Why you don’t need to optimise everything

October 24, 2026

Why you don’t need to optimise everything

There’s been an explosion in smart wearables, health maxxing, and optimisation protocols lately.

Everywhere you look there’s a new smartwatch, supplement, or routine that’s being pushed as the thing you need to boost your health. We’ve had protein maxxing, sleep maxxing, readiness scores and I don’t know what’s next. But I’m here to tell you that you don’t actually need any of it.

Only 1 in 5 adults in the UK get their five a day. The average adult has 3 days a week with a good night’s sleep. 81% of adults exceed the advised amount of sugar in their diet each day. 70% of adults don’t meet the guidelines for physical activity each week.

We don’t need to hyper optimise everything. We need to focus on the basics. I know it’s boring, but getting the basics of health right first is the best thing you can do.

I think that people may be trying to get everything perfectly fine tuned rather than doing the little things everyday that also count towards their health.

I’ve got simple tips to optimise your health, focussing on getting the basics right first.

Fixing your diet:

Diet is the food you habitually eat and we have made it very complicated with different diet trends coming in and out of fashion. First we were low fat, then low carb, then clean eating, then high protein, then high fibre. You don’t need to pick any of these trends to follow.

Aiming for balanced meals, most of the time, is enough. This means a source of protein, carbohydrates, and a serving of fat in meals.

If you want a ‘rule’ to follow, trying to get half your plate full of vegetables or salad, a quarter of your plate a lean protein source and a quarter of the plate being carbohydrates (wholegrain for more fibre) is a good way to go.

Cartoon image of balanced plate with 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 protein and 1/4 carbohydrates

If your meal can’t be divided up like this, for example a casserole, it just means tweaking the recipe to double the amount of veg you put in or serve it with.

Sensible snacking:

The term ‘ultra-processed foods’ is everywhere. And yes, a diet high in UPF can be detrimental, if it’s all you eat. You don't have to completely avoid them but having alternate snack options so you’re not always leaning to foods like crisps, sweets, or biscuits is a good idea.

More nutritious snacks include:

Dates/banana/apple with nut butter
Natural yoghurt with granola/nuts/seeds/fruit
Roasted chickpeas
Popcorn
Cheese and wholegrain crackers

Start to work up a sweat:

Exercise has so many benefits for our health. It reduces the risk of diseases like stroke, depression, and type 2 diabetes. It also has functional benefits like reducing the risk of osteoporosis, falls, and hip fractures.

Starting a new exercise regime can be daunting. It doesn't have to be hours in the gym or killing yourself with cardio. The NHS advises that each week, adults should do strength training twice and 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.

You don’t have to go from 0-100. You can start small and build up to these guidelines.

Some people may prefer to do a mix of activities each week or you may want to do a similar routine every time. You can break up the time spent doing activity however works best for you e.g. 10 minutes on a work day and 45 minutes on your days off. It’s more important that you start it and find something you enjoy so that you’re more likely to stick to it.

Getting enough sleep:

Sleep is so underrated when you consider the effects it has on our health. Yes, after a bad night's sleep you’ll feel tired the next day, but consistently getting poor sleep can increase the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's, and strokes. The aim is 7-9 hours a night but a lot of people don’t get this.

I’ve got a full chapter on sleep and how to improve it in my e-book, How To Lose Weight for Good. You can find it on Amazon or Etsy. My book also covers more on fixing your diet, starting up your exercise, and there’s a chapter on stress to give you all the tools you need to lose weight for good.