I've never been on a diet and never will.

When Paul Hollywood declared, “I’ve never been on a diet and never will,” he spoke not as a man rebelling against health, but as one proclaiming freedom — freedom from the tyranny of guilt, numbers, and self-denial. His words carry the ancient spirit of those who understood that life is to be savored, not measured. To understand this quote is to see that he is not glorifying indulgence, but defending the sacred joy of balance, of pleasure, and of self-acceptance in a world that too often worships restriction as virtue.

In every era, humankind has wrestled with the body — seeing it as both temple and temptation. Diets, regimes, and abstinences have been used to purify, to punish, and to perfect. But Hollywood, a baker — an artisan of warmth, scent, and texture — speaks as one who knows that food is art, and that art cannot thrive under oppression. His refusal to “go on a diet” is not defiance of discipline, but a celebration of harmony: the belief that joy, moderation, and mindfulness create health more lasting than any strict rule. In his world, bread is not sin, but symbol — a communion between human hands and the earth that feeds them.

There is an ancient wisdom that echoes his spirit. In Greece, they called it sophrosyne — the virtue of self-restraint without deprivation, of knowing one’s limits without extinguishing one’s flame. The philosopher Epicurus taught that pleasure, when guided by reason, is not gluttony but grace. He lived simply, eating bread, cheese, and olives, and said that happiness was found not in endless wanting, but in peace with what is enough. Like Epicurus, Hollywood’s words remind us that the truest health lies not in rejecting life’s pleasures, but in approaching them with gratitude and awareness.

Consider also the story of Julia Child, the great teacher of French cooking, who lived through an age obsessed with dieting and thinness. When asked how she stayed well while enjoying butter, cream, and wine, she laughed and said, “Everything in moderation... including moderation.” She lived well into her nineties, proof that joy and vitality flourish when fear does not rule the table. Her philosophy — like Hollywood’s — teaches that life loses its flavor when one lives in constant restraint. The act of eating, when done with reverence and delight, becomes a hymn to existence itself.

There is something heroic in refusing the world’s demand for self-denial. For every generation, there comes a tyranny disguised as wisdom — and in our age, that tyranny often wears the face of the perfect body. But to reject it, to eat with peace and presence, is to reclaim the human soul. Hollywood’s statement, simple though it may sound, is a form of resistance: a call to live in truth with one’s body, to listen to hunger and fullness as one listens to music, not as one obeys a law.

And yet, this is no invitation to excess. The ancients warned that indulgence without thought leads to ruin. The lesson here is not to consume endlessly, but to live consciously, to honor both appetite and restraint as twin guardians of balance. Hollywood’s words remind us that joy is the truest nourishment — that when we eat with shame, even the healthiest food becomes poison, and when we eat with peace, even a simple loaf can become a feast.

So, my listener, remember this: to love your food is to love your life. Eat not with fear, but with gratitude. Let your meals be moments of communion — between body and spirit, between you and the earth that sustains you. Reject the chains of guilt that the world tries to place upon your plate. Instead, cultivate harmony: savor what is before you, stop when you are full, and give thanks for the gift of taste, texture, and time. For in the end, it is not the one who diets endlessly who lives wisely, but the one who, like Paul Hollywood, eats with honor, joy, and balance — and calls that wisdom his daily bread.