Let’s face it. Everyone wants to tool around in their best body. I know I do. We look better and feel sexier. Clothes float with a sassy swagger when we walk down the street. Then Venus goes into retrograde, and before we know it, we’re slipping down the aisle of temptation in the supermarket. Everyone has a red light zone. Mine is the freezer section, that no man’s land of shelved cases where sin awaits, all tarted up in a pint of Haggen Daz ice cream. You may have found yourself in a similar red light zone, and before you’re able to escape, you say, “Screw it! I deserve to treat myself!” Well, you’re right, you do deserve to treat yourself to the best body you can create and you don’t have to deny yourself one iota.

I don’t eat to live; I live to eat.

So how can I eat healthily, lose weight, and not feel deprived?

Stop feeling guilty when you do treat yourself. Guilt is a construct of conditioning, and D-I-E-T is a four-letter word we’re conditioned to believe is something you go on to go off of.

Food is celebratory, and breaking bread is a primordial bond we share with friends and family. How often have you sat picking at a diet plate, counting the days when you can rejoin the human race? Well, stop counting calories. Count nutrients! Think of them as dividends in a food portfolio, and ask yourself: How much will this investment yield? Take that lettuce in your salad, for example. What’s it worth in nutrients? Is it iceberg or spinach? Calorically both are equal, which means they’ll cost you the same. But iceberg has the nutrient value of air, while spinach has the vitamin and mineral equivalent of gold. And if spinach is gold, kale is platinum. Every meal is a choice, an opportunity to increase your nutrient bottom line.

So what’s in your food portfolio for dinner tonight?

Demystifying carbohydrates