There’s something deeply ironic about healthy eating. It’s supposed to make you feel better, right? More energy, clearer thinking, all that good stuff. But for most of us, just thinking about it is exhausting.
I’ve been there. You probably have too. Standing in your kitchen at 7 PM, starving, staring at a fridge full of ingredients that might as well be random Lego pieces because you have no idea how they fit together. So you order takeout. Again. And you feel guilty about it. Again.
The problem isn’t that we don’t want to eat better. It’s that we’ve been sold this idea that healthy eating requires being some kind of meal-prep warrior who batch-cooks quinoa bowls on Sundays and has their lifestyle perfectly optimized.
That’s not realistic. And honestly? It sounds miserable.
The Thin Person Paradox
Here’s something nobody talks about: being thin doesn’t mean you’re healthy. For years, people assumed anyone who avoided desserts and stayed slim was obviously doing something right. But what if that person was just surviving on processed snacks and candy because they happened to have a fast metabolism?
That was Lori Deschene’s reality, and it’s probably more common than we think. Our culture is obsessed with how bodies look, not how they actually function. You can be skinny and malnourished. You can be thin and have terrible gut health.
Now that gut health is finally getting attention in mainstream conversations about health, we’re starting to understand why so many people feel off even when they’re doing “everything right” according to old standards. Your gut affects your immune system, your mental health, your energy levels. It’s not just about avoiding a muffin top.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Once you start paying attention to gut health, suddenly there are seventeen different experts telling you seventeen different things. Eat fermented foods. No, avoid FODMAPs. Drink bone broth. Actually, go vegan. It’s enough to make you want to give up and just eat whatever’s in front of you.
The Recipe Trap
Let’s talk about recipes for a second. They’re everywhere. Pinterest boards full of them. Instagram influencers swearing by them. Cookbooks stacked on your shelf that you bought with good intentions and used exactly once.
Recipes are fine, but they’ve created this weird dependency where people genuinely don’t know how to cook without step-by-step instructions. You need exactly these ingredients in exactly these amounts or the whole thing falls apart. What happens when you’re missing the smoked paprika? Panic.
The real skill isn’t following recipes. It’s knowing how flavors work together, understanding basic techniques, and being able to throw something together with whatever’s actually in your fridge. That’s freedom. That’s the difference between cooking feeling like a chore and it feeling manageable.
Jules Clancy, a food scientist who’s now coaching people on exactly this approach, calls it “cooking without recipes.” It sounds almost too simple, but think about it. If you could open your fridge, see random vegetables and some protein, and confidently make something that tastes good and makes you feel good? That changes everything.
The $1 Question
Programs like the one Clancy is offering (six months of coaching for a $1 trial, then $49 monthly) raise an interesting question about value. We’ll happily spend $15 on a single DoorDash order without blinking. We’ll drop $50 at the grocery store buying ingredients we won’t use. But investing in actually learning how to feed ourselves? That feels like a bigger commitment.
Maybe it should be. Not because it’s expensive, but because it requires showing up. It’s 20-minute weekly calls. It’s actually trying the techniques. It’s breaking habits that have been reinforced for decades.
The gut health focus is probably the most compelling part. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s one of those foundational things that affects literally everything else. Your mood, your cravings, your inflammation levels, how well you sleep. You can’t supplement your way out of a terrible diet, and you can’t think your way into better health if your body is running on garbage fuel.
The Time Excuse
“I don’t have time to cook” is probably the most common excuse, and it’s not entirely wrong. We’re all busy. Life is chaotic. But here’s the thing: you’re spending time either way. You’re spending time scrolling through delivery apps, waiting for food to arrive, or standing in your kitchen feeling overwhelmed and doing nothing.
The question isn’t really about time. It’s about whether the time you’re already spending could be redirected toward something that actually serves you. Twenty minutes a week learning foundational skills that make daily cooking faster? That’s probably less time than you spend deciding what to order and waiting for it.
And that’s before we factor in how much mental energy goes into feeling bad about your food choices. That guilt, that “I should be eating better” voice that follows you around, that’s exhausting too. It takes up space in your brain that could be used for literally anything else.
When you know how to cook simple, nourishing meals without needing a recipe or a grocery list of seventeen specific ingredients, food stops being this constant source of stress and becomes just… a thing you do. Like brushing your teeth. You don’t agonize over toothbrushing technique every morning.
The Parent Factor
Something shifts when you have kids. Suddenly it’s not just about you anymore. You’re modeling habits, you’re responsible for tiny humans who are forming their entire relationship with food based on what you’re showing them.
Deschene mentions wanting to “keep up with them for years to come” and hoping to make it to 100. That’s the real motivation, isn’t it? Not fitting into smaller jeans or looking good in photos. Just being functional and present and alive for as long as possible.
But even without kids, that same principle applies. What if you treated your body like something you wanted to maintain for the long haul instead of something you’re constantly at war with? What if feeding yourself well wasn’t about restriction or punishment, but just basic maintenance?
We’re so caught up in the aesthetics of health that we’ve forgotten what it actually feels like to be healthy. That steady energy throughout the day. Not crashing at 3 PM. Not feeling foggy and irritable. Wanting to move your body because it feels good, not because you’re trying to burn off what you ate.
Food is just one piece of that puzzle, but it’s a big one. And unlike some other factors affecting your health, it’s something you actually have control over multiple times a day, every single day. That’s either overwhelming or empowering, depending on how you look at it.
