Use the golden apple kit, you'll get all the rest you need out of chests.
Learn how to loot chests
- Only take items you need
- Shift click them into your inventory (do not manually move from chest to hotbar/inventory)
- Sort your inventory fast (put sword, bow and blocks in easy to select spots)
Learn how to bridge fast
- The faster you bridge the faster you're in mid or on an enemy island
Use the knowledge of looting chests on your island in mid
- Only take items you need
- No more than a few seconds in each chest
In terms of combat
- Know when to commit, are you full hp and caught them off guard? Go for it!
- If you're caught off guard run and try to use knockback to win the battle instead of power
- When running do a 180 while charging your bow and shoot as soon as you can get a hit on target, this slows them down more than you slow yourself down + does damage (meaning they run out of food faster)
- Eat to heal whenever you get an opportunity. Once you learn how the healing works you'll be able to catch people chasing you off guard.
- Know when to use your golden apple and when to use normal food to heal. I suggest duels to learn this, never just eat it right before a fight you'll throw the healing part away and just get 2 hearts and some protection that won't change much.