Let’s face it: every part of your day starts with good health.

If you have brain fog due to poor dietary choices, you’re not going to be writing your masterpiece any time soon. When you’re a slave to junk food, you lose precious time to better yourself as a human being.

Moreover, poor health cuts quality years off your life due to diabetes, obesity, and other preventable chronic diseases.

Notice I say “preventable,” because no matter what your genetics say about you — YOU can prevent the chronic diseases that you’re supposedly destined to have.

“Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.” -Swami Sivananda

But getting serious about health is hard work. No one will believe you when you say: “This time I’m going to take losing weight seriously!”

That’s alright though because if Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus taught me anything, it’s that all you need is to believe in yourself [Insert hand-making rainbows].

Another important lesson Miss Frizzle taught me is to work smarter not harder. So while all your friends are going to be busy cutting calories, you’ll have an easy method to lose weight fast.

The Laydown on Calories

Calories are the unit of energy it takes for your body to burn a specific food off. Whenever we eat something, our body raises its internal temperature to burn off what we consumed.

Funny enough, calories aren’t determined by weight or size, but by how difficult it is for your body to burn it off. Hence the fact that five Oreos contains the same amount of calories as a bag of broccoli.

Due to our over-reliance on restrictive dieting we’ve become slaves to calories. We think everything in nutrition begins and ends with calories and that eating less is the sole way to lose weight.

This is not true.

A recent study from Harvard shows that individuals following a low-carbohydrate (20% of total calories) diet burn between 209 and 278 more calories per day than those on a high-carbohydrate (60% of total calories) diet.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had it somewhat right with the food pyramid. We should prioritize eating some foods over others. In doing so we’ll be healthier beings without having to stress over how much we eat all the time.

However, the USDA had their pyramid upside down for the most part. Dr. Mark Hyman’s pyramid is something we should follow instead:

A calorie doesn’t equal a calorie

Try not to beat yourself up for not meeting your caloric goals. Instead, try to introduce more nutritious foods into your life and as a result, your relationship with food will change.

Focus on eating whole, quality foods like grass-fed meats, pasture-raised eggs, fruits, vegetables, and mixed nuts. Also, when you eat carbs, always opt for complex carbohydrates over simple, refined carbs.

Whole wheat bread instead of white; vegetables instead of chips; oatmeal instead of donuts and muffins.

But try to make these changes gradually. And reward the hell out of yourself when you do so. Give yourself a cheat meal every now and then or treat yourself to dessert.

Simply put, introduce quality foods into your life, don’t try to eliminate all the foods you love.

Remember: you can change your life forever at any given moment

Do you know which holiday sucks? New Years.

There’s so much fun to be had the day of. I remember one year I drank so many Moscow Mules that I sang Bonnie Tyler with my friend’s mom…

“Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears…”

Ahem, but I digress. This is why I hate New Years so much:

Days before January 1, 2018 visits to fast food joints were down 4.6%, according to Foursquare’s analysis, while gym attendance grew by 6%. But as the year progressed, fast food consumption rose and gym memberships began to decline.

Analysts have dubbed February 9 as “Fall Off the Wagon Day.” In other words, New Year’s Resolutions or B.S. and that depresses the hell out of me.

I like symbolic days as much as the next person. “New year, new me,” we might say. Conversely I think it’s much cooler to pick any given moment to be the time when everything changes.

Why not make that moment now? Make this the year to beat the statistics by focusing on quality and not the quantity of foods. If you need help figuring that our here are a few resources I use to direct me to inexpensive, quality foods:

Thomas Delauer: One of the best, most scientific-backed YouTube channels out there. I highly recommend his videos on fasting.

FlavCity with Bobby Parrish: Bobby has been to every grocery store and back. He’s constantly publishing videos rummaging through stores and pointing out the healthiest, most affordable food options.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Her interviews with Joe Rogan are a must-watch if you’re trying to change your life. She’s informative, funny, and a modern health guru.

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