Comparing calories in with calories out is an oversimplified view of an infinitely complex equation. Accepting the metabolism miracle, which holds that eating will change our metabolism for the better, is the best, most sustainable path to weight loss. This is a diet and lifestyle overhaul that will improve your health, your skin, your sleep and your happiness while boosting your metabolism. You will learn why diets don’t work and how to set yourself up for a lifetime of success with eating.

Over and over again, you’ve heard from others (but more importantly, from yourself), that you’ve failed to lose weight because you lack willpower, because you simply ate too many calories. You’ve somehow learned to live with the oppressive shadow of the shame associated with eating, which, theoretically, we are all supposed to do. Yet, you also intrinsically know that counting calories doesn’t work. You don’t want just another short-term solution. You know because you’ve tried, over and over, and every time you restrict calories, your weight goes down, only to yo-yo right back up again, often higher than before. You’re reading this because you’re looking for something different.

Know this: The diets don’t fail because of you. The diets fail because the diets themselves are flawed. They confuse the body, thereby causing it to hold on to weight because it can’t trust us to regulate our own eating. The diets are also quite dated. Eating low fat (and by extension, low calorie) is a trend that started in the 1950s! Since then, the science has changed dramatically.

If you want to be a weight-loss hipster, go for it. But don’t forget that the mindset most Americans follow when they want to lose weight emerged when Eisenhower was president, and since then, our national health has plummeted. (In 2009, the United States ranked fiftieth worldwide in terms of life expectancy, behind Bosnia and South Korea.)

Lessons