A Health Coach's Case for a Less Impressive Summer Every year, summer arrives with the same weird pressure. Relax, but make it meaningful.Have fun, but don’t lose your routine.Be present, but also document everything.Rest, but come back glowing. Eat the ice cream, but somehow also maintain the body, the habits, the steps, the sleep, the inbox and the version of yourself who had a very sensible plan in June. Honestly, it’s exhausting. And the best parts of summer are usually the ones you can’t...
13 days ago • 3 min read
Diet Culture Isn't Dead. But I'm Writing the Eulogy Anyway. Let me save us both some time, because I have done all of it. The meal-replacement shakes for lunch. The fat-free biscuits eaten by the sleeve because fat-free meant they didn’t count, right? Noom. MyFitnessPal. Weighing every single thing I ate. Tracking calories burned as if my life depended on it. And when none of it worked in the long run, which it never did, I did the only thing any of us were trained to do. I assumed I was the...
20 days ago • 1 min read
I Have Never Once Survived a Digital Detox I am writing this from Mexico City during a very football-heavy month. My laptop is open. There is football on in the background. My phone is close enough to keep checking the group chats every time something happens in the match, which is apparently every 18 seconds. Technically, I am working. Technically, I am also watching the football. Technically, I am also keeping up with friends commenting on the match, because apparently none of us can simply...
24 days ago • 1 min read
I Was Too Zonked to Remember My Own Livestream. 'Old Me' Would Never Have Let It Go. I finally did the thing I've been dreaming about for months: I stopped moving. After 6 months of packing and unpacking and working out which adapter goes in which wall, Liam and I landed in Mexico City for a full month! A full month with the same Airbnb, the same morning walk, the same gym, the same Walmart Express, the same café across the road. And I love it here. I had really high expectations and CDMX has...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
I Tried to Keep My Routine in 36°C Heat. The Bare Minimum Won. It is 36°C in Mérida and my Fantasy Self had plans. She had a morning movement routine, a hydration system, a reading habit, a Spanish practice block, and the kind of sleep schedule that assumes the sun sets when you tell it to. Beautiful woman. Super organised. Apparently unbothered by the fact that walking outside here at 2pm feels like being gently poached. Then, life... Up late watching Netflix, a late long lunch that became a...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I gained 3kg travelling. And the weight was never the problem. I have a running joke with my husband that I’m my own little ecosystem, tough on the outside but really fragile on the inside, so my entire job is to disturb it as little as possible. And for the past few years it was soooo easy. I lived in Singapore, a 3-minute walk from literally the best gym, with trainers who built my programme so I never had to think, just show up. Same bed, same breakfast, same daily habits, my whole little...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
You Can't Win at Being Calm. Trust Me, I Tried. I’ve downloaded, deleted, and redownloaded the meditation app Headspace so many times, it should come with a loyalty card. I’ve also done 200-hour yoga teacher training. I am literally certified to teach people how to be more present. And I still catch myself treating mindfulness like a performance metric. I can’t help it, I turn everything into striving. Meditation, nutrition, sleep, exercise, even rest. Part of it is just how I’m wired, the...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
The Burnout Diagnosis Most Industries Refuse to Make Imagine being in a ballroom, listening to Singapore’s Chief Justice deliver an opening address, and somewhere around the middle of it, having to physically restrain yourself from jumping up and down. That is basically what happened to me last July at the Legal Profession Symposium. Not because anything shocking was said. But because the quiet part was FINALLY being said. Out loud, in public. By one of the most respected voices in...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Walking Has the Worst PR in Wellness The wellness industry needs exercise to be hard. If walking counted (and it ABSOLUTELY does), the entire model falls apart. There’s no programme to sell. No app to subscribe to. No 30-day challenge to restart every January because the last one lasted 11 days. You cannot build a content empire around “go outside for 20 minutes.” There is no charismatic founder standing next to a freezing cold plunge explaining that walking is the future of human...
2 months ago • 1 min read