Use a cyclical ketogenic diet, not a standard one, to maintain muscle mass and performance while cutting fat.
Your Body is a Hybrid Car, Not a Gas Guzzler.
Imagine your body is a high-performance hybrid car. A standard ketogenic diet forces it to run only on its electric motor (fat). It’s incredibly efficient for cruising long distances (daily life), but when you need to floor it for a race (an intense workout), you miss the power of the gas engine. A cyclical ketogenic diet is like using the hybrid system as designed. You cruise on efficient fat-burning mode most of the week, then strategically switch on the high-octane gas engine (carbohydrates) to fuel your toughest workouts, allowing you to maintain speed and power without giving up your fuel efficiency.
Stop drinking fruit juice and smoothies. Do eat the whole fruit instead for the fiber that mitigates the sugar spike.
Sugar Bricks in a Padded Box, Not Loose in a Truck.
Think of the sugar in fruit as a shipment of bricks. Drinking fruit juice is like having a dump truck pull up and unload thousands of sugar bricks directly into your bloodstream—a massive, shocking spike. Eating the whole fruit, however, is like receiving that same shipment, but every single brick is encased in a complex, padded box made of fiber. Your body can’t just dump the bricks; it has to spend significant time and energy carefully unboxing each one. This slow, deliberate process releases the sugar gradually, preventing the spike and keeping you full and stable.
Stop focusing on “clean eating.” Do focus on hitting your daily macronutrient and micronutrient targets instead.
Building a House with a Blueprint, Not Just “Good” Materials.
Trying to build a strong body with vague “clean eating” rules is like trying to build a house by only using “good” materials like wood and stone, but with no blueprint. You’ll end up with a random pile of high-quality stuff, not a functional house. Focusing on your macronutrient (protein, carbs, fat) and micronutrient targets is like following a precise architectural blueprint. It tells you exactly how much framing (protein), foundation (fats), and electrical wiring (vitamins) you need to construct a strong, high-performance structure that actually works.
The #1 secret for clear skin is eliminating dairy and high-glycemic foods from your diet.
Your Skin is the Smoke Alarm for an Internal Fire.
Imagine a small, smoldering fire of inflammation deep inside your body. For many people, consuming dairy and high-glycemic foods like sugar is like pouring a gallon of gasoline directly onto that fire, causing it to rage out of control. You might not feel the internal flames, but you will see the signal from the smoke alarm. Acne, especially cystic acne around the jawline, is that loud, blaring smoke alarm on your face, desperately trying to tell you that your body is inflamed and overwhelmed by what you’re putting into it.
I’m just going to say it: The official food pyramid was a disaster for public health and aesthetics.
They Told Us to Build Our House on a Foundation of Sand.
The old food pyramid was an architectural plan for your body that was fundamentally flawed. It told you to build your foundation—the largest and most important part—out of 6-11 servings of sand (bread, pasta, and cereals). It then advised you to use the strong, sturdy bricks of healthy fats and proteins only sparingly, like decorative elements on the roof. The result? A generation of people who built weak, unstable, and soft-looking structures. It was a blueprint for a house that was destined to be soft and constantly in need of repair.
The reason you’re not losing fat is because you’re not accurately tracking the calories in your cooking oils and condiments.
You’re Counting the Bricks But Ignoring the Mortar.
Imagine you’re on a strict budget to build a wall, and you’re meticulously counting every single brick. But you’re completely ignoring the cost of the mortar you’re slathering between them. A single “glug” of olive oil or a “healthy” swirl of dressing is like a thick layer of calorie-dense mortar. It doesn’t look like much, but it can easily add up to hundreds of hidden calories, completely blowing your budget. You think you’re building a small wall, but the unaccounted-for mortar is secretly doubling its weight, and you can’t figure out why.
If you’re still drinking diet soda, you’re disrupting your gut microbiome and increasing your cravings for sweet things.
You’re Cheating on Your Brain with a Fake Partner.
When you drink a diet soda, its intense, artificial sweetness is like a fake partner that promises your brain a wonderful reward (sugar energy) but never delivers. Your brain feels cheated and unfulfilled. This makes it crave that super-sweet sensation even more, so a naturally sweet apple now tastes bland and disappointing. Meanwhile, these artificial compounds act like vandals in the carefully balanced city of your gut microbiome, disrupting the good bacteria that regulate everything from your mood to your digestion, leaving you craving more junk.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about protein supplements is that you need them; whole food sources are superior.
A Pre-Fab Wall vs. a Hand-Laid Brick Wall.
A protein shake is like a pre-fabricated wall panel. It’s fast, convenient, and gets the basic job done of building muscle. A whole food protein source, like a steak or a piece of fish, is like a wall built by a master mason, brick by brick. It not only provides the same primary building blocks (the bricks), but it also comes with all the crucial, synergistic micronutrients—the iron, the B-vitamins, the healthy fats—that are like the mortar, rebar, and insulation. It creates a far stronger, more resilient, and more complete structure in your body.
I wish I knew about the direct link between gut health and skin clarity when I was struggling with acne.
Your Skin is the Emergency Exit for a Toxic Factory.
Think of your gut as the main processing plant for your entire body. When it’s healthy, it efficiently manages all incoming shipments (food) and keeps everything running smoothly. But if the plant gets overwhelmed with inflammatory foods, the system breaks down and starts producing toxic byproducts. It has to get this toxic waste out somehow. Your skin becomes the emergency fire exit. The acne, eczema, and rashes you see are just the factory desperately shoving its internal toxic garbage out through the nearest available exit. A clear face always starts with a clean factory.
99% of people make this one mistake when starting a diet: they cut calories too drastically, which crashes their metabolism.
You’ve Triggered the Body’s Famine Alarm System.
Your metabolism is like the smart thermostat controlling your body’s furnace. For years, it has been set to a comfortable 72 degrees, burning fuel at a predictable rate. When you suddenly slash your calories in half, you trigger a panic alarm. The thermostat thinks a brutal ice age has begun and its primary job is survival. It immediately cranks the furnace down to 50 degrees to conserve every last bit of fuel. Your fat-burning grinds to a halt, you feel cold and tired, and the moment you eat normally again, all that fuel gets stored for the ongoing “famine.”
This one small habit of drinking a full glass of water before every meal will significantly reduce your overall calorie intake.
Put the Big Rocks in the Jar First.
Imagine your stomach is an empty jar you need to fill. Most people start filling it with the small, calorie-dense “sand” and “pebbles” of their meal. You can pack a lot in that way. But if you first place a few large, zero-calorie “rocks”—a big glass of water—into the bottom of the jar, you’ll find it takes significantly less sand and pebbles to fill it to the top. The water takes up physical space, sending signals to your brain that you’re full much sooner, all before you’ve had a chance to overeat.
Use intermittent fasting, not just daily calorie restriction, to boost human growth hormone and increase cellular autophagy.
Your Body’s Nightly Deep-Cleaning Crew.
Daily calorie restriction is like telling your city’s cleaning crew they can only use half as much soap and water. The city will be a little cleaner, but not much. Intermittent fasting is like shutting down all the roads for 8 hours overnight. This allows a specialized “deep-cleaning” crew, called autophagy, to come out and do its real work without any traffic. This crew doesn’t just pick up trash; it actively recycles old, damaged cells and repairs broken machinery. This process is the secret to cellular youth and is only activated during these periods of fasting.
Stop eating highly processed “health foods.” Do eat single-ingredient, whole foods instead.
A Chair Made of Sawdust vs. a Chair Made of Oak.
A processed “health” bar is like a chair made from sawdust, glue, and chemical binders, spray-painted to look like wood. It might vaguely resemble a chair, but it’s fundamentally weak and full of junk. A single-ingredient whole food, like an avocado or an egg, is a chair carved from a single, solid piece of oak. It is strong, pure, and contains all the natural, synergistic goodness it was created with. Your body knows the difference between the cheap imitation and the real, solid material it needs to build itself.
Stop just counting calories. Do track your daily protein intake (1g/lb bodyweight) instead for muscle retention.
Saving the Furniture While the House is on Fire.
When you’re in a calorie deficit, your body is like a house on fire, burning everything it can for energy. Just “counting calories” is like watching the fire burn. Specifically tracking and hitting a high protein target, however, is like sending in a team of firefighters with specific instructions: “Let the ugly carpet and old curtains burn, but you must save the valuable, structural furniture at all costs!” Protein is the signal that tells your body to burn the fat (carpet) while preserving the metabolically active muscle (the furniture).
The #1 hack for reducing bloating and water retention overnight is cutting out processed carbs and sodium.
You’re Squeezing Out the Body’s Sponges.
Think of processed carbohydrates and sodium as millions of tiny, thirsty sponges inside your body. For every gram of carbohydrate glycogen you store, your body is forced to store an additional 3-4 grams of water along with it. When you eat a salty, carb-heavy meal, it’s like you’ve swallowed a handful of these sponges, which then soak up and hold onto water, making you feel puffy and bloated. Cutting them out for just one day is like forcefully wringing out every single one of those sponges, releasing all that trapped water overnight.
I’m just going to say it: Eating 6 small meals a day does not “boost your metabolism” any more than eating 3 larger ones.
The Furnace Doesn’t Care How You Load the Wood.
Your metabolism is a furnace, and calories are the wood you burn for heat. The myth of “stoking the metabolic fire” suggests that adding small logs frequently is better than adding a few big logs. But the furnace doesn’t care. Its job is to burn the total amount of wood you give it over a 24-hour period. Whether you put in six small logs or three large logs, if the total amount of wood is the same, the total heat output (calories burned) at the end of the day will be identical.
The reason your energy levels are low is because your diet is causing constant blood sugar spikes and crashes.
You’re Riding the World’s Worst Roller Coaster.
Your daily energy supply should be like a calm, steady train ride across a flat plain. But when your diet is full of sugar and refined carbs, you’re putting your body on a violent roller coaster. You eat a bagel, and you’re shot straight up a massive hill (the sugar spike), feeling a brief rush of energy at the top. But immediately after, you plummet down a steep drop (the crash), leaving you shaky, exhausted, and desperately craving another ticket to ride. It’s a cycle of artificial highs and debilitating lows.
If you’re still eating sugary cereal for breakfast, you’re starting your day with an inflammatory insulin spike.
Starting a Campfire with a Can of Gasoline.
You need to build a fire that will last you all morning. A healthy breakfast of protein and fat is like carefully assembling a base of slow-burning hardwood logs. It will provide steady, consistent energy for hours. Eating a bowl of sugary cereal is like dousing the fire pit with a can of gasoline and tossing a match on it. You get a massive, immediate WHOOSH of flame (a huge insulin spike), but it burns out in minutes, leaving you with nothing but smoke and a desperate need for more fuel an hour later.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about carbohydrates is that they all make you fat; timing and type are what matter.
All Water Can Drown You, But You Still Need to Drink.
Saying “carbs make you fat” is like saying “water is deadly” because it’s possible to drown. The statement is only true in a specific, negative context. A glass of water is life-giving; a tidal wave is destructive. Similarly, a sweet potato after a workout is a powerful muscle-refueling tool. A giant bag of potato chips at midnight is a destructive tidal wave of empty calories that will be stored as fat. The tool itself isn’t bad; it’s how, when, and in what quantity you use it that determines the outcome.
I wish I knew that healthy fats (from avocado, olive oil, nuts) are crucial for testosterone production and skin health.
The Most Important Raw Material for Your Hormone Factory.
Your body’s endocrine system is a sophisticated factory that produces all your vital hormones, including testosterone. The factory workers are ready to go, but they can’t build anything without the right raw materials. Dietary cholesterol and healthy fats are the single most important raw material delivered to that factory. If you’re on a low-fat diet, you are starving your factory of its essential building blocks. The production lines for healthy skin, strong libido, and stable mood all grind to a halt because you’ve cut off the supply chain.
99% of people who try to eat healthy fail because their diet is 100% restrictive and has no room for enjoyment.
You’re Trying to Hold a Beach Ball Underwater.
Following a perfectly “clean,” 100% restrictive diet is like trying to hold a giant, inflated beach ball underwater. You can do it, but it requires immense, constant, white-knuckled willpower. The moment your focus wavers or you get tired, the ball will explode to the surface with ferocious, uncontrollable energy, leading to a massive binge. A sustainable diet that allows for planned treats is like letting just enough air out of the ball. It’s still a beach ball, but now you can hold it underwater with ease, indefinitely.
This one small action of meal prepping your protein sources for the week will make hitting your goals effortless.
You’ve Already Found All the Answers for the Test.
Trying to figure out a healthy, high-protein meal in the middle of a busy, stressful workday is like being given a pop quiz you haven’t studied for. You’re likely to panic and choose the easiest, wrong answer (fast food). Meal prepping your protein on Sunday—cooking a batch of chicken breasts, ground turkey, or hard-boiled eggs—is like being given the answer key to the test ahead of time. When the quiz comes, there’s no stress, no panic. You just calmly grab the pre-made answer, and success becomes the default, easy option.
Use hydrolyzed collagen peptides in your coffee, not just eating protein, for targeted skin, hair, and joint support.
Hiring a Specialist Instead of a General Contractor.
Eating regular protein from chicken or steak is like hiring a general contractor. They can build and repair everything in your house—the walls, the roof, the foundation. They are essential. Taking hydrolyzed collagen peptides, however, is like hiring a team of highly paid specialists who only work on three things: the drywall finish (your skin), the door hinges (your joints), and the plumbing seals (your gut lining). It’s a targeted nutrient that goes directly to those specific areas to provide a level of repair that the general contractor isn’t specialized enough to do.
Stop drinking your calories from lattes and sodas. Do drink water, black coffee, or unsweetened tea instead.
Packing Your Suitcase with Rocks Instead of Clothes.
Your daily calorie allowance is like the weight limit for a suitcase on a flight. You want to pack it with the most useful, satisfying items possible. Solid foods are like clothes; they are essential and provide value. Sugary drinks like lattes and sodas are like filling half your suitcase with heavy, useless rocks. They weigh a ton (are packed with calories), offer you almost zero nutritional value (satiety or nutrients), and leave you with no room for the things you actually need. You arrive at your destination hungry and unprepared.
Stop just eating chicken breast for protein. Do include fatty fish like salmon for the omega-3s that reduce inflammation.
A Great Engine is Useless Without Coolant.
A lean protein source like chicken breast is a fantastic, high-performance engine for your body. But an engine that runs hard all the time generates a lot of heat (inflammation). If you don’t have a system to cool it down, it will eventually break. The omega-3 fatty acids in salmon are your body’s high-performance coolant system. They actively circulate through your body, reducing the heat of chronic inflammation in your joints, brain, and arteries, allowing your high-performance engine to run smoothly for years to come without burning out.
The #1 secret for a flat stomach is not crunches, but a diet rich in probiotic and prebiotic foods for a healthy gut.
Your Stomach is an Inflated Balloon, Not a Weak Muscle.
For many people, a protruding stomach isn’t from a lack of muscle; it’s from internal bloating, which is like a constantly inflated balloon pushing everything outward. You can do a thousand crunches to strengthen the wall in front of the balloon, but it won’t make the balloon deflate. Probiotic and prebiotic foods (like yogurt, kimchi, and garlic) are the tools that fix the leaky gas valve inside. They cultivate a healthy gut environment that reduces gas and bloating, allowing the “balloon” to naturally deflate, revealing the flat stomach that was there all along.
I’m just going to say it: The “calories in, calories out” model is a massive oversimplification that ignores hormones.
Two Factories with the Same Budget but Different Managers.
“Calories in, calories out” is like saying two factories will have the same output just because they have the same budget. It’s absurdly simplistic. It ignores the factory manager—your hormones. One factory has an efficient manager (balanced hormones) who uses the budget to produce high-quality goods. The other has a lazy, stressed-out manager (high cortisol, low thyroid) who takes the same budget and stores most of it in a back room as useless inventory (fat), while the factory floor crumbles. The “budget” matters, but the “manager” dictates what happens to it.
The reason you have brain fog is likely due to chronic inflammation caused by seed oils and sugar in your diet.
Your Brain is Trying to Think Through a Thick Smog.
Your brain is a supercomputer that requires a clean, stable power source to run complex calculations. When your diet is high in inflammatory seed oils and sugar, it’s like you’ve set a pile of dirty, wet garbage on fire right next to the computer’s air intake vent. The entire system becomes filled with a thick, toxic smog of inflammation. The processors slow down, signals get crossed, and the whole system becomes sluggish and inefficient. That feeling of brain fog is the literal smog inside your head, preventing clear, crisp thought.
If you’re still cooking with vegetable oils like canola or soy, you’re consuming an unhealthy amount of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.
You’re Constantly Adding Fuel to a Smoldering Fire.
Imagine a small, smoldering fire of inflammation that is always present in your body. Healthy, anti-inflammatory omega-3s (from fish) are like water you can pour on the fire to keep it under control. Industrial seed oils are packed with omega-6 fatty acids, which, in excess, are like a highly flammable oil. Every time you cook with them, you are not just adding fuel; you are actively pouring lighter fluid onto that smoldering fire, encouraging it to flare up and spread, leading to joint pain, skin issues, and brain fog.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about dietary cholesterol is that it directly raises your blood cholesterol levels.
Your Body is a Brick Factory, Not a Brick Warehouse.
Your body, primarily your liver, is like a brick factory that produces most of the cholesterol (bricks) it needs to build and repair things. It’s not just a passive warehouse that stores any bricks you deliver to it. If a truck full of bricks (dietary cholesterol from eggs) shows up at the factory, the factory manager simply says, “Great, thanks! We can shut down our own production line for a while.” For most people, the body intelligently down-regulates its own production to maintain a stable supply, it doesn’t just pile the new bricks on top of the old ones.
I wish I knew the devastating impact of even moderate alcohol consumption on sleep quality, recovery, and skin hydration.
It’s a High-Interest Loan Taken Out Against Your Recovery.
Having a couple of drinks feels like a fun, easy loan. You get an immediate “payout” of relaxation and lowered inhibitions. But you have to pay it back overnight with cripplingly high interest. The alcohol demolishes your deep, restorative REM sleep, which is when your body and brain actually repair themselves. It’s also a powerful diuretic, meaning you’re paying it back with your body’s precious hydration, leaving your skin dry and your muscles depleted. You wake up having paid a massive price for a very short-term gain.
99% of people who take supplements are just creating expensive urine because they aren’t absorbing them properly.
You’re Pouring Premium Fuel into a Car with a Leaky Gas Tank.
You can buy the most expensive, high-octane premium fuel in the world (supplements), but if you’re pouring it into a car with a leaky, inefficient gas tank (poor gut health), most of it will end up as a useless, expensive puddle on the ground. Without proper absorption, which depends on a healthy gut lining and the right co-factors, those valuable vitamins and minerals pass right through your system and are flushed away. You’re paying a premium price for the potential, but seeing none of the performance.
This one habit of eating slowly and chewing your food until it’s liquid will revolutionize your digestion.
You’re Doing the Factory’s Hardest Job For It.
Your digestive system is a factory assembly line. Chewing is the first and most critical station: the breakdown of raw materials. When you swallow half-chewed food, you are sending huge, unmanageable chunks down the line, forcing the rest of the factory (your stomach and intestines) to work overtime and use harsh chemicals to try and break it down. This causes gas, bloating, and inefficiency. Chewing your food thoroughly is like perfectly pre-processing the raw materials, making the rest of the factory’s job effortless and leading to a smooth, efficient, and problem-free production.
Use a food scale to weigh your portions, not just guessing with measuring cups, for true accuracy.
You’re a Jeweler Using a Bathroom Scale.
Imagine a jeweler trying to measure a diamond using a cheap bathroom scale. The measurement would be so imprecise it would be worthless. A measuring cup is the bathroom scale of the kitchen. It’s wildly inaccurate for solid foods. A “cup” of oatmeal or a “scoop” of peanut butter can have a 50% variance in calories depending on how it’s packed. A food scale is the jeweler’s digital scale. It provides the ruthless, undeniable precision required to know exactly what you are putting into your body, which is the only way to guarantee results.
Stop avoiding all salt. Do use high-quality sea salt or pink salt instead for essential trace minerals and electrolytes.
Your Body is a Battery that Runs on Salt Water.
Your body is not a machine that runs on pure, distilled water. It’s an electrical machine, and every single nerve impulse and muscle contraction is an electrical signal that is conducted through a salt-water medium. Table salt is just pure sodium chloride, but high-quality sea salt is a complex brine containing dozens of essential trace minerals like magnesium and potassium. Avoiding all salt is like trying to run a battery on distilled water. Using high-quality salt is like filling your battery with a perfectly formulated electrolyte solution, ensuring every signal fires correctly.
Stop just focusing on what you eat. Do focus on when you eat by practicing time-restricted feeding.
It’s Not Just the Quality of the Fuel, But When You Refuel.
You can put the highest quality fuel into your car, but if you’re constantly topping off the tank every hour, the system never gets a chance to rest and run efficiently. Time-restricted feeding is like setting designated refueling windows for your body. This allows your digestive system—your engine—to have a dedicated “off” period each day. During this time, it’s not busy processing new fuel; it’s able to run system diagnostics, clean out old parts, and reset its sensitivity to insulin, making it a much more efficient machine when you do refuel.
The #1 hack for instantly curbing sugar cravings is eating a spoonful of high-fat nut butter.
You’re Fighting a Fire with a Wet Blanket, Not More Fire.
A sugar craving is a raging, out-of-control fire demanding more kindling (sugar) to burn. Eating something sweet to satisfy it is like throwing more kindling on the fire—it just makes it burn hotter and demand more. A spoonful of high-fat, low-sugar nut butter is like throwing a heavy, wet blanket over the entire fire. The fat is slow-digesting and incredibly satiating. It doesn’t feed the craving; it smothers it completely, calming the hormonal signals and extinguishing the raging desire for more sugar in a matter of minutes.
I’m just going to say it: A vegan diet can be one of the unhealthiest diets if it’s based on processed foods.
You Can Build a House Entirely Out of “Wood,” But Plywood is Not Oak.
You can commit to building a house using only wood-based products. If you build it with solid oak beams and hardwood floors, it will be magnificent. This is a whole-food vegan diet. However, you can also build a house entirely out of “wood” using particle board, cheap plywood, and sawdust held together with chemical glues. This is a processed-food vegan diet of plant-based nuggets, fake cheeses, and sugary oat milk. Both are technically “vegan,” but one is a strong, healthy structure and the other is a weak, chemical-laden imitation.
The reason you’re always hungry is because your meals lack sufficient protein and fiber, the two most satiating nutrients.
Your Hunger Alarm Has a Broken “Off” Switch.
Your hunger is like a smoke alarm that goes off when your body needs fuel. Carbohydrates and fats are like briefly fanning the smoke away—the alarm stops for a minute but quickly starts again. Protein and fiber are the technicians that actually inspect the system and press the “reset” button. They are digested slowly and send powerful signals to your brain that the “fire” has been dealt with and the building is secure. Without them in a meal, the alarm never truly gets shut off, leaving you in a constant state of low-grade hunger.
If you’re still eating processed meats like bacon and deli slices regularly, you’re increasing your risk of chronic disease.
It’s a Beautifully Preserved but Rotten Piece of Wood.
A fresh, solid piece of oak is a healthy building material. Processed meat is like taking that piece of wood, chemically treating it, smoking it, and adding a host of preservatives and nitrates so it can sit on a shelf for months without changing. It might still look appealing, but the fundamental structure has been altered and infused with compounds that are foreign to your body’s construction plans. Consuming it regularly is like choosing to build your house with this chemically-treated, compromised material instead of the pure, strong wood your body was designed to use.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about “superfoods” is that a few of them can make up for an otherwise poor diet.
A Few Gold Bricks Can’t Fix a Crumbling Foundation.
Imagine your diet is the foundation of a house, and for years you’ve been building it with crumbling, low-quality bricks (processed foods). Then, you hear about magical “superfood” gold bricks like kale and blueberries. The lie is that by simply adding a few of these gold bricks into your wall, you can fix the entire structure. It’s a fantasy. A few powerful additions cannot and will not compensate for a foundation that is fundamentally weak and unstable. You have to replace the bad bricks, not just sprinkle in a few good ones.
I wish I knew that I could get lean and ripped without ever having to eat “boring” food.
You Don’t Need to Use Only One Tool to Build a House.
Many people think a diet for getting lean is a toolbox with only one tool: a hammer for bland chicken and broccoli. They think flavor is forbidden. The reality is that the toolbox is immense. Spices, herbs, hot sauces, and mustards are like a full set of power tools that can transform the same basic materials—the chicken, the beef, the vegetables—into a thousand different, delicious structures. Learning to cook with flavor is the secret to building a physique with materials you actually enjoy, which is the only way you’ll stick with the construction project long-term.
99% of people who go on a diet gain all the weight back (and more) because they never built sustainable habits.
You Held Your Breath Underwater and are Shocked When You Have to Come Up for Air.
Going on a crash diet is like seeing how long you can hold your breath underwater. You can do it for a while through sheer willpower, but it is an inherently temporary and unsustainable state. Your body is screaming for air (normalcy). The moment you finish the “diet,” you don’t just return to the surface; you explode upwards, gasping for air, and overcompensate for the period of restriction. Building small, sustainable habits is like learning to use a snorkel. You can stay in the water comfortably, forever, without the desperate need to resurface.
This one small change of adding kimchi or sauerkraut to your meals will dramatically improve your gut microbiome.
You’re Air-Dropping an Army of Allies into Your Gut’s Territory.
Your gut is a vast territory engaged in a constant war between beneficial and harmful bacteria. Eating a poor diet is like supplying the enemy army. Adding a forkful of a fermented food like kimchi or sauerkraut to your meal is like air-dropping a fresh platoon of highly trained, elite allied soldiers (probiotics) directly into the battlefield. They immediately go to work, fighting off the bad guys, strengthening your defenses, and helping to restore order and balance to the entire territory, which has a direct impact on your digestion, mood, and skin.
Use an at-home food sensitivity test, not just guessing, to identify which foods are causing you inflammation.
You’re a Detective Using DNA Evidence Instead of a Hunch.
Trying to figure out which “healthy” foods are causing your bloating or skin issues is like a detective trying to solve a crime with just a vague hunch. You might suspect the eggs or the almonds, but you have no proof. An at-home food sensitivity test is like getting the DNA evidence back from the lab. It gives you a clear, data-driven list of the specific culprits that are causing a low-grade inflammatory “crime” inside your body. It allows you to stop guessing and start targeting the precise foods that are holding you back.
Stop eating while watching TV or scrolling on your phone. Do practice mindful eating and focus on your meal instead.
Your Stomach’s Mailroom is Receiving Unannounced Packages.
When you eat mindfully, your brain sees and smells the food, which is like sending a memo to the stomach’s mailroom: “Get ready, a shipment of steak and potatoes is arriving in five minutes!” The mailroom prepares the right digestive enzymes and acids. But when you eat while distracted, you’re just dumping unannounced packages on the loading dock. The mailroom is unprepared and scrambles to deal with the surprise shipment, leading to poor digestion, bloating, and a complete lack of satisfaction because you never even registered that the delivery happened.
Stop just taking a generic multivitamin. Do get blood work done to see which specific micronutrients you’re deficient in.
Stop Using a Shotgun to Hit a Specific Target.
Taking a generic, one-a-day multivitamin is like firing a shotgun at a distant wall and hoping some of the pellets hit the tiny, specific target you’re aiming for. You’re spraying a wide array of nutrients with no idea which ones you actually need, and which ones you’re already getting too much of. Getting blood work done is like using a high-powered sniper rifle with a precision scope. It identifies the exact target—your specific deficiencies, like Vitamin D or magnesium—and allows you to supplement with surgical accuracy, ensuring you get results instead of just wasting ammo.
The #1 secret for boosting your testosterone levels naturally is a diet rich in healthy fats, zinc, and vitamin D.
The Key Ingredients for the Master Hormone Recipe.
Your body’s ability to produce testosterone is like a master chef trying to cook a complex, signature dish. The chef can be the best in the world, but if they are missing three critical ingredients, the final dish will be a failure. Healthy fats (from sources like eggs and avocados), zinc (from meat and seeds), and Vitamin D (from the sun and supplements) are those three non-negotiable ingredients in the recipe for testosterone. Without a consistent supply of all three, the chef simply cannot produce the powerful, potent final product.
I’m just going to say it: Most protein bars are just glorified candy bars with added protein isolate.
It’s a Snickers Bar Wearing a Fake Mustache and a Gym Membership.
A candy bar is honest about what it is: a blast of sugar and fat. A typical protein bar is a candy bar in disguise. It has simply put on a clever costume—a wrapper with words like “fit” and “performance”—and sprinkled in some cheap protein powder to justify its presence in the health food aisle. But underneath the costume, it’s the same core structure: a massive dose of sugar, syrups, and low-quality fats. It’s a Snickers bar trying to sneak into the gym by pretending it’s there to work out.
The reason you have acne on your jawline is likely due to the hormonal disruptions caused by sugar and dairy.
Your Jawline is a Barometer for Your Hormonal Weather.
Think of your body’s hormonal balance as an internal weather system. When everything is calm and stable, you have clear skies. But when you consume large amounts of sugar and dairy, it’s like creating a massive, low-pressure system that causes a hormonal storm. Your jawline is like a highly sensitive barometer for this specific type of storm. It is uniquely responsive to fluctuations in hormones like insulin and IGF-1. The deep, painful cystic acne that appears there is the needle on the barometer swinging wildly, telling you an internal storm is raging.
If you’re still not eating a wide variety of colorful vegetables, you’re missing out on crucial phytonutrients for skin health.
You’re Building a House Using Only One Type of Brick.
You can build a functional house using only standard red bricks. This is like eating a diet with only one or two boring vegetables. But a truly magnificent and resilient house uses a variety of materials: stone for the foundation, wood for the framing, and granite for the counters. The different colors in vegetables represent different “phytonutrients”—unique, powerful compounds that act as specialized building materials for your body. The deep purples, bright oranges, and dark greens are the stone, wood, and granite that build truly vibrant, resilient, and glowing skin.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about detox diets and cleanses is that they work; your liver and kidneys are your detox system.
You’re Trying to “Help” a Professional Cleaning Crew by Spraying Water.
Your liver and kidneys are a multi-billion dollar, state-of-the-art, 24/7 detoxification system. They are the most sophisticated cleaning crew ever designed. A “detox” tea or juice cleanse is like watching this elite crew at work and thinking you can help by aimlessly spraying a cheap water pistol into the room. It does absolutely nothing to help, and in many cases, just gets in the way of the real professionals doing their job. The best way to “cleanse” your body is to stop throwing garbage at the cleaning crew and give them the healthy nutrients they need to function.
I wish I knew the importance of sleep for regulating the appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin.
The Two Managers of Your Body’s Hunger Factory.
Your appetite is controlled by two opposing managers. Ghrelin is the “Go!” manager, who shouts “We’re hungry, start production!” Leptin is the “Stop!” manager, who says, “We’re full, shut down the line.” A full night of sleep is when these two managers get their instructions for the day and synchronize their schedules. When you are sleep-deprived, the “Go!” manager works a double shift and the “Stop!” manager calls in sick. The result is a factory in chaos, with constant, loud signals to eat, and a broken off-switch.
99% of people who try intermittent fasting make this common mistake: they eat junk food during their eating window.
You’ve Given Your Star Player the Day Off, Only for Him to Get Drunk.
Practicing intermittent fasting is like giving your digestive system—your star player—a much-needed day off to rest and recover. It’s a brilliant strategy. But if, during the “eating window,” you flood your system with processed junk food, sugar, and inflammatory oils, it’s like your star player spending his entire day off on a wild, drunken bender. He comes back to work the next day even more damaged, inflamed, and less effective than before. You’ve wasted the entire benefit of the rest period by being reckless during the active period.
This one habit of always having a healthy, high-protein snack on hand will prevent you from making bad food choices.
You’re Carrying a Fire Extinguisher at All Times.
A sudden, intense hunger craving is a small fire that breaks out in your brain. If you have nothing on hand to deal with it, you’ll panic and throw whatever is closest on it—the donuts in the breakroom, the chips in the vending machine—which is like throwing flammable oil on the fire. Always having a protein bar, a bag of nuts, or a piece of fruit with you is like carrying a small, personal fire extinguisher. The moment the small fire starts, you can put it out immediately with a smart, effective tool before it has a chance to become a raging inferno.
Use a “reverse diet” to slowly add calories back in after a cut, not just jumping back to your old eating habits.
Slowly Acclimatizing a Deep-Sea Diver to the Surface.
A long dieting phase is like being a deep-sea diver living under immense pressure. Your metabolism has adapted to that low-calorie environment. If that diver rocketed straight to the surface (jumping back to high calories), they would get “the bends”—a rapid, dangerous expansion that causes severe damage. A reverse diet is the controlled, gradual ascent. By slowly adding calories back week by week, you allow your metabolism to safely and methodically re-acclimatize to the lower pressure at the surface, preventing a rapid, shocking fat regain.
Stop demonizing entire food groups like carbs or fats. Do practice metabolic flexibility instead.
Your Body is a Hybrid Engine; Train It to Use Both Fuels.
Some people treat their body like a car that can only run on gasoline (carbs). Others treat it like an electric-only car (fats). Both are limiting. The goal is to develop a sophisticated hybrid engine that can seamlessly and efficiently switch between both fuel sources. This is metabolic flexibility. It means your body can burn carbs for fuel when you eat them for a workout, and then effortlessly switch to burning stored body fat for energy when you’re not. You’re not a slave to one fuel source; you are the master of both.
Stop just drinking regular coffee. Do try mushroom coffee with Lion’s Mane and Chaga for cognitive and immune benefits.
You’re Upgrading Your Car’s Engine and Its Security System at Once.
Regular coffee is like a standard turbocharger for your brain. It gives you a reliable boost of energy and focus. Mushroom coffee is like upgrading that turbocharger while simultaneously installing a state-of-the-art security system. The coffee still provides the energy boost. But the added Lion’s Mane acts as a cognitive enhancer, fine-tuning the engine for better performance and memory, while the Chaga works in the background as a powerful antioxidant and immune-booster, protecting the entire vehicle from external threats and cellular damage.
The #1 hack for staying on your diet when eating out is to look at the menu online beforehand and choose your meal.
You’re Programming Your GPS Before You Start Driving.
Going to a restaurant without a plan is like starting a drive to a new city with no map or GPS, hoping you’ll just magically end up at the right destination. You’ll be swayed by tempting billboards (the appetizer menu) and distracted by flashy lights (the dessert tray). Looking at the menu online beforehand is like programming the exact address into your GPS before you even get in the car. You’ve already made the smart decision in a calm environment, so when you arrive, you simply follow the pre-planned route, immune to the distracting temptations along the way.
I’m just going to say it: The long-term sustainability of the carnivore diet is questionable for most people.
Trying to Build a Thriving City Using Only Two Types of Material.
Imagine trying to construct and maintain a complex, thriving metropolis using only steel and concrete. You could build strong skyscrapers, but you would have no glass for windows, no copper for wiring, no wood for parks, and no diverse materials for art and culture. A carnivore diet is similar. It provides high-quality protein and fat (steel and concrete), but it completely removes the vast and diverse world of phytonutrients, fiber, and unique compounds found in plants, which are the essential materials for a truly vibrant, resilient, and colorful internal city.
The reason you’re not building muscle is because you’re not in a slight, consistent calorie surplus.
You Can’t Build an Extension on Your House with No Bricks.
Imagine you want to build a new room onto your house. You hire the best construction crew in the world (intense weightlifting) and they show up ready to work every single day. But you haven’t ordered any new bricks, wood, or concrete (a calorie surplus). No matter how hard the crew works or how perfect their technique is, they simply cannot build the new room out of thin air. To build new muscle tissue, you must provide your body with a small but consistent surplus of building materials.
If you’re still relying on willpower to avoid junk food, you will always fail; you need to control your environment instead.
You Can’t Will Yourself Not to Get Wet in a Rainstorm.
Relying on willpower to avoid junk food that’s in your house is like standing in the middle of a torrential downpour and trying to use sheer mental force to not get wet. It’s a ridiculous and losing battle. Eventually, you will be soaked. The only winning move is to control your environment—to go inside and grab an umbrella. Don’t buy the junk food. Don’t have it in your cupboards. Create an environment where the “rain” can’t touch you. That requires a single, smart decision at the grocery store, not a thousand impossible decisions at home.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about gluten is that it’s bad for everyone; it’s only a problem for those with a sensitivity.
Peanuts are Deadly to Some, But a Great Food for Others.
Peanuts are a perfectly healthy source of protein and fat for the vast majority of the population. However, for someone with a severe peanut allergy, they are literal poison. Gluten is the same. For a small percentage of the population with Celiac disease or a genuine sensitivity, it is an inflammatory poison that must be avoided. For everyone else, it is simply a protein found in wheat. Demonizing gluten for the entire population is like demanding that peanuts be banned from the earth because a few people are allergic to them.
I wish I knew that being even slightly dehydrated makes your skin look wrinkled and your muscles look flat.
Your Skin and Muscles are Sponges, Not Rocks.
Think of your skin and muscle cells as millions of tiny, high-quality sponges. When they are fully saturated with water, they are plump, full, and firm. Your skin looks smooth and your muscles look round and dense. Even a slight degree of dehydration is like wringing out every single one of those sponges. They shrivel, wrinkle, and become soft and flat. Drinking enough water is the simplest and most immediate way to “inflate” your physique and give your skin a full, hydrated, and healthy appearance from the inside out.
99% of people who want to lose weight focus 80% on exercise and 20% on diet, when it should be the reverse.
You’re Trying to Bail Out a Sinking Boat with a Teaspoon.
Your bad diet is a huge hole in the bottom of your boat, letting water gush in. Exercise is a tiny teaspoon you’re using to frantically bail out the water. You can work yourself to absolute exhaustion, bailing and bailing, but you will never, ever be able to keep up with the amount of water flooding in through the massive hole. Fixing your diet is the act of patching the hole. Once the hole is fixed, you’ll find that only a small amount of bailing (exercise) is needed to get the boat looking perfect.
This one small change of learning to read and understand nutrition labels will change how you shop forever.
You’re Finally Able to Read the Secret Code.
Walking into a grocery store without knowing how to read a nutrition label is like walking into a library where every book is written in a secret code you don’t understand. You’re forced to judge everything by its cover—the flashy marketing and health claims on the front of the box. Learning to read the ingredients and the nutrition facts is like being given the cipher to the secret code. Suddenly, you can see past the deceptive cover and understand the true story of what’s inside every package, empowering you to make genuinely intelligent decisions.
Use a registered dietitian’s advice, not a fitness influencer’s meal plan, for personalized nutrition guidance.
A Custom-Tailored Suit vs. a One-Size-Fits-All T-Shirt.
Following a fitness influencer’s generic meal plan is like buying a one-size-fits-all t-shirt they are selling. It might sort of fit, but it’s not designed for your specific body, your medical history, or your lifestyle. Consulting with a registered dietitian is like going to a master tailor. They take your precise measurements—your blood work, your goals, your activity level, your personal history—and create a nutritional suit that is custom-tailored to fit you perfectly. One is a cheap, generic product; the other is a personalized, professional service.
Stop eating large meals right before bed. Do finish your last meal at least 3 hours before you sleep instead for better recovery.
Your Body Can’t Renovate and Cook at the Same Time.
Sleep is when your body’s renovation crew comes out to repair muscle, consolidate memories, and clean up cellular waste. Digestion is a resource-intensive job that’s like a chef needing to cook a complex, five-course meal. If you eat a large meal right before bed, you are forcing the body to do both jobs at once. The renovation crew has to wait while all the energy and resources are diverted to the kitchen. By finishing your meal early, you allow the chef to finish his work and clean up before the renovation crew clocks in, ensuring they have the full night to work uninterrupted.
Stop just focusing on weight loss. Do focus on body recomposition (losing fat, gaining muscle) instead.
Remodeling Your House vs. Just Making it Lighter.
Focusing only on weight loss is like trying to improve your house by only removing things to make it weigh less. You could tear out the granite countertops and the solid oak doors and replace them with plastic and cardboard. The house would be lighter, but it would also be weaker and look terrible. Body recomposition is like a proper remodel. You strategically remove the old, unwanted stuff (fat) while simultaneously adding high-quality, valuable new material (muscle). The number on the scale might not change as dramatically, but the final structure is infinitely stronger and more impressive.
The #1 secret for healthy, glowing skin is a diet consistently high in Omega-3 fatty acids.
You’re Moisturizing Your Skin from the Inside Out.
You can apply the most expensive moisturizer in the world to the surface of your skin, but that’s like painting a house that has dry, rotting wood underneath. Healthy skin is built from the inside. Omega-3 fatty acids are the essential ingredient for creating strong, supple, and hydrated cell membranes. A diet rich in Omega-3s is like ensuring every single “brick” in your skin’s wall is properly sealed and moisturized from the moment it’s created. This creates a natural, internal barrier that locks moisture in, resulting in skin that is fundamentally healthy, not just superficially coated.
I’m just going to say it: The fear-mongering around soy giving men “man boobs” is largely based on flawed science.
Mistaking a Paper Airplane for a Fighter Jet.
The phytoestrogens in soy are like paper airplanes. The estrogen in the human body is like a high-tech fighter jet. While they might share a vague, conceptual shape, they are wildly different in structure and power. The fear around soy comes from confusing the two. The weak plant compounds in soy do not have the same powerful, hormonal effect as actual estrogen. The idea that eating a normal amount of edamame or tofu will override your natural testosterone is like thinking a fleet of paper airplanes could overpower a squadron of fighter jets.
The reason your diet isn’t sustainable is because it doesn’t include foods you actually enjoy.
You’ve Taken a Job You Hate for a Paycheck You Don’t Need.
Imagine taking a miserable, soul-crushing job that you absolutely despise, just because you think it’s the “right” thing to do. How long are you going to last before you quit? A week? A month? A diet filled with nothing but foods you find bland and boring is that job. You might be able to force yourself through it for a short time, but it is an inherently temporary and miserable existence. The only sustainable path is to find a “job”—a way of eating—that you find genuinely enjoyable and can see yourself doing for years.
If you’re still not supplementing with Vitamin D3 (especially in winter), it’s negatively affecting your mood and hormone levels.
You’re a Solar-Powered Machine Living in a Cave.
Your body is a sophisticated machine that was designed to be solar-powered. Vitamin D, which is actually a hormone, is synthesized when your skin is exposed to direct sunlight. It’s a critical component for regulating everything from your mood to your immune system and testosterone production. If you live in a place with long winters or you work indoors all day, you are effectively a solar-powered machine that’s been locked in a dark cave. Supplementing with Vitamin D3 is like plugging yourself into an artificial power source to ensure all your critical systems keep running.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about artificial sweeteners is that they are all created equal; some are worse than others.
Comparing a Guest to a Home Invader.
Saying all artificial sweeteners are the same is like saying a houseguest and a home invader are the same because they both entered your house. Some sweeteners, like stevia or monk fruit, are like polite houseguests; they visit, don’t make a mess, and leave without causing much disruption to your gut microbiome. Others, like aspartame and sucralose, are like home invaders; they can ransack the place, disrupt the delicate balance of your gut bacteria, and leave you with cravings and potential long-term issues. They are not in the same category.
I wish I knew how to cook five simple, healthy, and delicious meals from scratch.
Knowing How to Build Your Own Shelter.
Relying on restaurants, takeout, and processed foods for all your meals is like living in a world where you have no idea how to build your own shelter. You are completely dependent on others for your most basic needs, and the quality is often poor. Learning to cook just a few simple, healthy meals is like learning the fundamental skill of building a solid, reliable shelter for yourself. It is a foundational act of self-sufficiency that gives you complete control over the quality of the materials you use to build your own body.
99% of people who start a diet are not mentally prepared for the social pressure to eat poorly.
You’re a Sober Person Deciding to Hang Out in a Bar All Night.
Starting a new, healthy diet is like deciding to get sober. The most difficult part is not the personal commitment; it’s navigating a world that is constantly encouraging you to drink. Going to a party, a family dinner, or out with friends is like a newly sober person deciding to spend their evening at a bar. You will be surrounded by temptation and people who, often with good intentions, will pressure you to “just have one.” Being mentally prepared for these situations with a clear plan is the only way to succeed.
This one habit of planning your meals for the week on Sunday will eliminate weekday decision fatigue.
You’ve Pre-Made All Your Decisions When You Were Smart.
Your brain has a limited daily budget of good decisions. This budget is highest on Sunday when you are rested and motivated. Throughout the stressful work week, your decision-making “bank account” gets depleted. Meal planning on Sunday is the act of making all your important food decisions when you are at your smartest and most disciplined. You are setting up a brilliant system for your future, tired self to follow. It removes the need to make difficult choices when your willpower account is already overdrawn, guaranteeing you’ll stay on track.
Use a carb-cycling approach, not a consistently low-carb diet, to fuel performance while maximizing fat loss.
You’re a Manager Giving Your Best Worker the Day Off Before a Big Project.
On a consistently low-carb diet, your body can feel like it’s always operating at 80%. A carb-cycling approach is like being a smart manager. You know that on your big project days (heavy lifting days), your star employee (your muscles) needs extra resources (glycogen from carbs) to perform at 100%. So, you strategically fuel up the day before or the day of. On easy days, you pull back. This allows you to get maximum performance when it counts, without ruining your overall budget (fat loss goals).
Stop snacking mindlessly throughout the day. Do eat 3-4 satisfying, whole-food meals instead.
Your Digestive System Never Gets to Clock Out.
Mindless snacking all day long is like having deliveries show up at your office mailroom every 15 minutes. The mailroom staff (your digestive system) never gets a moment’s rest. They are constantly having to stop what they’re doing, process a new package, and can never focus on their other important tasks. Eating distinct, satisfying meals is like having scheduled delivery windows. The mailroom gets a big shipment, processes it efficiently, and then enjoys a long, productive break to clean up and prepare for the next scheduled arrival.
Stop just drinking plain water. Do add a pinch of sea salt and a squeeze of lemon for electrolytes.
You’re Not Just Filling the Pool, You’re Treating the Water.
Your body’s cells are not just filled with plain water; they are filled with a complex, perfectly balanced electrolyte solution. Drinking huge amounts of plain water without replacing electrolytes is like overfilling a swimming pool with a firehose—you’re diluting the crucial chemical balance (the chlorine and minerals) that keeps the water clean and functional. Adding a pinch of sea salt and some lemon is like adding the proper treatment chemicals to the water, ensuring that the fluid you’re absorbing is perfectly balanced to hydrate your cells on an electrical level.
The #1 hack for a healthier gut is consistently increasing your dietary fiber from a variety of plant sources.
You’re Fertilizing Your Internal Garden.
Think of your gut microbiome as a vast internal garden, filled with trillions of tiny “plants” (good bacteria). Processed food is like paving over that garden. Fiber, from a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, is the highest-quality fertilizer for that garden. It’s what the good bacteria eat to thrive, multiply, and produce beneficial compounds. The more diverse your intake of plant fiber, the more rich and varied your fertilizer is, leading to a more vibrant, resilient, and flourishing internal ecosystem that can fight off the weeds (bad bacteria).
I’m just going to say it: You absolutely can and should eat carbs if you want to build an impressive physique.
You Can’t Build a Skyscraper Without a Crane.
Building serious muscle is like constructing a skyscraper. The protein is the steel and concrete—the essential building blocks. The intense weightlifting is the hardworking construction crew. But carbohydrates are the high-powered fuel that runs the crane. Without that fuel, the crew can’t lift the heavy steel beams into place. You can’t perform the intense, muscle-building workouts required to stimulate growth if your glycogen stores are empty. Carbs are the performance fuel that enables the hard work that actually builds the impressive physique.
The reason you feel bloated after meals is because of food intolerances or because you’re eating too fast.
You’ve Either Used the Wrong Fuel or Flooded the Engine.
That uncomfortable, bloated feeling after a meal is your body’s engine sputtering and backfiring. There are two likely reasons. First, you may have a food intolerance, which is like putting diesel into a gasoline engine—the system doesn’t know how to process it and it creates toxic fumes (gas). Second, you ate too fast and didn’t chew properly. This is like flooding the engine by pumping way too much fuel in before it can ignite. You’ve overwhelmed the system, and now it’s struggling to clear itself out.
If you’re still not taking a high-quality fish oil supplement, you’re missing out on the most powerful anti-inflammatory tool.
You’re a Firefighter Choosing to Leave Your Best Hose at the Station.
Chronic inflammation is a small fire that is constantly burning in every corner of your body—in your joints, your brain, and your arteries. You have a choice of tools to fight this fire. A high-quality fish oil, rich in omega-3s, is like a massive, high-pressure fire hose specifically designed to put out these types of fires. Willfully not taking it is like being a firefighter who knows about this amazing tool but consistently chooses to leave it at the station and fight the fire with a small bucket instead.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about red meat is that it’s inherently unhealthy; the quality and processing matter immensely.
A Pristine Forest is Not the Same as a Polluted Swamp.
Saying all red meat is unhealthy is like saying all water is dangerous because polluted swamp water can make you sick. The quality of the source and the processing it undergoes changes everything. Meat from a grass-fed cow that roamed in a pristine pasture is like water from a fresh mountain spring—it’s packed with nutrients. Highly processed, factory-farmed mystery meat is like the polluted swamp water—it’s full of inflammatory fats and hormones. They are not the same substance, and they do not have the same effect on your body.
I wish I knew that a “perfect” diet doesn’t exist, and that consistency is more important than perfection.
Driving 1,000 Miles with a Few Wrong Turns is Better Than Never Leaving the Driveway.
Striving for the “perfect” diet is like refusing to start a cross-country road trip until you can guarantee you will never make a single wrong turn. You will be paralyzed by analysis and will never leave your driveway. The successful approach is to just start driving, accepting that you will occasionally miss an exit or have to detour. As long as you keep the car generally pointed in the right direction 80-90% of the time, you will inevitably reach your destination. Consistency, not flawless perfection, is what covers the distance.
99% of people who try to lose weight set an unrealistic goal and timeline, leading to disappointment.
You’re Trying to Build a Skyscraper in a Week.
Imagine an architect declaring they are going to build a 100-story skyscraper and have it finished by next Tuesday. It’s not just ambitious; it’s delusional. The laws of physics and logistics make it impossible. Setting a goal to lose 30 pounds in a month is the same thing. Your body has its own laws of physiology. When you set a goal that violates those laws, you are setting yourself up for guaranteed failure, disappointment, and the feeling that you are broken, when in reality, it was the initial blueprint that was impossibly flawed.
This one small change of swapping your sugary drinks for sparkling water with lime will save you thousands of calories a month.
You’ve Found and Sealed the Biggest Leak in Your Budget.
Imagine reviewing your monthly budget and finding a single, recurring charge for hundreds of dollars for a service you don’t even remember using. This is what sugary drinks are in your calorie budget. They are a massive, silent leak of empty calories that provide zero value or satisfaction. Swapping them for sparkling water is like finding that leak and sealing it forever. Without any other changes, you’ve suddenly freed up a massive portion of your budget that can now be used for things you actually want and need.
Use a food diary for one week, not just relying on your memory, to see what you’re really eating.
You’re Installing a Security Camera in Your Own House.
Relying on your memory of what you ate is like asking the person who lives in a house if anything suspicious happened last week. They’ll only report what they noticed or want to admit. Keeping a food diary is like installing a high-definition security camera that records everything, 24/7. At the end of the week, you can’t argue with the videotape. It will show you the undeniable, objective truth of every little snack, every extra condiment, and every mindless bite you didn’t remember. This data is the first step to making real change.
Stop looking for a quick-fix diet. Do focus on building small, sustainable nutritional habits instead.
Stop Building with Straw and Start Building with Bricks.
A quick-fix crash diet is like the first little pig building his house out of straw. It’s incredibly fast and provides an instant, but flimsy, result. The moment the first real-world challenge comes along (the wolf of stress or hunger), the entire structure blows over. Building small, sustainable habits—like adding a vegetable to every meal or drinking more water—is like the third little pig methodically laying one solid brick at a time. It’s slow and not as exciting, but it results in a strong, resilient structure that can withstand any storm.
Stop just eating for taste. Do start eating for how it will make you look and feel.
Choose Your Fuel Based on Performance, Not Just Flavor.
You have a high-performance racing car. You could choose to fill its tank with sugary, delicious-tasting soda because you like the flavor. For a moment, it might be satisfying. But the engine will immediately sputter, clog, and break down. Or, you could fill it with high-octane racing fuel. It might not taste as sweet, but it will allow the car to perform at its absolute peak. Start treating your body like that racing car. Choose your fuel based on the performance, energy, and appearance it will give you, not just the momentary, fleeting pleasure of its taste.
The #1 secret for a successful diet is not the diet itself, but your ability to adhere to it consistently.
The Best Boat in the World is Useless if It Stays Docked.
There are hundreds of different, beautifully designed boats that are all capable of crossing the ocean. You can spend years arguing about which one is technically the “best”—the fastest, the most efficient, the most comfortable. But all of that is irrelevant. The only boat that will actually get you to the other side is the one you are willing to get in and sail every single day. The “best” diet is not the one that looks perfect on paper; it is the one that you can personally adhere to most consistently over the long haul.
I’m just going to say it: Your weekend binge-eating is completely erasing your weekday calorie deficit.
You’re Taking Five Steps Forward and Five Steps Back.
Imagine your goal is to walk across a huge room. From Monday to Friday, you diligently take one careful step forward each day. By Friday evening, you are five steps closer to your goal. Then, on Saturday and Sunday, you get reckless and take five giant leaps backward. You end up right back where you started on Monday morning, exhausted and frustrated, wondering why you’re not making any progress despite all the effort you put in during the week. You’re working hard, but your weekend is ensuring you’re just walking in place.
The reason you’re not seeing results is because you’re not being honest with yourself about your portion sizes.
You’re an Accountant Who’s Rounding All the Numbers Down.
Imagine you hire an accountant to manage your budget, but he has a bad habit of “fudging” the numbers. He logs a $50 dinner as $25 and a $100 shopping trip as $40. At the end of the month, he’ll present you with a report that shows you’re well under budget, yet your bank account is mysteriously empty. When you eyeball your portion sizes—that “tablespoon” of peanut butter, that “cup” of pasta—you are being that dishonest accountant. You’re lying on your own expense reports, and then wondering why your body’s “bank account” isn’t reflecting the results you’ve written down.
If you’re still eating out for most of your meals, you have almost no control over the hidden fats, sugars, and sodium.
You’re Letting a Stranger Pack Your Parachute.
Eating a meal you cooked yourself is like carefully inspecting and packing your own parachute. You know exactly what went into it and you trust it completely. Eating out at a restaurant is like grabbing a pre-packed parachute from a stranger and jumping out of a plane. You have to hope that they packed it correctly. You have no idea about the hidden butter, sugar, and cheap oils they used to make it taste good. It might be fine, or it might be a disaster, but you have surrendered all control over the most important variables.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about “cheat meals” is that you’ve “earned” them; they should be planned indulgences.
It’s a Scheduled Day Off, Not a Reward for Good Behavior.
Thinking you have “earned” a cheat meal is like a company telling its employees they don’t get weekends, but if they work really hard, they might be “rewarded” with a Saturday off. It creates a toxic, emotional relationship with food. A planned indulgence is different. It’s like a healthy company culture that has weekends built into the schedule. They are a pre-planned, non-emotional part of the long-term strategy, designed to prevent burnout and increase sustainability. It’s not a reward; it’s part of the plan.
I wish I knew the 80/20 rule for dieting (80% whole foods, 20% foods you enjoy) from the start.
A Strict Teacher vs. a Cool Teacher.
A 100% “clean” diet is like a super strict teacher who tolerates zero mistakes and offers no fun. You might learn something, but you’ll resent the process and rebel the first chance you get. The 80/20 rule is like the cool, respected teacher. They have high standards and expect you to get your work done (the 80% whole foods), but they also understand the importance of enjoyment and flexibility (the 20% fun foods). This balance creates a sustainable, healthy relationship where you’re happy to show up and do the work year after year.
99% of people who want to eat healthier are overwhelmed because they try to change everything at once.
You’re Trying to Learn an Entire Language in One Day.
Imagine deciding you want to learn Spanish and on your first day, you try to memorize every single verb, noun, and grammatical rule at once. You would be instantly overwhelmed and would likely quit in frustration. The smart way is to learn a few key phrases, practice them, and then gradually add more. Trying to overhaul your entire diet overnight—cutting out everything bad and adding everything good—is the same mistake. You must start small. Master one change, like drinking more water, then build on that success.
This one habit of finding a social circle that supports your healthy lifestyle will make your journey 10x easier.
You’re Trying to Swim Upstream vs. Swimming with the Current.
Trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle when your friends and family are constantly encouraging you to do the opposite is like trying to swim against a powerful river current. You might be a strong swimmer, but you are exhausting yourself every single second just to stay in place. Finding a social circle that shares your values and goals is like turning around and swimming with the current. Suddenly, the same effort carries you forward at ten times the speed. The environment itself is helping you, not hindering you.
Use a holistic approach where diet, training, and sleep all work together, not just focusing on one area.
A Three-Legged Stool Cannot Stand on Two Legs.
Your health and physique are like a three-legged stool. The three legs are diet, training, and sleep. You can have the most perfectly crafted diet leg and the strongest, most intense training leg in the world, but if your sleep leg is short or broken, the entire stool will be wobbly, unstable, and will ultimately collapse. Only when all three legs are given equal importance and are strong and balanced can the stool provide a solid, unshakable foundation for you to sit on.