When I was a teenager, I associated the word ‘healthy’ with stick thin women, eating grapefruit, cutting out wheat and exercising every given moment of the day. That thought pattern didn’t shift until I started re-educating myself on what a healthy diet was and how to exercise right for my body.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what background you come from, we all have our own definition of what ‘healthy’ is and what we see as optimal. Maybe for someone being healthy is about losing weight, or gaining weight, maybe it’s about exercising more or less, cutting out junk food, de-toxifying your life, harnessing loving relationships, getting rid of toxic relationships or maybe it’s getting more sleep and stressing less. We all have our own health goals and our own opinions as to what healthy should look like.  

I was so confused as a young girl – there was so much conflicting information out there and it seems to have become even more complicated now! One minute there’s an article saying that eggs are bad for you, then the next minute they’re suddenly the most amazing source of protein ever! One documentary says veganism is the only way, whereas another person says paleo is best. There’s hot phrases like ‘gluten free’, ‘dairy free’, ‘refined sugar free’ (yes, I know I use all of them!) and not to mention superfoods, greens powders, health powers, protein powders (again, I’m aware my pantry is also stocked with them!). There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when it comes to the foods we choose to eat and it’s time we stop complicating health and get back to basics.