Friendship with Your Food: Part One

You need to have a relationship with your food - a committed one. Seriously, food is way more than just stuff we eat to keep going. It's a huge part of, well, being human! Think about it - we interact with food 3 to 5 times every single day, and it influences everything from our internal biology to how we engage with the world around us.

On the personal front, it's the primary input we give our system every single day. What we eat affects every internal system: our metabolism, hormones, gut health, energy levels, immune response, even mood and cognition. The quality of our food signals to our body how to function, repair, grow, and feel.

It's also a massive part of how we connect with everyone, at nearly all our social gatherings - whether it's parties, family get-togethers or any kind of celebration. Sharing a delicious meal with someone is one of life's most universal and joyful experiences.

But nowadays, it feels like a lot of these lovely occasions can take a bit of a toll on our health, mostly because we're a bit lost when it comes to understanding nutrition.

Our parents and grandparents didn't think this hard about nutrition. They mostly ate local, seasonal food and didn't have social media flooding them with conflicting (and often wrong) advice.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could get to a point where these celebrations are actually good for our bodies too, without losing the fun?

It isn't about becoming a super-strict food cop; it's about giving yourself the know-how to make choices that make you feel good, healthy, and happy.

You probably hear all sorts of complicated stuff about nutrition - antioxidants, gut health, inflammation, fancy vitamin names... It can seem like a lot! While those things can matter, here's the good news: for most of our goals, if we stick to a few simple, basic ideas about food, we pretty much never have to worry too much about all those minor details. It's really about the bigger picture and the good habits we build. Get these core ideas down, and you're probably already doing 90% of what your body needs to feel great. That means less stressing over every little thing and more time enjoying your food and your life!

And here's another great thing: you have to learn about nutrition only once in your lifetime. If you don't get caught up in all the fleeting trends (and honestly, you shouldn't!), the basics don't really change much. And those solid basics are exactly what we're going to focus on anyway.

My original plan was to jump into the basic 'how-to' of nutrition in this very post. However, it felt really important to first explore why we should even focus on this area. Since we've already covered a good bit and this post is getting a little long, we'll save the detailed framework for part two next week. But I definitely want to leave you with a couple of key takeaways today:

Your First Steps: Getting Started with Nutrition

Building a friendship with food is no different from building one with a person - it takes awareness and time spent together.

1. 1. Try a Food Journal

   Track what you eat for 3-5 days using an app or notebook - and here's the best part: you only need to do this once to start with. Log meals, snacks, drinks - roughly, not perfectly. Don't try to be "good." Just observe. This gives you a true picture of your habits, which is the foundation for change.

2. 2. Start Cooking at Home

   Try preparing more meals at home - aim to reach 70% or more eventually - but start small. You don't need to be a chef. Cooking helps you connect with your food, gives you control over what goes into your body, and builds a sustainable habit for health. If there are two takeaways you carry with you from this entire blog series, let this be one of them.

What's Next?

In the next post, I'll list the concrete principles I referenced above - the ones that make up more than 80% of what you really need to know about nutrition. We'll talk about the core habits and frameworks that simplify eating well and make nutrition feel less like a puzzle, and more like second nature.