Back to Basics
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
When it comes to health, it’s easy to get lost in the details and forget that the basics do most of the heavy lifting. We can get caught up in perfectionism, the latest supplement promising miracles, whether our food is wild-caught or organic, getting morning sunlight, specific miracle herbs or nutraceuticals, avoiding EMFs, cold plunges, hot saunas, getting 8 hours of sleep, and cutting out alcohol. Then there are the latest diet fads that eliminate one or more macros, making it nearly impossible to eat out—yet they promise rapid weight loss and improved health, if only you could stick to them.
I’m no stranger to this, especially as I always read and stay informed. Add social media algorithms to the mix, and it’s a constant stream of the latest health trends.
That’s why I often remind myself to come back to the basics, find balance, and let “good enough” be enough. After all, life is for living.
This mindset is helpful for everyone, no matter what health challenge you're facing—but particularly for midlife hormonal imbalances, weight gain, and fatigue. It’s also relevant to raising kids, supporting the elderly, and everyone in between.
Here are the basics I rely on and often recommend to others:
Protein, Vegetables, Fruit, and Whole Grains—A Wide, Varied, and Colourful Diet:
Some people thrive on eating just meat for every meal, but most of us aren’t wired that way. The back-and-forth between veganism and carnivore diets is common these days. It doesn’t have to be complicated, we are perfectly adapted to eat a wide variety of both animal and plant foods, and eating a wide variety helps us build resilience.
I eat over 40 varieties of plant foods a week, 30 plant foods and 10 herbs and spices, and this has been shown to help provide a healthy gut microbiome, which gives us a lot of resilience. But for many people, just getting to 2 pieces of fruit and 3 or 5 serves of vegetables a day may be a big leap- so start where you are!
Eat the rainbow: Choose different colors of the same fruits and vegetables, like red and green grapes or orange and yellow peppers.
Get creative with herbs and spices: Add garlic, onions, and chickpeas to a curry, or sprinkle pepitas and sunflower seeds onto a salad.
Mix up your grains: Try mixing up your rice, using some green, some brown, and some red.
Mix up your tahinis: Try black tahini next week.
Mix up your quinoa: Try black, then white, and then red quinoa
For simplicity, I like the visual plate method. Fill about half your plate with low-carb vegetables, a quarter with protein foods (whether plant-based, animal, dairy or a mix), and the other quarter with carbs like starchy vegetables or whole grains. Add fruit on the side, and you’re on the right track. It’s a simple formula with flexibility that creates a nutritional buffer for indulgences like eating out or having chocolate or some junk food here and there. While it might feel tricky at first, it’s a habit that can be built over time, and you do learn to really love it because it feels good, and your taste buds adapt to the more subtle flavours. There are plenty of healthy dressings and herbs and spices to make basic meals more interesting too (I like Mingle spices).
Exercise:
Movement is more important than we often realize, and any amount is better than none. Whether it’s strength training, walking, yoga, Pilates, or dancing, bodies are made to move—preferably, a lot.
While this is a simple point, it is an important one. I am loving strength training and many aches and pains have gone, and I feel better and more fit and healthy, more energetic, than I remember ever in my life- at age 57. I highly recommend it. But start where you are.
Sleep and Deep Rest:
In our younger years, sleep seems less crucial, but as we age, we start noticing its importance. Worry about it doesn’t help either. Instead of fixating on hours, I suggest focusing on creating a routine that signals to your body when it’s time to rest. A regular schedule with a wind-down period and consistent wake-up time can make a world of difference because our bodies love routine, and love to align with natural circadian rhythms.
While sleep is important, there is a deeper rest that many people find difficult to experience in today’s frenetic world. It is important to be able to switch off, to deeply relax, and find some peace.
Sunshine:
We’ve all heard about the epidemic of low vitamin D levels. I recommend getting some healthy sunlight on your bare skin most days, without sunscreen and without burning. In winter, I take vitamin D as a backup, but it’s worth remembering that the body stores vitamin D, and good levels by the end of summer can carry you through.
Sunshine is not just for Vitamin D….we are built to interact with Light, daily. We have light receptors all over our body including our eyes, skin and even inside our bodies, in our intestines and brain. Sunlight that goes in our eyes and skin goes down pathways involved in cellular metabolism, immunity, mood, and help protect us from degenerative diseases.
Blue screens are replacing sunlight for many people who might not get much time outside daily, including many kids nowadays. This could be driving a lot of chronic mental, emotional and physical illness. Natural light is important for our wellbeing, we have evolved with it.
Getting outside first thing in the morning and getting light through your eyes signals your body it is morning and to produce daytime hormones…and prepare for night later in the day. It helps prepare melatonin to be released after dark. It is how the circadian rhythm works. Alternating light and dark. This is a bit messed up in many modern lives, and morning light for a few minutes can help it get rebalanced.
Nature:
We often forget we are part of nature. Staying connected to the natural world is vital. My go-to’s are tending a garden and a daily walk outside, either in the neighbourhood nature reserves, or the beach.
Forest bathing has been studied and found to be incredibly beneficial. However, so can bird watching, visiting your local nature areas, star gazing, or sitting in your garden.
Self-Care and Stress Management:
It’s important to have ways to unwind. The modern world is stressful, and society tends to normalize this. It’s unhealthy to be busy all the time and feel constantly behind. Recently, I had to deal with some complicated banking issues, and the stress was overwhelming. My husband and I really leaned on each other at this time, and I really feel for those having to navigate this modern world without emotional support. This is the new normal, but we need to push back and find ways to cope in this new reality that is not so human friendly.
Community
The longest living people in the world all tend to have solid community around them, and this is something we tend to lack in modern western cultures. We are siloed off into separate homes, we have to drive everywhere, and we are often too busy to socialise, we are exhausted from working so much to sustain modern lifestyles. But community is how we feel connected as naturally social beings, and it has a huge impact on our health and wellbeing. Many, many people feel isolated and lonely, and if this is you, I encourage you to find some ways to connect with other people. Perhaps through hobbies, through exercise groups, spiritual groups, through shared interests. This is as important as eating well and exercising for your wellbeing.
By focusing on these basic, foundational habits—eating well, moving your body, getting enough sleep, soaking up some sunshine, spending time outdoors in nature, community, and managing stress—you have the foundations for what a body needs to thrive. Many people can see significant improvements just by mastering the basics- I know, easier said than done, but you may have some idea of where you are off balance. You’ll get far more benefit from this than chasing expensive supplements, extreme diets, or worrying if your beef is grass-fed.
