Why so many dads are confused about proper nutrition

April 15th, 2026

We are living in the golden age of nutrition information, and yet somehow, we have never been more confused. Every week brings a new study, a new guru, a new diet that promises to be the one that finally works. Each one delivered with the kind of conviction that makes the last approach sound dangerously naïve. The result of all this noise isn’t a population of well-nourished, clear-headed men making excellent food choices. It’s a lot of dads shrugging, concluding it’s all too complicated, and carrying on exactly as before. So I’d like to simplify things.

The reality most dads are living

Based on the conversations that I have every week with my clients a typical day looks something close to this: You don’t really know what you should be eating for your specific goals, or how much. You have good intentions in the morning that gradually unravel as the day picks up pace. Lunch is often skipped because a meeting ran over and suddenly it’s 3pm. The snacks start. A handful of something here, a biscuit there, whatever was left on your kid’s plate before it hit the bin.

By the time dinner arrives you’re tired, hungry, and making decisions based on convenience rather than anything resembling a plan.

Then you go to bed vaguely aware that tomorrow you’ll do better. Tomorrow looks a lot like today.

Having a plan in place can alleviate chaos. It was tube-strike day (again) in London earlier this week. 90% of the entire Underground shut down, and suddenly the whole of London had to improvise. The people who coped best were the ones who knew about the strike in advance and had a plan of exactly how they were getting to work. (Even if that plan was to work from home that day).

They had a plan before the chaos arrived. The folks I saw raging at the barriers that morning had the worst of it. Had they not heard about the strike? Had they decided to hope for the best? Either way the lack of a plan meant misery that morning. Food works in exactly the same way. Plan before the chaos, because the chaos is coming.

If you get protein and fibre right, you’re already ahead

Strip nutrition back to its most impactful components for a dad in his 40s, and two things stand out: Protein and Fibre. Not because they’re trendy, but because they’re almost universally under-consumed and their absence explains a lot of the symptoms you’re probably experiencing.

Protein is the building block for muscle. After 40, you’re naturally losing it every year. Without sufficient protein in your diet, that loss accelerates regardless of how hard you train. Now the maths of it might seem daunting to get your head around, but a reasonable target is 1.2 to 1.8g per kilogram of bodyweight per day. This is much simpler than it appears; for most dads, this means roughly doubling what they’re currently eating. Lean meat, fish, eggs, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese need to be consistent fixtures in your day, not occasional appearances.

Fibre stabilises blood sugar, supports gut health, reduces cravings, and keeps you feeling full between meals. It’s also the nutrient most likely to be crowded out by a busy, convenience-driven diet. Get both of these right consistently, and you’ll notice the difference in energy, hunger levels, and body composition before anything else changes.

Cutting things out completely rarely works. Understanding them does

The appeal of elimination is obvious. Remove carbohydrates entirely and you don’t have to think about them. Swear off fat and it becomes a simple rule to follow. The problem is that these rules can deliver fast changes in the short-term, under ideal conditions, but collapse completely the moment real life applies pressure which, in your world, is approximately every other day. The appeal of GLP-1s is strong because they are extremely effective for fast overall weight loss. Not enough is being made of the fact that nearly half the weight lost using them is muscle, unless a real effort is made to offset this with strength training.

Carbohydrates are not the enemy. The wrong types of carbohydrates, eaten thoughtlessly, are the problem. It’s the same with fat. Olive oil and salmon are doing very different things in your body compared to your cheesy Pringles. You don’t need to fear any macronutrient. You need a working understanding of it.

What holds up under pressure is knowledge, not restriction. Make better choices within food groups rather than eliminating them, and those choices will hold when the day gets difficult.

Two things dads almost always overlook

‘Eating speed’ and hydration rarely make the headlines in mainstream media, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not critical to your progress. Your body takes around 20 minutes to register that it’s full. Eat at the pace most dads eat (that’s super-fast, often standing up, distracted, with one eye on a screen) and you’ve overeaten before the signal arrives. Slow down, even slightly, and portion control largely takes care of itself.

On hydration: look closely at folks every time there is a mini heatwave. You’ll observe more headaches setting in by midday, and less energy on display by early afternoon. Most of these people aren’t ill. They’ll be dehydrated, and the extra heat will make it impossible to ignore. Mild dehydration produces exactly those symptoms on a normal overcast Tuesday too: fatigue, poor concentration, false hunger signals. It’s just that on an overcast Tuesday we just blame the commute or the early start and reach for another coffee. Two to three litres of water a day is where you want to be, every day, not just when the sun comes out.

Bringing all of this together doesn’t require complexity. A rotation of five or six reliable breakfasts, the same for lunches, and ten or so dinners that hit your protein and fibre target will outperform any elaborate plan you can’t sustain.

Why this matters beyond the mirror

Sorting out your nutrition will change how you look. But more immediately, it will change how you feel: your energy through the day, your mood, your ability to concentrate, your patience at home, your performance at work. These aren’t secondary benefits. They’re the things that determine the quality of your daily life.

You don’t need more information. You need the right information, applied simply and consistently. That’s where the difference is made. Click here for my masterclass to remove that uncertainty regarding nutrition, and get some clarity.

Ayo Williams