One of the best things you can do to be lean is to eat fat. 
 
This is one of the great paradoxes of the world. 
 
Wait, what?  Doesn’t fat make you fat? No, it simply does not. Healthy fats are one of the best things to eat.  The predominant profile of obesity and weight gain is insulin resistance, higher blood sugar, and high caloric consumption, something which is often called Diabesity in its more severe form. Fat intake usually has little to do with health or weight control.  As a matter of fact, not eating enough fat is as bad as too little.  
 
Good fats have several key benefits which might improve your health, and improve your ability to control the insulin response and thus lose and control weight.  Even though fat has 9 calories per gram, whereas carbs and protein only have 4 calories per gram, fat is still an important part of a weight control program.  Calories are important, but focus on prioritizing healthy fats, and it will be easier to control how much you eat.  On a personal note, I am always amazed for how long I can feel full (4-5 hours) by eating a handful of nuts.  
 
The Best Types of Fats

• In general, try to avoid excess saturated fat, which is animal fat.  A little bit won’t hurt you, but overall, eat less.  The studies are somewhat inconsistent but it seems to raise LDL cholesterol, which can increase the risk of heart disease.  *Cocunut oil contains lauric acid and may be metabolized slightly different and studies show it could be good for you, even though it contains significant saturated fat. 

 

• The bottom line about animal / saturated fat, is that it is unclear, but likely has negative health consequences.  Healthy fat tastes good, and is good for you, so focus on it.  

 

• Dietary cholesterol is not highly related to cholesterol levels, but saturated fat is.

 

• Aim for no more than 10% of calories as saturated fat. In a 2000 calorie diet, this would be no more than 21 grams per day, which I believe is still too high. Aim for 10 grams or less in most cases. 

 

• Total fat intake should be 20-35 % of calories for most people.  On a 2000 Calorie diet, this would be 500-700 calories, or 55 to 77 grams per day.  

 

• Never consume “Trans” fats. They are still out there on shelves and they are the worst thing you could possibly eat, causing inflammation and raising LDL significantly. They are usually hidden in processed foods, baked goods, cakes, and cookies.  

 

• Omega 3 and Omega 6 Fatty Acids can’t be produced by the body but are needed for health. The 2 types of fat, which contain these and other essential nutrients which you want to consume are:

          -Monounsaturated Fat
          -Polyunsaturated Fat  
 
Key Sources of Healthy Fats

• Olive oil
• Vegetable oils
• Avocado
• Whole Eggs
• Nuts & Seeds
• Fatty Fish- Salmon, Sardines
• Seed butters
• Olives
• Edamame / Tofu
• Limited amounts of saturated fat from grass-fed, local meats, organic dairy

 
Key Benefits of Healthy Fats

• Eating healthy fat makes you feel full, and could help you eat less.  
• Improve HDL cholesterol
• Nerve and joint health
• Improved insulin control
• Decreased inflammation
• Better brain function & focus
• Decreased ADHD
• Less blood clotting and a dilation of the blood vessels
• Potentially lower blood pressure

 
Just like nuts, which I wrote about being so good for you, fats are too!  Enjoy them to help you eat less overall.  Be smart and don’t overdo it, but they really will help you cut back on high-calorie junk foods and they are a real pleasure to eat.  
 
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"Our lives are more about watering deserts, than they are about tearing down walls." - CS Lewis

“Ever to excel, to do better than others, and to bring glory to your forebears, who indeed were very great ... This is my ancestry; this is the blood I am proud to inherit."
- Homer, The Iliad


Life has never been perfect, nor will it ever be.  Human nature will never fundamentally change.  We are flawed human beings.  Progress, if it does occur, occurs when we realize we took the wrong turn and we head back the other direction and then take a different path.  After reading “The Blue Zones”, about the healthiest places in the world, I became even more convinced of how big of an impact culture has on health and about how wrong we have gone in education, as one example.  
 
Each one of these groups in The Blue Zones has a specific culture in which young people participate in and are brought up in and that they crucially belong to.  There are certain values, ethics, morals, traditions, roots, celebrations, and commitments which go along with this.  The young people are acculturated into a grounded and specific way of being in the world.  Most Americans are no longer acculturated in their educational upbringing. Indoctrinated maybe, but acculturated no.  
 
This is not healthy and it is a distinctly modern problem.  This was a wrong path.  I lived it myself, where I can remember the utilitarianism, political correctness, and ideology creeping in, as Alabama history, religious teaching, and Appalachian cultural dancing, folklore, and literature were slowly pushed away into an encroaching oblivion.  No wonder Americans love traveling to other countries and other cultures so much.  
 
In the seminal work on depression, “The Weariness of the Self” the author makes the timely point that our depression epidemic is largely a cultural phenomenon.  The human psyche needs culture to make sense of the world, and to live a healthy life.  This was formerly the role of education.  The ego is tired, the psyche is weary, the American is sad.  The existential burden of an atomized individual, without a culture to fall back on, is too much too bear.   Plus, the struggle to become an individual, set apart, ironically only exists in the context of a culture.  If you want to reject a culture, or even excel as an individual, don't forget that you have to have a culture to reject or to excel in relation to in the first place in order to do that.  
 
Now we teach self-esteem, whether earned or not.  Now, we dumb down thinking, in order not to offend.  Now we teach utility, but not values.  It’s as though we are trying to create the world from scratch and that nothing learned throughout our history matters anymore.  
 
The older form of education involved lore, tradition, and belonging.  It gave young people a way to make sense of their experience and a classical ideal to aspire to.  Now, in many cases, education seems to be about validating the student’s whims and vanities, not bringing them into a community where they can more objectively measure themselves and find their niche.  I love the idea of bringing back trades, and trade schools, of teaching the great old books, and in linking schools up with other transcendent cultural institutions to create local community.  
 
Education is about more than test scores, self-esteem, or diversity quotas.  It’s about belonging.  

Read Next:  Hari Hachi Bu @ Other Secrets of The Blue Zones

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* This is part of a year-long weekly series called "52 Weeks to Eating better than Ever". 
Click on the side bar for more information and to read the previous essays.
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As an old Marine friend of mine says…
 
The “7 Ps of Preparation” are
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
 
It’s a little crude, but it’s true and it applies to eating well.  Think and plan ahead like a Marine.  Prepare to eat well.  Be systematic.    Otherwise, you're likely to eat junk food and to eat too much, because it's so convenient to do so.
 
We are all busy, more than we should be.  It’s hard to have time to eat healthy, particularly when families are involved. I recommend taking one day to plan the meals for the week ahead.  Maybe it is Friday evening, for example, or maybe Monday.  You pick out a few proteins- grilled chicken, some shrimp, and black beans.  Cook some of those and put them in the refrigerator for the week ahead.  Most pre-cooked foods will last 2-3 days, some longer in the case of fruits and veggies, rice, pastas and grains.  What you don’t use that you think will spoil you can freeze temporarily. Have plenty of fresh vegetables chopped up all the time and ready to snack on.  This will make a big difference when it comes to eating healthy.  You’ll be much less likely to overeat.

• Pick 3 proteins.
• Pick 6 vegetables.
• Pick 3 fruits. 
• Set aside 1 hour to cook and prepare these foods and pack in individual containers (preferably glass containers because of contaminants in plastic.
• Put it on your schedule so you do it every week at the same time.  
• Freeze what you aren’t going to consume within 3 days.
• Have plenty of nuts and olive oil on hand for snacks and salads and healthy dips.

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Read Next: My Super Simple Philosophy

Men become richer not only by increasing their existing wealth but also by decreasing their expenditure.  
- Aristotle
 
Most people I know would like to be rich if they had the choice.  I’m sure there are a few people out there who could care less about money, but if we’re being honest, most of us would like to not have to worry about it. Good news:  there are two ways to achieve this state in life, there are two ways to be rich in life.  One way is easy, and you can decide upon and maintain your ethics ahead of time and stick with them easily.  You need much less in this case, and so it’s much easier to work and live how you see fit, and be rich. 
 
The other way, the 2ndway, could be ethical too, but it will be harder to maintain your ethics and there’s a good chance it won’t be an ethical richness.  And you may, in the second case, need to pretend you like people that you don’t, for years and years and years.  This way of being rich is to make so much money that you never worry about money.  Depending on what you want to buy and own, you may never achieve this status of being “rich”, even if you have $3 million dollars or whatever.  Which do you think is easier and more realistic for most people? I’m always amazed at how many seemingly “rich” people are miserable.  
  
The average American only saves 5%, while 50-75% of the population has no savings at all.  The juggernaut of unfettered consumerism, which is our primary source of identity in America- that of a consumer, has been terrible health-wise for most people.  Most people need more of an identity than an unfettered will, thrown back on pre-human and primitive desires, unconstrained by wisdom, morality, or the higher brain’s cognitive restraint.  Consumerism as our primary identity is a game we can’t win and a thirst that can never be quenched.  Its “ritual” is consuming, it’s “bread and wine” is credit cards and statements, and its “liturgies” are commercials, slogans, and logos.  What make it even worse is that since we live in an anti-culture we are constantly atomizing more and more towards a life solely existing as a consumer, because it’s the only source of identity most modern people have. So, we keep consuming to feel alive. 
 
Consumption is the only way we know to be rich, because it’s the only way we know to feel alive.
 
The iphone takes precedence over tea with friends at the café.
The expensive car emblazoned with a logo, takes precedence over walking with a friend.
The best SAT score takes precedence over character.
And the best elite schools, highly connected to the new moral community of rootlessness and political correctness, ascend culturally while real community, built on roots, tradition, and internal values, vanishes. 
Overall, despair sets in.  
It’s a game that no one can win.
 
Now back to the original proposition.  I like money. I like traveling, sometimes.  I like having a good business and doing good work.  There’s nothing wrong with financial gain and I wish it for everyone.  But again, there are two ways to be rich and one comes with a big downside if we aren’t careful.
 
Most of us can want less of the things we don’t need, the things that chain us down, and the things which aren’t wise to desire in the first place.  If we do this, our wealth increases instantly.  Unlike the stoics, I’m not asking you to eliminate desires. But I am asking you to desire what makes you happyjust like “the philosopher” - Aristotle taught 2500 years ago.  Sometimes, we need to change what we desire, we need to transform it into something better.  
 
Sure, you may one day make so much money that you finally feel “rich.” I hope you do.  But there is another way to be rich.  And how much is enough?  Most people never define it.  I like Clark Howard’s, Dave Ramsey’s and the Bible’s and ancient philosophy’s advice to stay out of personal debt.  Be wise, desire the right things, the things that really make you happy in the long run and learn to get by with less.  The two are not mutually exclusive.  You can make money but not let it become your sole identity, your primary focus of richness. One focus on being rich emphasizes external values and the other internal values, and internal values are time and time again the bulwark of a healthy and meaningful life.  You know and I know what we need to do.  
 
Why not start by being grateful, content, simplifying, and enjoying the simple pleasures in life?  Your wealth will explode!
 
There are two ways to be rich.   Be careful which one you pick.  

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