Why Staying Healthy Is Easier Than You Think

If you spend any time online, watching TV, or scrolling through social media, it can feel like staying healthy is some kind of full-time job. You need this supplement, that superfood, a £200-a-month gym membership, and apparently the discipline of a professional athlete just to function. No wonder so many people feel overwhelmed before they’ve even started.

But here’s the thing – I genuinely don’t think staying healthy is that complicated. I’ve been living a fully vegan lifestyle since January 2018 and while I’m far from perfect, the longer I do this the more I believe that the basics are what actually matter.

The media, the wellness industry, and the supplement companies all have a vested interest in making health feel difficult and expensive. If it was simple, they couldn’t sell you anything.

So let’s cut through it.

The media wants you to feel confused

One minute red wine is good for you, the next it’s going to kill you. Fat is bad, then fat is fine as long as it’s the right kind. Salt is the enemy, unless it’s Himalayan pink salt, in which case fill your boots. Seed oils are the real villain. No wait, it’s sugar. No, it’s ultra-processed food. It goes on and on, and it’s exhausting.

A lot of this contradiction comes from how health research gets reported. A single small study gets turned into a dramatic headline, then six months later another study contradicts it and that becomes a new dramatic headline.

The nuance – that most nutrition science is slow-moving, complex, and rarely definitive – gets lost entirely. Sensationalism gets clicks. Balanced context doesn’t.

It’s also worth being aware that a lot of what gets sold online in the name of health is built on exactly this kind of confusion.

The result is that people feel paralysed. If everything is either a superfood or a poison depending on the week, why bother trying to eat well at all?

The answer is to stop following the headlines and get back to the basics that have always made sense.

Forget most supplements

This is probably the area where the wellness industry is most guilty of overcomplicating things. The supplement market is enormous and profitable, and a lot of it is built on the idea that you’re deficient in something and only an expensive pill or powder will fix it.

For most people eating a varied, whole food diet, the majority of supplements aren’t necessary. Your body is generally very good at getting what it needs from real food if you’re giving it enough variety.

That said, there are a few worth knowing about. If you follow a plant-based diet, vitamin B12 is genuinely important since it’s not reliably found in plant foods. Vitamin D is worth considering if you live in the UK, particularly through the darker months. I also take a daily multivitamin with vegan collagen, which covers a lot of bases in one go without needing a shelf full of individual bottles.

Omega-3s are worth paying attention to, too. Most people associate these with fish, but algae-based omega-3 supplements are actually where fish get their omega-3 from in the first place, making them a more direct and sustainable source. I use Nothing Fishy for this – a plant-based omega-3 brand – and you can get £10 off your first subscription using my referral link or Nothing Fishy discount code VIC9J3TTI.

Two other supplements I take every single day are spirulina and turmeric. Spirulina is a blue-green algae that’s genuinely one of the most nutrient-dense superfoods you can add to your diet – rich in protein, vitamins, and antioxidants – and it goes easily into a smoothie without much fuss.

Turmeric I use mostly for its anti-inflammatory properties and it’s just become part of my routine at this point. I also regularly add it to cooking so don’t always buy the supplements.

Both are natural, food-based supplements rather than synthetic ones, which is what I’d always recommend looking for if you do add anything in.

Superfood powders like baobab powder or maca root are also worth exploring as they come straight from whole food sources and can be added easily to baking or smoothies. I’ve used them before and would use them again.

Beyond those basics, I’d be sceptical of anything that promises dramatic results from a single supplement. If something sounds too good to be true in the health world, it almost always is.

Eat real food, mostly plants

This is the part that genuinely isn’t complicated. A diet built around whole, plant-based foods – vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, healthy fats – gives your body the vast majority of what it needs. You don’t need to calorie count, follow a complicated plan, or cut out entire food groups to eat well.

I’m vegan, so plants are naturally at the centre of everything I eat, but you don’t need to be vegan to benefit from eating more of them. If you’re curious about shifting towards a more plant-based way of eating, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing – small changes add up. The evidence for a mostly whole food, plant-rich diet is consistently strong regardless of where you sit on the dietary spectrum.

One of the things that genuinely helps us eat well as a family is getting an organic fruit and veg box delivered. It takes the decision-making out of it – you get a box of seasonal produce and you cook around what arrives. Riverford is our go-to and new customers can get £15 off their first box using my referral link.

Abel & Cole is another brilliant option for organic seasonal produce and we previously used them for years. They simply just don’t deliver to our new area so we went to Riverford instead.

You can also find more details on both in my Riverford voucher code post and my Abel & Cole discount code post.

Variety matters more than perfection. A diet that’s broadly good most of the time will serve you far better than an extreme plan you can’t sustain.

Move your body in ways you actually enjoy

Exercise gets overcomplicated too. You don’t need a gym membership or a structured programme to stay active – you just need to move consistently, and there are plenty of reasons why regular movement matters beyond just weight management.

I walk a lot. If I’m popping to the shops or the supermarket, I’ll walk rather than drive whenever I can – that’s easily 20 to 30 minutes each way. We’re coastal here in Cornwall, right by the sea and the river, and I genuinely love a river walk or a coastal hike. I regularly go for 2-4 hour walks at weekends or if I can squeeze it in before I work in the morning.

In summer, I’m out paddleboarding and bodyboarding as much as possible, which barely feels like exercise because it’s just fun. I run a few mornings a week by getting up at 6am to fit it in, play tennis at the weekends, do some yoga (not as much as I’d like), and I’ve recently started doing dead hangs at our local outdoor park gym alongside some kettlebell work at home.

I recently stepped away from a pricier health club – for now, running, walking, and outdoor movement are doing the job. I’ll likely rejoin a more affordable gym in autumn when dark mornings and evenings make outdoor exercise feel less safe.

The point is that none of that is a rigid programme. It’s just staying active in ways that fit my life and that I actually look forward to. If I had one piece of advice it would be this: aim for at least 10,000 steps a day as a baseline. That alone – consistent walking, every day – has a genuinely meaningful impact on your health. Everything else on top of that is a bonus.

Sleep, stress, and the things people underestimate

Diet and exercise get most of the attention, but sleep and stress management are just as important and far less discussed. If you’re struggling with either, it’s worth addressing them properly rather than pushing through.

Poor sleep affects everything – your mood, your energy, your appetite, your ability to make good decisions about food and exercise. Most adults need somewhere between seven and nine hours and consistently getting less than that takes a real toll over time. There are some genuinely useful natural sleeping remedies worth trying before you reach for anything else. It’s not something you can hack your way around with supplements or coffee.

Chronic stress is similar. It can disrupt sleep, affect digestion, contribute to low mood, and make healthy habits much harder to maintain. Finding practical ways to reduce stress and anxiety – whether that’s time outdoors, yoga, reducing your screen time, or just building in more rest – matters more than most people give it credit for. Neither of these things requires spending money or following a complicated programme. They just require paying attention and making them a priority.

The simplest version of this

Step back from the noise for a moment. Ignore the contradictory headlines and the supplements being sold to you. The fundamentals of staying healthy have not changed – eat mostly real, whole foods, move your body regularly, sleep well, manage your stress, and spend time outdoors when you can.

That’s genuinely it. The wellness industry needs you to believe it’s more complicated than that. It isn’t.