A Brilliant Life Is an Accumulation of Many Brilliant Days – Here’s My Perfect Health Day

This was a quote from one of Dr Sam Watts’ training courses. It’s a very impactful philosophy. We tend to wait for that perfect life, we plan, we dream, we wish, we save. But what is a perfect life and when will it happen and will it happen the way we plan it right now? Possibly not. But if I live each day the way I think it should be lived, then repeat it again each day, then logically the perfect life is already here in my hands. 

Nurse: “You’re so lucky to be so healthy”

I keep getting asked this question: what do I do to stay healthy? Some people (strangely these tend to be medical practitioners such as GPs or nurses) make comments saying I’m very lucky to be so healthy. How is that luck? It’s dismissive and a little condescending to ignore all the things I do to remain healthy and put it all on luck. But anyways, I do tend to ignore medical and pharmaceuticals unless I’m at a point of needing real medical help. I do trust the doctors and science and use big pharma medications when I need them of course. But those are designed to fix ailments. They’re not designed to prevent illness. After all, being healthy is not profitable for the health industry. 

Friends and colleagues do often ask me what I do every day to stay healthy. They want a prescription. They expect rules. They look for a dieting regime. It’s a reasonable question, especially after spending so many years researching integrative medicine, volunteering with Yes to Life and experimenting with different approaches to nutrition, movement, fasting and lifestyle. The answer, however, almost always disappoints them. There’s no miracle supplement, no obscure longevity technique, a weird extreme detox, a psychedelic ritual or some complicated morning routine that explains everything. The truth is far less glamorous and it’s not about meal plans and medications. 

Extraordinary health doesn’t come from extraordinary interventions. It comes from remarkably ordinary habits repeated consistently over decades. Drinking enough water, walking in nature, preparing real food, sleeping well, moving every day, finding time for quiet reflection and continuing to learn. None of those actions is particularly exciting on its own, yet together they create a way of living that feels energetic, purposeful and sustainable. This is why the brilliant life philosophy bodes very well with me; it’s logical, it makes sense.

So the saying goes in Dr Sam Watts‘ Brilliant Life Blueprint is that, a brilliant life is an accumulation of many brilliant days. I’ve taken that course 3 times already (once you do the course, you get to keep the recordings forever). Each time, I learn a new aspect and this is how I designed my own brilliant day. It’s not intended as a prescription or a challenge, and it won’t cure any diseases. It’s simply a description of the day I aspire to live, because I’ve found that if I organise enough good days together, the weeks, months and years seem to take care of themselves.

“Life happens. I simply return to my routine the next day.”

As much as I’d love to live every single day perfectly, this isn’t the day I live every day. It isn’t even the day I manage most weeks. Life has a habit of interrupting our best intentions. Work becomes busy, family takes priority, someone gets ill, the weather changes, sometimes I’m too tired and don’t feel like doing everything I’d planned, heck sometimes I just want to eat a family size chocolate bar. The difference now is that I no longer see those interruptions as failure. This routine isn’t a rigid timetable that I judge myself against. It’s a compass. Whenever life knocks me off course, I simply return to my routine the next day. Life is all about having a direction, rather than drifting away and being dragged around whatever life pulls you into each day, and then hope that the dream life somehow appears at the end. 

Rather than chasing longevity through occasional grand gestures, I try to build it through hundreds of small decisions repeated consistently over many years. After all, a brilliant life is simply an accumulation of many brilliant days.

The Philosophy Behind My “Perfect Health Day”

“None of these habits are particularly impressive on their own. But together they create momentum.”

I wouldn’t say I’m a very motivated person when it comes to health, exercise, routines and good habits. I grew up eating chocolates for breakfast and never had a day of sports (muscles didn’t look pretty on girls in those days). My mum’s philosophy for dieting and weight loss was to eat a slice of cake for lunch and get through the afternoon with that “energy” boost. So I know what bad habits look like, I have them all!

Routines, discipline, motivation are words that make me think restriction and things I don’t want to do but must force myself to do. That is truly exhausting. I don’t rely on motivation because motivation comes and goes. But I do try to stick to a routine though I don’t focus on the wrong reason. Why are you doing this? The answer shouldn’t be to lose weight, to exercise, to eat healthy. Think “5 Whys”; ask yourself why 5 times. Why do you want to exercise, why do you want to lose weight, why do you want to eat healthy, why, why? Then you’ve found your core reason for doing all this. I want to live to 100 years old in good health, that is my core reason and is enough to keep me motivated to follow this routine. 

It also helps to have an established routine, rather than having to make hundreds of decisions at every hour of the day. That’s also exhausting and remember we’re trying to reduce the cognitive load and eliminate stress. Every part of my day has been designed to remove decisions rather than create them. If my vegetables are already washed and waiting in the fridge, I’m much more likely to eat them. If my smoothie ingredients are already measured out and mixed in a jar, making it takes less than a minute. If I’ve planned my whole day for tomorrow the night before, I wake up knowing exactly where my attention needs to go. None of these habits are particularly impressive on their own. But together they create momentum.

Prevention as the Guiding Principle

Modern medicine is extraordinary when something goes wrong. It saves lives every single day. I have huge respect to all health practitioners, even the ones who have been horrible to me in the past at the GP practice or the NHS hospitals; I still respect that they get up and do that job every day. But I don’t want to spend my life waiting for something to go wrong before I start looking after myself. I’d rather create an environment where my body has the best possible opportunity to remain healthy for as long as possible. This is my underlying principle in health. 

“This is a longevity game you need to play one level at a time”

This doesn’t mean I never become ill, I wish! There are all kinds of viruses and diseases that go around. But I can at least stack the odds in my favour, and do the best I can to boost my immunity and give my body a fighting chance. Very little in my routine is expensive. There are no complicated gadgets. No ice baths. No excruciating detoxes. No futuristic technology (yet!). I do those too but they’re not the starting point. There are so many things that can be done, and should be done, before going to other extremes. This is a longevity game you need to play one level at a time; you start at level 1 and go from there. Level 1 is not your biohack or a hyperbaric oxygen tank, that’s like level 12, and it’s no use doing that if you haven’t cleaned up your food and sorted out your stress, which is pretty much all free at level 1. See my Health and Longevity framework for each level. 

Most of my routine revolves around sunlight, movement, vegetables, sleep, nature, planning and relationships. These are hardly revolutionary ideas. I don’t meditate because someone on social media says it’s good for you; I meditate because I enjoy the calm it gives me. I don’t walk in the Surrey Hills because my watch tells me I need to do 10K steps; I walk because I genuinely love being surrounded by trees and I trust the health benefits of the chemicals they emit. I don’t prepare healthy foods because I’m trying to achieve the perfect diet; I prepare it because when I eat this type of food, I feel great afterwards, as opposed to eating a burger or a cake. Health isn’t the destination. Health is what allows you to enjoy the journey to the destination (the 100th birthday!) 

Everything that follows is simply my attempt to create more days filled with energy, curiosity, purpose and joy. The details may be different for each person. Again, this is not a prescription. It’s simply an invitation to think more intentionally about your own version.

Here’s My Perfect Brilliant Day

6am – Wake up

The first hour of my day is entirely devoted to preparing my mind and body. It’s truly my ME time. I’ll give up many things before I would give up this first hour of my day. It defines the rest of my day, my mood, my physical energy, my food intake, everything depends on this first hour. 

First 20 mins

I begin with a large glass of water as soon as I’ve brushed my teeth. Then I sit down in a quiet, warm and comfortable place for 20 minutes to meditate. If this seat faces the first lights of the sun, even better. If you have the opportunity to sit outdoors to do this, how incredible. 

I start with breathwork and box breathing. If you’ve never tried Breathwork, I would strongly recommend my dear friend Ramon Ghosh – Evolve Breathwork, his classes in West London are incredible, that’s a story for another day. My practice in the mornings is a much more simplified version of breathing in and out slowly and calmly. The box breathing is a simple method; breath in counting to 6, hold for 6, breath out for 6, hold for 6, hence the box. I repeat this a few times to calm my mind, and relax for my meditation.

I slowly move into my meditation. I choose to do Vedic meditation using my personal mantra only because that was a method I learned a long time ago. In 2-16, I used my employer’s annual wellbeing benefit and spent it on a training course and retreat with Will Williams’ Vedic Meditation, nowadays called Beeja Meditation. But any meditation type is good for you. You don’t need to learn a specific method or pay any tutor or a class. Meditation is just a way of saying “sit quietly and let your thoughts float away from you”. If you can sit, you can meditate. Don’t set timers or alarms, I wouldn’t play any music or sounds. Being still in your own space, with whatever noise you may hear is completely part of the process. Don’t let “distractions” distract you. That is life happening around you while you’re sitting still. 

I always finish with a visualisation of the day ahead, mentally rehearsing the kind of person I want to be rather than simply the tasks I want to complete. This is the hard part. Especially when you know the people in your life or at work who do annoy you, frustrate you or make your day difficult. 

Second 20 mins

The second 20 minutes is my own personal version of yoga poses. This gently stretches my muscles, mobilises my joints and gives me energy rather than exhausting me before work. Having done yoga classes for over a decade, paid many subscription memberships, and even paid a 1:1 private tutor, I can confidently tell you that you don’t need to pay a penny. I created my own combination of poses and routines which let me move most of my joints and energises me, you can read about that here. 

Third 20 mins

This is my time to engineer my brilliant day. I take my notepad out, plan the things I WANT to do, HAVE to do, and SHOULD do. If you only list out the chores you have to do, then that is all you WILL do. That’s just how it works. As a professional project manager by trade, I can tell you that, for things you want to do, you should plan them, write them down and allocate some time for them. Otherwise, life priorities will take over. This is also a good time if you like to have your tea or coffee for the morning, sit outside in the garden and enjoy some fresh cold air. 

Once my hour is up, I take my shower, finish with a self-massage using aromatherapy oils, take time for my beauty routines, and give myself the time I deserve to look good and feel good. This is an important ritual for me. I truly don’t like to open the front door before I complete this step.  

Finally I take my Kaya Kalpa blend with Amla cold pressed juice before beginning the rest of my morning, also learned through Dr Sam Watts’ courses. You can find out the details of that on his Mind Body Medical website here.

Prepare for the Day

“The secret to healthy eating is less about willpower and more about advance preparation”

• Brew fresh herbal tea: ginger, lemon, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, hibiscus, rose petals
• Prepare my dry smoothie mix for lunch later, I have been using Peter Pure’s mix of blends for over 10 years.
• Wash ready to eat fruits and vegetables to snack on all day – spinach leaves, salad leaves, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, red pepper, seasonal fruit 
• Boil 2 eggs to eat later with avocado, olive oil, black pepper, turmeric, salt, some nuts and seeds

As most nutrition experts will tell you, the secret to healthy eating is less about willpower and more about advance preparation. Whenever I skip this part of my day due to other priorities, I end up eating quite poorly rest of the day. Preparation is key here. I prepare my drinks, my lunch, my snacks and even my dinner. We’re not talking complicated gourmet coisine preparation. Simple list of ingredients, a basic eating framework which you can read more about here, is all you need. 

You can save the world with a cup of tea…

Every morning I brew fresh tea using ginger, lemon, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, hibiscus and rose petals. If I’m going to be out all day, I put all the ingredients in a thermos, and fill it up with boiling water in the morning. Then I keep topping it up with hot water throughout the day. It’s a tea that keeps giving. 

But I also like a good old cup of tea. So I also brew some good quality tea leaves. There are endless options but honestly, my favourite for the last decade is M&S Gold Label tea. It’s just perfect for me. Again, I take this with me in a thermos if I’m going to be out all day. I would never pay a penny for takeaway teas, and would never drink tea bags. The nano plastics in the tea bags will ruin the tea to say the least, and also, why ingest any plastics? 

Prepare Smoothie for Lunch

I prepare my dry smoothie powder mix ready for lunch and take it with me in a jar. Then all I have to do wherever I am, is add cold water, and violently shake the jar until it’s smooth enough to drink. I usually carry my own reusable straw too because the ingredients can be staining on your teeth or lips. 

• Max Vitality Mix
• Max Vascular
• Chocolate Merlin
• Emerald Green
• Mushroom Mix
• Protein Powder – I use Garden of Life Vanilla because I like the taste and the ingredients aren’t too bad
• Manuka honey – this doesn’t go in the powder mix, I keep a small jar at my desk and add it just before drinking, use a high degree for a higher potency

I could write a whole book about why I make this specific mix but I’ll give a short summary here. These are blends of herbs that have been used for many thousands of years in ancient medicine. Each one of the ingredients have incredible powers and you could buy a different book per ingredient. I buy them ready mixed but you could of course buy them all separately if you’re keen to mix them yourself. It can become quite expensive to buy separately. It’s expensive even when you buy them ready mixed. This is probably the most expensive part of my routine. 

I’ve used this blend for over 10 years now. I don’t catch cold or flu, haven’t caught Covid, I usually don’t catch anything going around and can confidently say that I’m quite resilient to viruses and germs. Let’s pretend that I’m just lucky and genetically strong (which I know is not true, just meet my parents and close relatives!) But my daughter also uses this blend with me and you know how schools are. You’d have to be a superhero not to catch anything in a school in winter. Well, my daughter hasn’t caught any colds or flus for as long as I remember. As a baby, she used to be sick multiple times a year and not recover for several weeks. 

If you’re interested to make your own blend, here are the ingredients of each product:

“Nobody ever got fat because they ate too much fruit.”

The final step in my preparation is the fruits and vegetables I’m going to snack on. If I don’t do this, I know I won’t eat them. I’ll get too busy and I’ll start snacking on junk food. 

I wash all my ready-to-eat fruit and vegetables and put them in small bowls on the kitchen top or little tubs, ready to eat throughout the day. Spinach, salad leaves, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, peppers and whatever seasonal fruit is available, usually berries or melon.

I love fruit and I don’t hesitate to eat it. Yes they do have natural sugars in them. But I don’t drink their juices. I eat the whole fruit. They’re full of vitamins and fibres. Nobody ever got fat because of they ate too much fruit. Let’s stop blaming the wrong culprit.

I also boil two eggs ready to eat later with avocado, olive oil, black pepper, turmeric, sea salt and a mixture of nuts and seeds.

I realise this all sounds a bit over the top just to prepare for the day but I know that if I make this effort each morning as soon as I wake up, the rest of the day will go very smoothly, I won’t have to think what to eat, when to eat, try to remember what I needed to do, run around or get stressed. This morning routine sets me up for the rest of the day.

8am – Work

“When I’m at work, I work. Leave life at the door.”

At 8am I begin work. When I’m working, I do work. Nothing else. I don’t browse social media. I don’t check personal emails. I don’t make personal phone calls. I don’t do household chores even if I’m working from home. I don’t organise plumber visits. I leave all of that outside the door. On the occasions where I do have to deal with those, I take an hour out of work, deal with it, and then come back. There’s a lot of noise about work-life balance and that’s very important but not simultaneously. You can’t do life and work at the same time, you have to do one at a time and do each very well.

Multi-tasking is a hugely over-rated concept that doesn’t exist in how our brain biology works. Success comes from giving your full attention to the work in front of you. I enjoy being successful in my career and I’m proud of producing work that genuinely makes a difference. Context switching between different tasks is exhausting and a source of major stress. So focus on doing one thing at a time, and do it well. 

If I’m being paid to solve problems, then that’s exactly what I should be doing. Do the job you’re being paid to do. Be good at what you do. Exceptionally good. Then the money will come to you. Tried and tested in my 30 years of career!

“Focus on doing one thing at a time, and do it well”

Throughout the day I continue drinking my homemade black tea and ginger tea. If I want something cold, sparkling water with fresh lemon and mint is usually enough.

12pm – Breaking My Fast

Notice that so far I haven’t eaten anything. and no, breakfast is not the most important meal for the day, not for me. I do know that eating a good protein-based breakfast is a great way to start your day with a balanced blood glucose level. I haven’t been able to achieve that as part of my routine. I’m simply not able to eat early in the day and I feel so much more energised if I carry on fasting til lunch. So at midday, I break my overnight fast with my smoothie. I usually I begin fasting at 7pm the previous evening, giving me around 17 hours without food. For me this provides enough time for my body to focus on repair rather than constant digestion. I use my prepared smoothie powder mix in a jar, add some water, add a spoonful of Manuka honey, mix it well and drink it. This easily keeps me full for another 3 hours and gives me most of the vitamins, hers, minerals, mushrooms and everything I need for an immunity boost plus some protein.

2pm – Time to Eat

By now I’m really hungry. But I need to tell you genuinely, as a person who loves food and eating that, fasting this long is not a painful excruciating process at all. Hunger comes and goes in waves. It usually goes away if you drink a small glass of water but usually it won’t even come to that. You think you’re hungry most of the time due to habits. 

This is the time when I eat my fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, boiled eggs and avocado dressed with olive oil. My guiding principle is simple. Eat as many vegetables as possible alongside good quality organic protein. The fibre and protein keep me remarkably full, stabilise blood sugar and prevent the afternoon energy crash that so many people accept as normal. I wouldn’t eat protein on its own, as protein doesn’t have fibre, it sits in your gut, until some fibre comes and pushes it along. Always eat tons of vegetables with your protein (potatoes don’t count!)

4pm – Walk

Late afternoon is exactly when it’s most tempting to squeeze in more and more work. You’re getting tired, time is running out, work has piled up, calls are never ending, you haven’t touched your to-do list, I know it too well. But I try to step outside for a brisk 30-minute walk, whatever the weather. Sometimes only 15 minutes. I do at least some walk on the worst weather days. It clears my head and gives me more energy for the final part of the day than another hour sitting at my desk ever could. I come back with a boost of energy that keeps me going for another couple of hours of work. 

6pm – Evening Meal

This part can get a little tricky if I’m working in the office as I won’t be home yet for dinner. On such days, dinner can be more around 7pm. But my dinners are extremely simple. I don’t have much energy for complicated meals, even to think what I want to eat is a chore. So keep it simple. Grilled salmon with steamed vegetables, drizzled with olive oil and salt. That simple. 

Whenever possible I follow my 4S Kitchen Framework and prepare one of my regular recipes or try to do batch cooking if it’s a soup or a casserole. 

The principles remain consistent:

• Ketogenic
• High in fresh green vegetables (no potatoes of any type)
• Low carbohydrate
• Good quality organic animal protein or a high quality unprocessed vegetarian alternative
• Organic wherever possible
• Mediterranean dishes mostly (my personal preference)

This is also when I take my supplements. I usually take at a minimum: vitamin D, vitamin B complex, magnesium, CoQ10, omega-3 and prebiotics. Remember I already got a whole lot of vitamins and herbs and minerals from my smoothie mix. So I only have a few things missing which I take in the form of pills at this point. But I’m extremely careful with the quality of ingredients so I do a lot of research and read labels, and try to buy the best quality I can afford. What I’m looking for is the highest dose of the ingredient I need (such as Vitamin D) with the lowest amount of other additives and agents in the mix. As the quality goes up, so does the price. But the cheap ones are not worth using at all, don’t waste your money on cheap supermarket or drugstore vitamins and supplements. You’re better off eating an apple and an orange. No one knows and no one has researched what those additional chemicals do to our body. Yes, on their own and taken one or two times surely won’t kill you. But the cocktail effect is unknown. The manufacturers simply say “no proof that they will do any harm” or “not enough evidence” and that’s just not good enough for me. 

You can find here a few good brands I like to use these days, but I do research and rotate a lot. 

The 9-to-5 job

“We all have a 9-to-5, but we should also have a 5-to-9.” 

One thing I try to do most evenings is spend some time building something for my future. We all work a 9-to-5 job to pay today’s bills. The only way to break that cycle is to make small but daily progress towards something of your own and you can do that everyday by creating a 5-to-9 job as well. Those evening hours are an opportunity to build financial freedom and work on projects that genuinely excite you. This can be on the train to home or after kids have gone to bed. I make sure to spend a little time each day working towards building something of my own. Businesses don’t get magically built by themselves and the right opportunity may never come. You just need to make it happen, one little progress each day. 

7pm – Fasting Begins

By 7pm I stop eating. This is the only time I’m a little more strict. Because if I eat a little something, then I’ll keep eating more. So I draw the line at 7pm and no more eating anything after that. My goal is to complete at least a 16-hour fast every day.

How long you fast does matter. It’s not a matter of avoid food for a couple of hours and you’ll get some benefit. The body mostly sits and waits for food before any healing starts to happen. For actual healing to begin, I need to get to the phase called autophagy, which is cellular death. This is the cleanup that needs to happen when bad cells need to kill themselves. 

8pm – Wind Down

This is my hobby hour if you like. If you don’t take time to enjoy your hobbies on a daily basis, life just turns into work and chores and that’s depressing even if you absolutely love your job. So do something that’s just fun for you.

I’m a huge film fan. A great film allows me to live another person’s life for two hours. It stretches my imagination, teaches empathy and sometimes leaves me thinking about it for weeks afterwards. It’s not just escapism. but also an education of a different kind. It’s one of my favourite ways to relax. So usually I watch a movie but not one of those epic ones that go on for 3 hours. and definitely not a box-binge that’ll keep you awake for hours. I save those for the weekend. 

Before bed, I complete what is perhaps the most important routine of my evening. I sit down with my notebook and plan for tomorrow. Everything I must do, want to do and hope to do goes onto paper. This habit comes from Dr Sam Watts’ Magic Life Blueprint and forms part of my weekly engineering routine every Sunday evening.

10pm – Lights out

Go to bed. No scrolling. No phone beside the bed. Sleep is one of the most powerful longevity interventions we have. and it’s so so lovely. Why waste that on doom scrolling when you have your soft, warm, lovely bed and go to sleep?

Weekly additions to my routine

Friday Night to Saturday Afternoon

• Once each week I extend my fasting window from Friday evening until around 3pm on Saturday. That’s roughly 20 hours.
• My longer-term goal is to build towards regular 24-hour fasts, occasional 48-hour water fasts and perhaps a 72-hour fast once or twice each year.
• Repeating my point above, hunger itself isn’t the difficult part. It comes and goes in waves. The real challenge is breaking the emotional habit of eating simply because food is comforting.

Saturdays – Hobbies

“Housework isn’t the purpose of my Saturdays.” 

Saturday belongs to curiosity. Pattern sewing. Piano practice. Reading, learning. Watching a great film. Researching and writing for Yes to Life. Housework still gets done, but it doesn’t become the purpose of the day. It simply fits around the things that genuinely make life richer.

Sundays – Nature Walking and Forest Bathing

Sunday mornings usually find me somewhere in the Surrey Hills with a flask of tea in my backpack. I’m never in a hurry. I stop to photograph fungi, admire ancient oak trees, watch red kites circling overhead and occasionally hug a tree without worrying too much how ridiculous I look. The older I become, the less embarrassed I am by doing things that genuinely make me happy. Trees release protective compounds into the air and spending time among them feels restorative in ways science is only beginning to explain. I also take photographs of nature and share a few favourites on my Flickr account. Sunday evening is reserved for my weekly engineering session, preparing for the week ahead.

Weekly Food Goal

• Every week I aim to eat 30 different plant foods.
• That includes herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, oils, fruit and vegetables.

Every Six Months

• Every six months I complete a 40-day Takra Kalpa programme using homemade yoghurt to help restore and nourish my gut microbiome.

And so that’s my perfect day

As the saying goes, a brilliant life is an accumulation of many brilliant days. So I try to spend each day in the way I want to spend it, rather than let life drag me around from one thing to another. Of course, this is not always possible, life happens, but I go back to my routine the next day. It keeps me grounded in my principles and focused on my goals. As the other famous saying goes, a plan without a date is just a dream. You need to break down your goals into daily tasks and actions and eat the elephant one bite at a time, so to speak. Kaizen is a crucial element in everything I do. None of us can achieve our life goals in one day and none of us will have all the free time to sit and do that dream goal we always wanted. We just need to make a few mins each day to do one little thing towards our big goal, and over many days, weeks and months, that will accumulate to a big achievement. This is my number one key to success. 

---

The Blueprint: My Perfect Health Day

Here’s the daily blueprint I use daily. Every section is explained in more detail above, including why I do it and the science behind it.