This Isnt A Wellness Story

There’s this quiet tug of war that plays out when you’re trying to live healthy. On one side, there’s the food that feels good, that actually tastes like something your body recognises. On the other side, there’s that weird social static, the pause when someone sees you eating a salad and suddenly you’re that person again, and it gets exhausting, especially when you’re not trying to make a statement, you’re just hungry.

I used to be rigid, with no sugar, no processed anything, workouts six days a week. From the outside it looked like discipline, but inside, I was mentally frayed, it was the kind of clean eating that stripped joy out of my meals. Now I let it be messy, and I eat daikon bowls with creamy cashew sauce because the crunch is addictive, not because they’re low cal or because some wellness influencer said I should.

There’s leftover kale pesto in the fridge, and I slap it on lemony spaghetti squash not for aesthetics but because it tastes good and I can’t be bothered reinventing dinner on a Tuesday. I use broccoli stems because binning them feels gross, and no, I don’t always post these things, because sometimes I worry it makes me look performative, like I’m angling for a badge.

But I’m tired of pretending that enjoying healthy food makes me obsessive, or that salad has to mean struggle, this post touches on the whole ‘sad salad’ thing.. It doesn’t. It means I know what my gut likes, and I like roasted delicata squash on massaged kale, I like Heidi’s spicy green soup when I’m half functioning and need something green without chopping three different herbs. Sometimes I skip workouts, and I don’t label it as anything, I just move on because not everything needs a tag.

And maybe that’s what balance looks like, chickpea stew cobbled from fridge leftovers, rainbow bowls eaten because they’re colourful and my kid thinks purple cabbage is magic. This isn’t a transformation story. It’s just the current middle, a bit wonky, a bit wholesome, no reset buttons or redemption arcs, just me quietly eating broccoli stems and slowly getting over the noise.