Our understanding of cell physiology has been helped greatly by viewing metabolism as a set of reactions catalysed by independent catalysts (enzymes) in ideal solutions. Yet the differences between this idealized cell and reality have strong implications for biochemical regulation and control. We show here that in the real cell an enzyme controls cell physiology in more than a single way. These different controlling modes in the real 'macroworld' can be related to one another by implementing a new type of control analysis, which is formulated in terms of the 'microworld' of the elemental processes.