As intended

How I eat.
How I set up my life.

As intended means exactly that: just some honest insights into how I eat and how I attempt to set up my life. No styling, no filters, and I am not selling you a diet. Sometimes an example of a life-setup is simply easy to follow, and I am happy if this inspires you. Remember: your inside will reflect what happens on your outside.

After a few more successful trials, you'll also find my guide on fasting and another on parasite detox right here. I am waiting until enough people have run them and come back happy, so that I can recommend them to you with a good conscience.
Why this matters

What you think is healthy and normal is not.

As intended food. The problem is that modern diets are not meant for humans, as stupid as that sounds. Processed foods, refined carbohydrates and industrial seed oils confuse your metabolism. They keep inflammation simmering, they drag your mood and your calm down with them, they make weight stubborn, and they are behind the afternoon energy crash you have been told is simply a normal part of life. It is not normal. You were sold it as normal.

Nutritional restructuring is about returning to a human-appropriate diet. I appreciate that some of this stands in stark contrast to what you already know. It is a reset of your cellular engine. By stripping away the hyper-processed, inflammatory triggers and reintroducing highly bioavailable, nutrient-dense food, you give your metabolism the chance to find its factory settings again: rebuilding your gut lining, steadying your hormones and your mood, and reaching that sustained, clear-headed energy you had almost forgotten.

You do not need to starve yourself. You just need to eat what your biology actually recognises as food.

All of it, written out properly, is in The As Intended Guide: the core principles, free.

A few principles

Unprocessed. Natural. Consistent.

It accumulates over time. One time trash will not harm you. But one healthy meal will not fix you either. Consistency is the whole game.

Sounds boring? It is the opposite. I enjoy food more than ever, and I have a better relationship with it than I have ever had. My clients say the same. I look forward to every meal, because eating stopped being about stuffing something inside me to get full. It became something that gives me energy and helps my body work as intended.

We are also not designed to eat all the time. No five meals a day. One to three is plenty. I currently eat around 1pm and around 6:30pm, which gives my body time to digest and heal. Not hungry in between, just energised and vital. If you are lacking energy, you are more likely missing electrolytes than food.

Media tell you low fat? Try high fat, keep it separate from carbs, and watch your body flourish.

This is what works for me and for many of the people I work with, shared as personal experience rather than medical or dietary advice. Your body is yours: adjust, test, and check with a professional if you have a health condition.

UneditedA plate held outside with grilled steaks, carrots, cucumber and a piece of butter

Grilled steaks, carrots, cucumber & butter, eaten outside

Just outside food. Butter and carrots are the quiet power couple here: the carotene in the carrot needs the fat in the butter to become usable, feeding and protecting your skin from the inside. Add sun and grass, and lunch becomes maintenance for the whole system.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedA glass dish of homemade minced beef ragout with vegetables on a family kitchen counter

Homemade organic beef ragout, at my family's

Minced organic beef, slow vegetables, a wooden spoon and my family's kitchen. Always a dream. Some meals feed more than the body: the recipe, the hands that taught it to you, the table you share it at.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedGrilled turkey breast with carrots, boiled eggs, walnuts and local raw milk cheese on a plate

A quite typical lunch: grilled turkey, eggs, carrots, walnuts & local raw milk cheese

The pairing is the point: carrots bring the vitamin A, and the butter they're eaten with brings the fat and K2 that make it bio-available, one without the other is half the meal. A few slices of local raw milk cheese to finish, as always, for the gut.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedTurmeric rice with aubergine and sardines

Post-workout carb backloading: turmeric rice, aubergine & sardines

Carbs have their moment, and it's after training. Rice cooked with aubergine and turmeric, my anti-inflammatory staple, plus sardines. Unlike tuna, which often carries a heavy-metal load, sardines sit low on the food chain: a great, accessible daily fish.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedA packed lunch of carrots, Parmigiano and walnuts with a 100% cacao Ombar bar on a car roof

Lunch on the go: outside, unprocessed, non-negotiable

Busy day, car-roof table, sky for a ceiling. On the go doesn't have to mean processed: carrots, Parmigiano, walnuts. My one beloved exception travels with me, a 100% cacao Ombar. No sugar, just cacao. I love these bars.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedGrated carrot salad with pumpkin seeds next to fried lamb

My beloved carrot salad, black cumin & olive oil, with fried lamb

The salad I never get tired of: grated carrots with black cumin and olive oil, highly anti-inflammatory, rich in vitamin A, and the oil is what lets your body actually use it. This time with a handful of pumpkin seeds and some beautifully fried lamb.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedThree grass-fed steaks frying in ghee in a stainless steel pan

Grass-fed beef, ghee, stainless steel

Locally sourced, grass-fed, and fried in ghee in my stainless steel pan, no coating to scratch, no mystery layer between the fire and the food. Meat, real fat, steel: the whole supply chain visible on one hob.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedA dinner table set outdoors in a garden by the beach, with fresh food and extra virgin olive oil

The perfect outdoor dinner: fresh food, extra virgin olive oil, sea air

What we forget: health comes not only from what we eat but from how we eat. Eat in a stressed state and even the most expensive supplements can't do much, a body in survival mode isn't bothered with health. Same food, calm nervous system, open sky: a different meal entirely.

simple · whole · as intended
UneditedA plate of shredded bison meat with poached eggs at an outdoor restaurant in the Canadian mountains

Fresh bison & poached eggs, Canadian mountains

Eaten outdoors, a short walk from where this animal likely roamed. Simple protein, real fat, mountain air, proof that eating as intended isn't a diet, it's available on any menu if you look for it.

simple · whole · as intended

More plates soon

This is a living feed, new meals as I make them.

Realising yourself also means rewilding yourself.

And I am not neutral about this, and I will not pretend to be. It is the unlearning of what kept you small, and the way back into your strength.

Overwhelmed? Mind too full?

Get out of your mind and into your body. Meditate. Walk in nature or in the forest, without your phone. Exercise, again without your phone. Swim. Do something with your hands. Anything that reconnects you with your body, so you stop trying to fix an overloaded brain by downloading even more information into it.

Life, unedited

Not everything as intended goes as planned. A few honest moments from the same life-setup, because real is the whole point.

A cucumber growing on a potted plant against a wooden wall

Look how the cucumber is coming along. However the day goes, watching something I planted quietly grow gives me joy. Nature knows how to make you happy.

A plate snapped in half on a kitchen worktop, chicken scattered across it, next to a microwave

The plate didn't make it. Life punishing me for cheating on the living as intended philosophy and using a microwave at a friend's house. Instead of being angry, I giggled about it and took it as a note to stay true to myself and keep living as intended.

A pig lying relaxed in a grassy field under a wide sky

My little pig buddy. He's doing it right. I got relaxed just walking past and watching him, sometimes the whole practice is a walk and a pig.

A small ground squirrel sitting on rocks high in the mountains

Hello, little friend. Just by existing, you made my day.

A crystal clear mountain lake with every stone visible on the bottom

Crystal clear water, just how it's meant to be. Worth remembering the next time you fill a glass from the tap.

A tabby cat sitting on a garden wall, watching a cow graze beyond the fence

My little cat, observing the cows. Sometimes that is all that's needed for peace.

An LED light covered with red duct tape, bathing the wall in warm red light

Red duct tape over every standby LED. Is it pretty? No. Does my bedroom stay biologically dark for the price of one roll of tape? Absolutely. Raw beats perfect.

Sitting in the car with a beanie on, calm and content, sun coming through the window

Just back of a day outside, exploring.

Ripe apricots hanging in a sunlit tree on a plantation near Osoyoos, Canada

Apricot harvest near Osoyoos, Canada. Organic, fresh, still warm from the sun: food that goes from branch to hand to mouth. As intended, and unreasonably satisfying.

Sitting shoulder deep in open water looking out at the horizon under a wide cloudy sky

Always up for a swim. The fastest way I know to get my head clear and feel revitalised.

A game of Wingspan set up on a wooden table in the evening

Wingspan, one of my favourite board games. I just enjoy the birds, the colourful board, and so much fun. No screen, just playing with one or a few friends.

Curious, or a little confused?

That's exactly where I started. If something here sparked a question, reach out. I'm happy to share what I've learned.

Get in touch

Three papers worth your time

Not opinions. Published work, and a starting point rather than a reading list. More of the research, translated into plain language, lives in Research & Blog.

Ramsden et al. (2013), the recovered Sydney Diet Heart Study data

A re-evaluation of data from a trial that sat unpublished for decades. Replacing saturated fat with linoleic acid from seed oils was associated with higher rates of death from all causes, from coronary heart disease and from cardiovascular disease. Read that again. Saturated fat has been the villain of this story for fifty years, and the recovered data points somewhere else entirely.

DiNicolantonio & O'Keefe (2018), the oxidised linoleic acid hypothesis

The authors make the case that oxidised linoleic acid from industrial seed oils is a primary driver of coronary heart disease, and that it explains the evidence better than the saturated fat hypothesis ever did. Industrial oils are in almost everything you did not cook yourself. That is not an accident, and it is not about your health.

Fung and colleagues, clinical work on therapeutic fasting

Clinical documentation of patients whose severe insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes improved dramatically, in cases to the point of coming off insulin entirely, simply by eating less often and letting baseline insulin fall. This is case-based rather than a large trial, and I will say that plainly. It is also the opposite of what most people are told about a condition described to them as progressive and permanent.

Shared as research translated into plain language, and as my own experience. Not medical or dietary advice, and no substitute for a professional who knows your situation. If you take medication, particularly for diabetes or blood pressure, speak to your doctor before changing how or when you eat.