.

Not because you’re weak! but because food has become emotionally loaded.

I told myself I was being disciplined. I restricted variety. I avoided foods I enjoyed. I believed this was health.

It wasn’t.

It quietly wrecked my relationship with food.

So I removed the morality.

Food became food again.

Some foods support my body more than others. Some don’t agree with me. That’s information, not a moral failure.

Now I eat with awareness, balance, and trust. I follow hunger and fullness instead of food rules. And eating no longer feels like a constant mental tug-of-war.

Honestly? It’s a relief.

3. The “Work Harder” Exercise Mentality (Because Rest Is Apparently Laziness)

You know the messages.

No pain, no gain.
Go hard or go home.
Rest is for the weak.

I bought into all of it.

I trained a lot. Ran regularly. Lifted heavy. Pushed through exhaustion because discipline was the goal.

And then my body forced me to stop.

I developed an underactive thyroid. My energy disappeared. One workout would wipe me out for an entire week. I could barely stay awake during the day.

And still, I blamed myself.

I told myself I was lazy. Unmotivated. Not trying hard enough.

I wasn’t.

My body was screaming for rest, and I kept turning the volume down.

Eventually, I had no choice but to stop completely. For months.

Later, movement looked like swimming, sitting in a spa, and doing absolutely nothing intense.

Did I feel like a failure? Absolutely.

But rest wasn’t the problem. Ignoring my body was.

Now I teach women a different question:

Not “What should I be doing?”
But “What can my body genuinely do right now?”

Some weeks that’s strength training.
Some weeks it’s walking.
Some weeks it’s rest.

And that flexibility is what makes movement sustainable.

What All These Habits Had in Common

All three habits were built on the same thing: a lack of trust.

Trust replaced by rules.
Intuition replaced by external control.
Human needs overridden by “shoulds”.

Health became something to perform, instead of something to live.

That’s why I do things differently now.

I teach health for real people.
With real lives.
Real hormones.
Real tiredness.

Calm. Adaptable. Sustainable.

Not perfect but very human.

This isn’t about doing less for the sake of it.

It’s about doing what actually works long-term, in the life you’re living now. Not the one diet culture imagines you have.

What worked for me seven years ago doesn’t work now. And that’s not failure. That’s being human.

If you’re exhausted from forcing habits that look healthy but don’t feel healthy, you’re not broken. You’re just ready for a different way.

And that’s exactly what I teach inside Healthy Made Easy, helping you find your own version of healthy, on your terms.

Healthy, but human. Always.