There’s plenty to celebrate in that body you just wrapped up tight. You’re leaner, perhaps, and more muscular than before, a few pant sizes slimmer and walking tall every day as a result.

But what about your brain?

I’ve spoken about mental weight here on 3NL before, referring to the tendency of the formerly fat to never really recognize just how far they’ve come. You might say I’m familiar with it. You might also say that it’s something I’ve struggled with, in a kind of painful irony, more and more as I inch closer to my goals.

Even with the weight of those self-image issues, however, I’ve found plenty to smile about. I’m pleased to report that there is plenty worth cheering about even with the occasional doubts and stomach pokes, though the biggest improvement from healthy, natural eating, in fact, might be one of the most subtle. You might not have noticed it, even, but it’s there.

Can you guess what it is?

You care.

The secret is out.

You care about what you eat.
You care about where it came from.
You care about what it’ll do to your body.

And most importantly, you care about you.

This is one of the absolute best changes you can ever make for your health. Lucky thing, then, that it doesn’t take much: a willingness to pass over cheap, crappy desserts, as an example, or the confidence in knowing that you chose to indulge on something legitimately worth the indulgence.

It’s a subtle change, again, that tends to get brushed aside in our rush to the scale. We focus on the physical, admiring how easily we slide into our favorite pair of pants, and forget about what’s happening upstairs — every incredible shift in the way you respect, recognize, and interact with your food. These are the tweaks that started it all, in fact, but here again we tend to focus mostly on the size of our thighs.

Let’s change that.

A Greater Appreciation

A lunch conversation with a recent Paleo convert spelled it out best: “I just have a better appreciation for food.”

Don’t take this for granted.

That shift in attitude, I bet, will last you far longer than any diet book ever could. When you start to appreciate food as both flavor and fuel, you soon transform into that person at the office — the one who passes over junk food, graciously declines an offered soft drink, and can always be found carting a big ass salad into the break room. It’s a powerful difference, social acceptance notwithstanding, for just one reason: you’re changing your life.

You’re improving it. You’re making several small decisions two to three times each day when you sit down at the table, and you realize, now, that all of those tiny tweaks will add up to one hell of a big difference come 2013. You’re skipping out on the industralized, processed crap you find all around you, and instead you’re deciding to give your body what it wants: fresh, natural food.

Why?

You care.

You care about what you put in your body, sure, but even more than that you care about the body itself. You have a better appreciation for food, sure, but what you have beyond it is even better: a recognition of what healthy, natural eating can do for your life, your longevity, and your not-so-secret vanity.

Welcome to healthy living. You won’t ever want to look back.

I’d spent a solid nine hours with my eyes locked to a laptop screen, furiously working on new projects. The nature of the work keeps me wedded to my computer, and for the most part I don’t mind it. Come the evening, though, I was itching to mix it up — to close the laptop, maybe, and spend those twilight hours in the world outside the cloud.

I shut down my computer. I then blinked, looked around my room, and realized I was left with a surprising question: “Well, what now?”

Call it a sign of the times, I think, that we might draw a blank on everything we can do without a computer. And can you blame us? For so many of us, now, computers have taken over. They’ve quickly—and quietly—become our first choice for entertainment, information, and everything in between, our go-to option for anything we need. You could make a strong case that this is a good thing, but I could make an equally brawny argument that we’ve been saddled with a bunch of negatives to go right alongside it.

We’ve forgotten how to live without the Internet. We’ve forgotten how to spend a handful of hours without the comforting glow of our screens. And most importantly, I think, we’ve forgotten everything the world has to offer beyond the edges of our monitors.

So ask yourself: if you took one evening this week to spend your hours away from your screens, what would you do?

Therein lays the challenge. Spend one night each week with no screens. Shut down the TV, close your laptop, and keep your distance from all glowing rectangles, spending your time with what’s left: you, yourself, and the sights and smells of an entire real world around you.

Spend your time like you used to, back before technology became such an integral—integrated—part of our lives.

With the computer quiet, you might feel a little empty. You might feel a little restless. What can you do when Facebook and Twitter have to go on without you?

Here are some ideas:

1. Read a book.
2. Take a walk.
3. Spend some time decluttering your house.
4. Phone up an old friend.
5. Take the time to cook your dinner — and dinner for the next few nights, too.
6. Work on your drawing skills.
7. Go to bed early.
8. Meet up with friends for tea and conversation.
9. Play a board game with your family. Or, you know, just talk.
10. Do that one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but could “never find the time.” Guess what? You just found it.

So make a list, now, before you begin. Fill in your own activities, and make a vow to spend one night each week pursuing them.

And just think: if you take one evening each week to live through your list, how much could you accomplish?

And then imagine: what if you did this for a year?

What’s on your list? What are you going to do when the TV is quiet? Sound off below! And please help me spread the word of this challenge using one of the buttons below.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, let’s talk about the green.

My immense affection for the Sissonian Big Ass Salad is no secret around these parts, to be sure, but I still haven’t spoken much about my favorite Paleo lunch here on the blog. That’s a shame. And that’s something I’d like to fix, today, with a guide so practical that you frankly never knew you needed in the first place.

See, the Big Ass Salad doesn’t ask for much. It needs a bowl. It also needs a fork. What you decide to put in the former and later eat with the latter is where the magic hides, however, and also where so many healthy-eating newbies – those otherwise unaccustomed to including some leafy greens in their daily diet – tend to stumble.

How to get more vegetables, you ask?

Read on.

The Wallet Work

Let’s go shopping.

If your local grocery is anything like mine, you’ll soon come to a few pause-worthy realizations:

1. Organic produce is expensive.
2. And what’s the real difference, right? Why not just buy the normal stuff?

Let me stress, firstly, that this is normal. Let me assert, secondly, that there is a difference. And let me finish, lastly, with one of my favorite statements: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

If you can afford organic produce, please shell out for it. If the difference between organic and regular is enough to make or break your Big Ass Salad, then I’m going to kindly suggest you snag what organic produce you can and fill the rest of your cart with the normal stuff. Is this ideal? Nope. Is this a deal-breaker? Not at all. Until you can spring for the local, organic greenery, however, there’s no need to nix salads from your diet entirely.

And again – if you’re new to this “daily vegetable” concept, a Big Ass Salad might be your best chance yet of starting.

I tend to go for a wide mix with my produce. On any given shopping trip, you’re likely to see the following items in my cart:

• Spinach
• Arugula / Butter Leaf / random other lettuce
• Whole mushrooms
• Zucchini
• Carrots (sometimes the pre-shredded variety when I’m feeling lazy)
• Olives (the black canned variety, provided the ingredients check out)
• Radishes
• Banana pepper rings
• Bell peppers of assorted colors: red and green mostly, with orange and yellow on occasion
• Red or white onion
• A jar of salsa
• Olive oil or balsamic vinegar, should I need them
• A few lemons
• A small pack of blueberries (frozen works just fine)
• A few cans of tuna (packed only in water)
• Bacon (always bacon)

That’s the brunt of it. At my local grocer, at least, none of the above run me a significant amount of coin, and the lot of them – as you’ll soon see – can easily last me throughout the week.

The Prep Work

Do yourself a favor and do your veggie shopping on the weekend.

Why? You have the opportunity, then, to head straight home and break out the knives. Take twenty minutes (preferably away from your televion set!) to slice, dice, and make all of your salad ingredients as bite-sized and manageable as possible, and then store them in whichever BPA-free containers you have handy. A half an hour of work on the weekends, needless to say, pays off an incredible amount during what might be a busy work week.

Imagine being able to pop up (without an alarm!) out of bed, throw on your clothes, and crack the refrigerator door for five or ten minutes. Imagine then that you could grab a decent-sized container, throw in any number of the ingredients listed above (pre-chopped!), and stick that container in a sack alongside another smaller vessel for your dressing.

This is a quick and easy process. The office worker just ran out of excuses.

The Mix Work

Here’s where a little creativity comes into play.

If you’re not keen on any conventional salad mix, why not try and stir things up a bit?

The Blueberry Surprise

When it comes to protein, at least, opt for something light: chicken or tuna come to mind. Build that bottom layer of veggies as you like, but also throw some blueberries (as big a handful as you like, honestly) on top. For the dressing, use a splash of balsamic, but also bring half a lemon to squeeze like mad over the mix. The combo of blueberry and lemon is always a winner, and it helps too that the latter tastes fantastic over a bed of mixed greens. Olive oil is optional, but I tend to drizzle a bit over the top.

It Always Comes Back to Bacon

Balsamic and bacon, surprisingly, is one hell of a mix. Build your salad as you will, but then throw some bacon shards and slices of hard-boiled eggs on top. Add balsamic to the mix and relish in your newfound discovery: the tart sweetness of the vinegar meshes incredibly well with smoky, salty pork.

Keep the Doctor Away

If you’d like to experiment with adding fruit, why not try an apple? When you’re prepping your salad, take a few minutes to chop an apple into bite-sized pieces. Use olive oil for your dressing and add whatever seasonings you like (I go with salt, pepper, and various herbs) on top, and don’t be afraid to squeeze some lemon juice over the final product. You’ll notice that I like lemon. Try it, folks, and I’m willing to bet you will too.

The Taco Salad

Self-explanatory, sure, but still worth mentioning. If you have any seasoned ground beef on hand, and a microwave at work, you can easily construct a pretty tasty salad with a healthy dose of salsa on top. If you spring for the tongue-melting variety, as I do, you’ll find that you don’t even need cheese or sour cream — salsa provides plenty of flavor as is.

The Best Work

Eat. Enjoy.

The Brain Work

Notice a common theme in these mixes?

Vinegar plays a pretty important part, sure. Adding something like balsamic to your salad has effects beyond the delicious, too, in that vinegar (and other acids in general, like lemon juice) can help control the spike in blood glucose after the meal. Anecdotally, I’ve found that vinegar with my veggies improves digestion, but that might just be secret justification to keep eating Big Ass Salads.

The more important theme, though, is in variation. As the kid who grew up hating big bowls of greens, I’ve taken a sharp turn with my romantic affection – a change due, in no small part, to the mixes listed above. Salads, big or small, can serve a great way to add some veggies into your routine, and the abundance of options they offer mean even the most die-hard of meat-eaters can find room to work with.

But what about you?

What kind of salad do you like to make, and why? What ingredients are an absolute must for your mixes? Paleo folks far and wide enjoy an equally wide variety of salads, I bet, and I’d love for your to list them down below.

See you next week!

Call it a motto for the modern generation – the people like me and you who want to live simpler, stronger, and happier in these times of cheap excess. Call it a standard, too, to hold our lives up against, and an idea burrowed deep in my skull over these early weeks of 2012.

But for our purposes here on 3NL, folks, we might rejigger that phrase like so:

If you’re going to [eat/buy/watch] it, make it count.

Notice, now, the half that doesn’t change. Notice the key theme laid under all the letters: do it well, and do it so well that you’re left with no guilt or regrets.

Simple enough, right? Like any idea, it sounds easy-breezy on paper, but putting our new motto in practice might take a little more effort. Not sure where to start? Try these on for size:

[EAT]

Cake. Cookies. Pie. Insert your favorite sweet here, and then sit back, slump your shoulders, and sigh. Craving something sweet? You’re not alone.

But I want you to remember one thing: nobody is perfect. You will enjoy the occasional indulgence. I will too. If we accept this, realizing that a 100% black or white attitude towards what we eat is unsustainable — let alone undesirable — then we can put our best foot forward. We can adopt a new approach to our occasional indulgence, one that empowers us to chow down with a smile.

If you’re going to eat that slice, you’d better make it count. Don’t settle for a cheap box of cookies. Don’t pluck an old donut from your local grocery store bakery. Don’t settle for any low-quality, highly-processed piece of tasty entertainment, but do go out of your way to make that indulgence worth your time.

Enjoy a slice of red velvet cake (guilty!) from the best bakery in town. Split a slice of tiramisu after dinner, wine, and long conversation with the person you love most. Eat a slice (or three) of a pizza that you made with some of your best friends in the world, a night that may or may not have ended in an epic flour fight.

Make it earn the label of an indulgence, in other words, and be so satisfied with your decision that you feel no need for guilt. A dessert like this, after all, is what indulging is all about: relaxing our rigid standards, taking a deep breath, and enjoying something so damn good that you have no regrets the next morning.

[BUY]

This is the classic minimalist argument, in a sense: if you’re going to buy something, make it count. Don’t spread the wealth over a half-dozen things whenever you step into a shopping mall, but do track down the one item in particular that justifies the expense. This is a wee bit harder when you’re losing weight, sure, but the idea is always relevant: opt for durability and quality, and realize that having multiple pairs of every part of your wardrobe has never been necessary.

Rather than throwing down an entire paycheck on kitchen gadgets, why not settle for a high-quality set of knives? Instead of buying DVDs and CDs by the dozen, why not save some coin and rent them instead? (I own three movies: Amelie, the Darjeeling Limited, and Black Dynamite, all of which have great significance to me for several reasons. The last one is just hysterical.)

The difference, I think, is in preparation. Whenever you pull out your cash to pay for something, stop and realize exactly what you’re doing. Take a long second to study what you’re about to purchase, and take a few seconds more to ask yourself a few important questions:

1. Do I really need this?

2. If I do, can I get it (legally!) without paying? Borrow it, perhaps?

3. Do I want to spend my hard-earned coin on this?

If the item survives the process, I’m that much more likely to buy it.

[WATCH]

The TV and I have a love-hate relationship.

On one hand, it’s a fantastic source of information. On the other, it’s a fantastic source of entertainment. There’s a powerful allure in plopping down the minute you get home from work, and likewise it’s easy to spend all weekend with a remote by your side. In the interest of getting things done, though, you might find yourself at a crossroads.

Should I watch American Idol, or should I go take a walk?

Should I watch the Thursday night comedy lineup, or should I play a board game with my family?

And, on a more personal level: should I watch one of my favorite (albeit kind of mediocre) shows, or should I spend that hour learning more about web design?

More recently, I’ve chosen the latter. The difference has been astounding: I’ve sunk hours more per week into a field I’m increasingly passionate about, and my skills have jumped up by leaps and bounds to compensate. I do plop down for the occasional episode, sure, but I try and ensure just one thing: make it count. I’m not in the market, now, for cheap and easy entertainment. If that glowing rectangle wants a few hours of my time, it had damn well better make it worth my while — and I’m sad to say, folks, that too often it fails to deliver.

It’s not black or white. TV, I want to stress, is not evil. But it’s an easy way to distract ourselves from the things that matter — our family, friends, food and growth — and too often little more than wasted time.

Quality Over Quantity

There’s another theme, here, that I’m sure you’ve seen: quality over quantity. That’s not a new thought, but nor is it a common one. We’re surrounded by stuff and things and excess on every level of our lives, so is it any wonder that we grow used to the oversaturation? Is it surprising, in other words, that we start thinking more is better? More is normal?

It doesn’t have to be. But you have to make a decision, now, to emphasize quality over quantity, and to make your quality count as much as possible.

This, I suspect, is one of the keys to a happy life.

So. You know what to eat.

You’ve tweaked your shopping list, now, to include a few new faces: a jar of refrigerated, unpasteurized sauerkraut, a tin of sardines, and a big package of bones, the combination of which netted no less than two strange looks from your disgruntled cashier. Chin up, friend. That’ll never change, but it will grow funnier.

But what about the rest of your body? Not what you put in, then, but how you work out? In keeping with our focus on a simple, natural approach to your 2012, I’m happy to offer the following: how you should try and exercise and how often to do it. If your goals involve super-low body fat or running a marathon, this routine probably won’t help, but everyone else should still find some benefit. I’ve kept this up for the better part of the last six months and have managed to maintain both a pleasing amount of muscle mass and actual strength, so you won’t suffer for giving it a try.

WALK

Seriously, folks. This might be a rare case where conventional wisdom gets it right — walk, each and every day, for at least twenty-thirty minutes. Do it while in the fasted state (i.e. before breakfast) if you can, but don’t stress if you can’t. Walk as much as possible throughout your daily routine, and likewise don’t treat that 30 minute requirement as an upper limit — you only stand to gain if you try and move more.

Your opportunities are endless:

1. Instead of watching an episode of TV, why not take a 30-minute stroll around the neighborhood?

2. Park out as far as possible. Your sanity will thank you.

3. The next time you take a phone call, try and move around for the entire duration of the call. In an office setting, this might be the easiest way to keep moving.

4. Take a short walk after dinner or on your lunch break. A Chinese proverb (and I’m sure someone in the audience can correct me if I butcher it) says: “If you wish to live to the age of 99, walk 100 steps after each meal.” On a more practical level, an after-meal stroll settles my stomach, so our ancestors might be on to something.

LOW-LEVEL ACTIVITY

Let’s call it a different kind of exercise — a new take on a concept that too many of us associate with rigid schedules and sweaty shorts. Life gets in the way, right? You might have every intention of hitting the gym after work tonight, but you and I both know that any number of shenanigans will get in the way. Your plans will change. You’ll opt to hit the gym later, only to find yourself dealing with the next big crisis dumped on your doorstep. Rather than set ourselves up for a cycle of plan-fail-frown, why don’t we try and take control of our minutes?

That’s a long-winded way of telling you to exercise all the time. The next time you’re in a bathroom stall, bust out 15-20 air squats. The next time you have a few spare minutes before your show starts, why not drop and do ten pushups? The next time you’re waiting on a pot to boil, break out a few pullups or dips to help pass the minutes. The next time you and the spouse have a spare hour, have sex.

Make exercise a part of your daily motion, in other words, instead of slotting it into your weekly routine. Routines change. Your ability to move around and keep your muscles warm, however, does not.

GO TO SLEEP

Get seven or eight hours. Insist upon this. A full night’s rest — preferably the kind of sleep that lets you wake up before the shrill voice of the alarm — is so completely, incredibly vital to good health that I’m going to put on my hard-ass hat to drive this home: go to bed. You don’t need to check Facebook for another thirty minutes. You don’t need to watch another episode of mediocre TV. You don’t need any number of silly distractions — but you do need to go to bed an hour earlier, tonight, and enjoy all the benefits that follow.

LIFT THINGS

Things, in this instance, is a flexible word.

I’m a fan of bodyweight exercises, personally speaking, but I know you can achieve pretty tremendous results with a solid program at the gym. Either which way you fall, however, you should still make the effort to enjoy one of life’s simplest pleasures: taking some big, heavy object and hoisting it (safely!) above your head.

For your average exercise, however, a bodyweight program can go a long ways. Here are a few I recommend:

1. SimpleFit.

2. The Hundred Pushups challenge.

3. Primal Blueprint Fitness

I’ve used all three at different times and seen great results. The Hundred Pushups challenge definitely increased my upper body strength, but I think #1 and #2 are better choices overall, presenting as they do a wide variety of challenges for an even wider variety of fitness levels. If you haven’t been lifting things on a steady basis for at least a month or two already, then start with Primal Blueprint Fitness — Mark Sisson did fantastic work in designing a program to cater to all ages and individual athletic skill.

The point, in any case, is simple: lift stuff. Lift weights if you’re into that, or lift your body if you don’t feel like shelling out for a membership. I’ve used the latter approach to easily maintain my strength and muscle over the last six months, but one look at Steve Kamb’s Nerd Fitness should be enough to show that bodyweight can make for pretty excellent gains overall.

MOVE REALLY, REALLY FAST

Sprinting is my go-to recommendation, but not always ideal (or feasible) for people just starting out. That said, you can mimic the process by pedaling very, very quickly on a stationary bike, accelerating your heart rate for sixty seconds or so before resting a few more minutes and trying it again.

Once you’ve worked up to a full-on sprint, try this:

1. Do four or five jogging sprints in order to warm up. Common advice is to sprint at 60-70% of your max speed, but that frankly doesn’t mean a damn thing to me, so I’ll just say this: settle in at somewhere between a jog and your full-on sprint. You don’t want to be winded by the time you’re done, but you do want to feel the warmth spreading throughout your muscles.

2. Do four or five regular sprints. I like to rest about a minute between each, the end result of which leaves me pretty exhausted. How far, distance-wise, should you go? I don’t count, but I do try and sprint until I can feel myself pretty significantly slowing down.

You might not have the stamina for 5 sprints to start with. That’s fine. Work up to it over the course of a few weeks, and don’t forget to feel some pride when you see how quickly your body adapts to higher volume.

HIIT

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT, henceforth) has a reputation for a reason: it sucks. Expect to be tired, sweaty, and more than a little parched when you finish, and expect too that your once-weekly interval training will become the bane of your existence in very short order.

Coincidentally, I often forget to do this.

But HIIT wins out for metabolic conditioning, and there’s a certain kind of pleasure in seeing your body transform into a lean, mean, interval-crunching machine. That said, let’s be clear on who should do this: I don’t recommend HIIT for most overweight people, as it puts unnecessary strain on the joints and doesn’t necessarily lead to enhanced fat burning. I’d much rather have you up your volume of walking each day and worry about HIIT later — and even then, only if you want the benefit of metabolic conditioning. You can do your body a tremendous amount of good by just lifting weights and walking around a lot, so don’t feel bad if HIIT doesn’t come into your routine until much later.

Burpees are my go-to recommendation, though they’ve been pretty accurately described as punishment. You’ll do well by doing several sets of full-body exercises in rapid succession, however, and here I’d like to open it up to the floor: what kind of HIIT routines do you enjoy? Sound off below!

TAKE IT EASY

Resting is exercise, you might ask?

(Semantics, I might offer).

But let’s not forget a familiar adage from the gym: you don’t gain while you’re lifting. The real work happens during recovery. That’s true for any level of exercise, I suspect, which makes it all the odder that we’re so reluctant to take time off — to hang up your Vibram Five Fingers for just a day or two and let your body heal.

Stop feeling guilty. Stop feeling like you need to put yourself through the wringer every single day of the week. Give yourself at least one day to stop, relax, and walk around a bit, using that exercise time to work a different muscle entirely: your brain. Read a book. Watch a movie. Spend time with friends. Your body — and your social life — will thank you.

RECOMMENDED READING

The Cheap-Ass Guide to Getting Fit

You Have a Choice

Primal Blueprint Plan Workout Basics

Any more you’d like to add to the list? Let me know!

***

And that’s all, folks!

The lifestyle changes required to live healthy in 2012 are many, of course, but I hope this third part of the guide — and the two before it — will prove useful to you in the year to come. I followed all of the ideas here pretty closely for about half of 2011 and saw tremendous benefits, and I can all but assure you’ll see advantages too. Living healthy doesn’t have to be hard, folks, so just keep these three ideas in mind:

1. Eat less.

2. Move more.

3. Don’t stress.

If you have any questions about what’s written above, please don’t hesitate to ask them below. And if you enjoyed this post, would you please click the StumbleUpon button (“Submit,” I think it says) below? Or the retweet, facebook ‘like,’ etc.? I’d love for this to spread far and wide, but I know I can’t do it without you.

Thanks for reading!

Hungry yet?

Me too! One question, then: what should we eat?

Let’s call it an obvious question with not-so obvious answers. Let’s even call it a rare misstep on part of this growing Paleo/natural food movement. Having decided to nix refined, processed food from our diets, we’re left with one last question mark: what can we eat?

Lots of things. And delicious things, at that.

That’s the big focus of this second part of our practical action plan: all of those delicious, nutritious and natural things you should be eating, with plenty of words on how often and why. We’ll then wrap this installment up with sample meal ideas and a whole slew of links to some of my favorite recipe sites, both intended to give you a lasting framework over these first tumultous weeks.

But let’s be clear: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. This is the style of diet you should strive to emulate over the course of the next few months, but not something you should beat yourself up for every time you don’t. Incorporate as many as you can, and take these recommendations as they are intended: to show you how to eat healthy and well in 2012.

You know the drill.

These aren’t so much strict rules as they are (sometimes not-so) common sense – stuff you should want to eat on a daily basis, and stuff that tends to keep you alive when you do.

MEAT

You have plenty of options here, but there’s no need to overthink it. Eat meat. Enjoy red meat (beef is chief!), white meat (chicken, turkey, etc.), and everything in between (eggs are pretty much the perfect food). If you’re not big on meat, keep in mind that you’ll still benefit from aiming for 50-60 grams of protein daily, which can be easily broken down like so: two or three eggs for breakfast, a can of tuna for lunch (more on fish later), and a chicken stir fry or medium-sized steak for dinner. If you are big on meat, go nuts. High-protein diets prove most satiating overall (with perks for lean muscle mass, too), so feel free to scale consumption as you like – you’ll find it very difficult to overeat on straight protein alone.

Let me turn your attention, however, to portion sizes. I love large plates of meat (welcome to Texas!) as much as the next guy, but there’s some honesty required now whenever I plop down at the table. I can eat a medium-sized portion and find my appetite has vanished, so I really don’t need much more than what was on my plate: a palm-sized portion, in the case of full cuts of meat. Eat to satiation, but don’t gorge yourself beyond it.

VEGETABLES

Eat them. All of them. Try and get as many colors in over the course of the week as you can, but don’t despair if you find yourself falling back on old standbys like spinach, carrots, tomatoes and broccoli.

If you’re not used to adding anything green to your plate, try this: fill your plate with veggies, creating a nice bed of produce, and then put your palm-sized portion of protein in the middle. That’s an easy enough way to build a plate, and the structure should encourage you to get creative with your side-dishes (cauliflower rice, grilled asparagus spears, roasted artichokes and cherry tomatoes, etc.).

Where this recommendation deviates, however, is in preparation style: eat some of it raw and eat some of it cooked. For the latter, cook your veggies in either butter or coconut oil for maximum nutrient absorption, though don’t be afraid to saute in olive oil on occasion too. Raw vegetables make a decent snack, but you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you enjoy one of Mark Sisson’s famed Big Ass Salads on a daily basis: a bunch of veggies thrown in a bowl and mixed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mixing vinegar with fat, coincidentally, has proven useful in controlling the spike in blood sugar (and insulin) after a meal, so get creative with your dressings (lemon juice works well too)!

Note that this category may also include starch in the form of sweet potatoes, yams, white rice, and a few others. There’s a kind of debate occurring now about whether they should have a home in your diet, so let’s leave all the conversation aside for a moment and say this instead: tailor it to your activity levels. If you’re an endurance athlete, eat starch daily. If you have a particularly exhausting workout, feel free to throw in a sweet potato afterwards. If you’re mostly sedentary or do only light activity, you likely don’t need much starch in your diet.

FRUIT

For reasons of sugar, a lot of dieters like to put fruit on the backburner (or nix it entirely). This is silly. A few pieces of fruit per day won’t put you in a diabetic coma, so why not try these rules on for size instead? If the fruit is about the size of your palm (bananas, apples, pears, oranges, etc.), stick to one or two pieces daily. If the fruit is berry-sized in nature, enjoy it freely.

FISH

Chris Kresser did the legwork, here, in debunking a lot of modern concerns about fish intake: mercury toxicity, rancid fatty acids, etc. His series of articles take a different tack in encouraging regular fish intake over everyone’s favorite omega 3 pills — proving, as ever, that real, whole food will always outmatch tiny capsules.

You have plenty of options here too. Wild-caught fish is ideal, but not always practical, and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that eating farm-raised fish is far better than eating none at all (remember: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good). If you’re afraid of full-sized fillets, stick with the basics: canned tuna (packed only in water or olive oil, none of this vegetable broth nonsense) and sardines. Once you’re feeling a little more adventurous, try and track down some popular favorites: tilapia, salmon, cod, etc., all of which can be easily made edible by frying in a pan with butter and adding a sauce (Sriracha comes to mind, but roasted tomatoes and artichokes is a winner too).

A few servings of fish per week is enough to net an abundance of omega 3 fatty acids and other delightful things. And if you’re a fan of shellfish, why not try mussels? They’re a great source of zinc.

SEAWEED

An interesting side effect of opting for natural, healthier foods is a subsequent decrease in idione intake. That old container of salt in your cabinet that says “Iodized” right there on the label? That’s a key contributor of iodine to the modern diet, believe it or not, and a source often forgotten when people opt for Himalayan crystal salt and other gourmet seasonings.

Anyone with a dysfunctional thyroid should be cautious with their intake of iodine, of course, but everyone else can benefit from introducing roasted seaweed into their diet a few times each week. My preferred variety is Wakame, which tends to pair its abundant vitamins and minerals with a touch of sweetness. Check a local Asian grocer for it, if you have one, or venture into Whole Foods if that’s more your thing. I’ve been known to eat seaweed on a daily basis, but you might want to start slow – the taste can take a little adjusting to, but you’ll soon grow to love it.

Try and track down seaweed that has been roasted in olive or sesame oil, by the way. That’s not always an easy find, but it proves far healthier than the canola and soybean we see so commonly.

BONE BROTH

This one will take a bit of work, but the benefits are enormous: gelatin, collagen, and other forms of protein that we don’t often get in our daily diets, alongside innumerable other nutrients extracted from the bones you cooked with. Those bones, by the way, can be found for cheap at a variety of places: your local grocery, a neighborhood butcher (too often, it seems, the bones are dumped in the trash), or any kind of foreign market.

My go-to recipe can be found over at Diane Sanfilippo’s Balanced Bites. Diane’s stock won me over for its ease of preparation and abundance of garlic, the flavor of which made for a pretty versatile base. She claims that roasting the bones first (in butter, I’m assuming) isn’t necessary, but I’m inclined to disagree. My first batch tasted fine without it, but I think the flavor would be much improved by adding the additional step.

How to actually use bone broth? You can drink it. On cold evenings in particular, a warm mug can go down wonderfully. Bone broth makes an excellent base for soups, stews, and all kinds of chili, upping the nutrition significantly while adding a rich flavor to the dish.

If you’re not keen on offal, by the way, bone broth is all but a must in order to maximize nutrition density (as dorky as that sounds) in your diet. Liver or a rich, hearty soup stock? Your choice. (I’d go for both.)

FERMENTED FOODS

I haven’t spoken much about gut flora here at Three New Leaves, so consider this an initial foray into the unknown: it’s important. Really important. The population of bacteria happily humming along in our gut has impact on our health way beyond what we currently know, it seems (heard about the connection to autism?), so we’re all better off chomping down on bacteria-rich foods at least a few times a week.

Bear with me. That might not sound too appetizing.

You have a few options, here, but most come with a considerable caveat. Sauerkraut, a popular choice, tends to go through a pasteurization process before being canned, an act which negates most – if not all – of that healthy bacteria you’re trying to add to your collection. I’ve found a variety at Whole Foods that is unpasteurized, but you might have to do some digging (or, you know, make your own). If you do grab some, make sure it’s the refrigerated variety, as keeping the kraut cool is usually a sign that the bacteria within are still going strong.

Kimchi is another popular choice. If you have access to an Asian grocer, you should have good luck tracking it down. The fine folks over at the Perfect Health Diet have recipes to make your own, too, so don’t fret if you can’t find any outside the home.

How to eat it? You can dive in with a fork, as I’ve been known to do, or you can pair it with a regular meal. You’ll be surprised at what happens with the latter: much improved digestion courtesy of all that bacteria and digestive enzymes, to the point where having a bowl of miso soup (delicious, fermented soybeans) before each meal will suddenly sound appealing.

DARK CHOCOLATE

Green & Black 85% is all you need. I promise. The point, in any case, is simple: have a few squares a few times a week to a) help slowly wean yourself off high-sugar foods and b) bring a big, happy smile to your face. Green & Black does both, but just keep in mind that you want to opt for chocolate that has a 70% cacao content or higher as a way of keeping the sugar content low.

WINE

Let’s put aside health concerns for a moment and get down to the nitty gritty: wine is delicious. Therefore, you should drink it. I’m fond of a few glasses per week (usually with dinner), and I’m going to go out on a limb again and say that those few glasses aren’t severely damaging my health.

Given the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption and the sheer pleasure of a tall glass of red, too, I’d say you’re far better off mentally if you decide to pour yourself some vino. Enjoy! Red wine will serve you better for having less concentrated sugar, by the way, so try and opt for that color whenever you’re perusing your collection.

OFFAL

Deep breaths, now.

Offal — animal organs, essentially — don’t have a great reputation for many people, due in most parts to the perceived ‘ick’ factor in eating something’s heart. This draws attention away from just how much nutrition is packed into said organs, however, and how many deficiencies can be corrected by including a quarter of a liver into your weekly diet. I’m still experimenting with including liver, so I’d like to open this one up to the audience: any recipes you’re fond of? Let me know! I’ve gotten by with non-freaky liverwurst in the meantime, but the nutrient density of straight liver can’t be denied.

If you’re not keen on offal, I’d advise you look further into the bone broth mentioned above. It’s not a total replacement, but it does contain a nutrient profile that justifies its inclusion.

DESSERT

Dessert? On a diet?

Let’s be honest, folks: you’re going to eat it. I’m going to eat it. We’re going to crave it more often than we’d honestly like to admit, but there’s a kind of sanity in organized dessert-ing: if you chow down a few times per month on something sweet and delicious, your transition into a healthier style of eating will prove that much more feasible — that much less stressful — in the long run.

I want to stress, too, this different approach to eating: don’t stress. Don’t cheat on your diet, in other words, by realizing a few vital things:

1. One ‘bad’ meal out of twenty-something good ones for the week isn’t going to do much damage.

2. You can easily eat less the next day to compensate.

Ideally, of course, you’d keep your desserts pretty natural: banana and strawberry slices rolled in melted dark chocolate, for example, rather than sixteen glazed donuts from your local Krispy Kreme. No matter which side of the dietary divide that your indulgence might fall on, however, keep the above two points in mind. Dessert should be exactly what that word implies: something you enjoy both physically and mentally with none of the guilt we like to attach.

OTHER DRINKS

This ties back into wine, as mentioned above, but I think there’s value in being honest. You’re going to drink. I am too! When we do drink, then, we’re better off avoiding the high-sugar drinks enjoyed so frequently in our past. If you’d like to down an alcoholic beverage that fits well within the context of a healthy diet, why not try the NorCal Margarita? You can thank (or blame) Robb Wolf for this.

HEALTHY FATS

Planning on, y’know, cooking? You’ll need these.

Butter: Butter from pasture-raised cows is best, but not always easy to find at a local grocery store. Look for Kerrygold Irish Butter as a solid (and delicious!) choice. Opt for ghee (much love for Pure Indian Foods!) if you’re worried about sensitivity to dairy, though you’ll probably have to make your own.

Coconut Oil: You’ll want the Organic Extra Virgin variety, as it undergoes a minimal amount of processing before landing on your counter. Tropical Traditions is a great (albeit somewhat expensive) choice, but so is the Nutiva brand you can find on Amazon.

Olive Oil: It doesn’t handle high-heat cooking as well as coconut oil, but I still saute vegetables in it on occasion. Chief usage, however, will be in salads, and on veggies you roast in the oven.

Animal fats might be the best choice of all: the tallow, suet, and lard of times past, each of which is ideal for high-heat cooking. Mark Sisson has an excellent guide available on all the different types and how to acquire them.

SOMETHING HOT

I am a salsa fiend. That often comes back to bite me, but I’m a firm a believer that salsa, chili sauce, Sriracha deserve a home in any eater’s kitchen. Their ingredients, by and large, won’t prove too freaky, and they can add an abundance of flavor to any dish with just a few squeezes. Sriracha on eggs? Chili sauce and greek yogurt dressing? The options are endless.

GOOD KNIVES

Fancy kitchen gadgets make me smile like a small child, but they’re generally unnecessary. A solid, reliable set of knives will last you far longer — and prove far more versatile — than most other kitchen implements, so start working on your cutting skills as soon as possible.

A CROCK POT

For bone broth, mainly, but also for pot roasts and all other stew-like dishes. Ease of preparation will prove important if you spend most of your day in an office, and here the crock pot shines: throw your meat and veggies in, add your bone broth, and let simmer overnight or over the course of the day, creating a tender, flavorful dish for when you come home. Hamilton Beach makes a solid pot, but don’t rush to order anything online just yet. If you have a Goodwill in your area, check their stock of kitchen wares. You’ll often find a sizable crock pot for $10-$15.

COOKBOOKS

I’m still looking to add to my collection, here, but I can vouch for two: The Primal Blueprint Cookbook and Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals, both by Mark Sisson. Both are stocked with reasonable, not too time-intensive recipes for this style of diet, and both — better than any other that I’ve seen — really help drive home just how many options you have with healthy cooking.

Processed food offers a lot of convenience, certainly, which might be the hardest transition for anyone coming over to a healthy way of eating. Scan the big list above, though, and start picturing all the delightful ways you can combine them: pot roast, coconut milk shakes, a stir fry (made with wheat-free tamari), coconut milk curries over a bed of white rice or mashed cauliflower, etc. You can never go wrong with a can of tuna dumped over a big ass salad, too.

Looking for lunch options? Or what to eat when you’re outside the house? I’ve got you covered:

The Paleo Lunch Post

Practical Guide to Paleo, Part 2: On the Road

RECIPE SITES

Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/tag/dino-chow/

http://www.health-bent.com

http://everydaypaleo.com/

http://www.mypaleokitchen.com/

http://nuttykitchen.com/

http://www.joyfulabode.com/

http://thisprimallife.com/

http://purelyprimal.com/

Any more you’d like to add to the list? Let me know!

***

Well. I think that covers it.

Your eyes might have rolled to the back of your head by this point, so allow me a reminder: don’t stress. You’ll be on fantastic footing if you incorporate everything listed above, but even the first few points alone — meat, veggies, and fruit — can make for significant changes in both body and mind over the course of 2012.

Just remember: you have to start. Start today, if you can, and read back through part one of this guide for some new thoughts on the road to come.

Check back next week for a discussion on exercise. If you have any questions about what’s written above, please don’t hesitate to ask them below. And if you enjoyed this post, would you please click the StumbleUpon button (“Submit,” I think it says) below? Or the retweet, facebook ‘like,’ etc.? I’d love for this to spread far and wide, but I know I can’t do it without you.

See you next week!

Resolutions! Plans! Action! An unwavering committment to get lean, mean, and at least 150% sexier than you were the year prior, with all the motivation and ambition you need to make it happen. January 1st is a great day for exactly that reason: people all across the world, deciding it’s time to work off some of that holiday excess, take their health into their own hands and actively try and lose weight.

Good for them! And good for you, friend, if you’ve decided to do it right: to eat better, eat simpler, and eat less overall.

Paleo/Primal has been a long-standing focus of this blog, but for this three-part guide I’ve decided to take a broader tack. That’s not to say it doesn’t work, of course — I can say with the utmost bias and sincerity that I’m a huge supporter of the ancestral lifestyle — but that it can be a little mixed and jumbled for the modern eater.

This guide is based on Paleo principles, accordingly, but will not belabor them. Plenty of other people have spoken at length about the core ideas behind the Paleo movement, and I’ve written a three-part guide myself to help ease people into a more natural lifestyle. This Practical Action Plan, instead, wants to focus on you, whether you’re new to the idea of eating natural or a seasoned veteran who had a few too many slices of cake over the holidays.

Either way you fall, I’ve got you covered. I’m happy to report, too, that the intention here is to be practical above all else — to show you how to eat healthy, live happily, and enjoy a little simplicity in 2012. This will be your best year yet. Ready to start?

Before we dive into the food side of things (check back next week!), though, let’s do a little mental preparation for the road ahead.

1. Take time.

Tucked deep into my harddrive, now, is a hidden folder. The title? “Matt’s Really Embarrassing Progress Shots.” True to its name, this folder plays host to every monthly photo taken throughout my weight loss journey, chronicling my progress from an overly chubby, unhappy college grad to the person I am today.

Most of those photos, I bet, will never see the light of day.

But they prove a point. A good one, I’d argue, and an idea that will immediately be forgotten the minute you set foot on your own journey to better health. (It happens to all of us. Promise.)

You need time.

There are no quick fixes. There are no magical overnight solutions, and there are no sustainable, healthy ways to jettison all of that weight you’re carrying around your gut in the span of just a few weeks. There is, instead, the slow churn – a road of many months, many pounds, and too few reminders that you’re doing it right even if the scale keeps shouting that you’re not doing anything at all.

In these first few blinks of 2012, too, this point is more pertinent than ever. Give it time. Give it patience, and try and give yourself as many days as possible before you let impatience start raining on your parade.

I’m nearly two years in, by the way. How long did it take before I started smiling whenever I looked in the mirror? About eight months. That’s about seven months longer than your average get-thin-quick plan, and it might take longer still if you’re carrying a lot of extra weight – but don’t panic.

Don’t give up. Don’t throw in the towel before you’ve even started.

Go slow. Give it time. Come January 1st, 2013, you will look better naked.

2. Be kind.

Of the 24 things I’ve learned in 24 years on this hunk of rock, this might be the most important: be kind to yourself. If you’re reading this, odds are pretty good that you’re currently unhappy with your weight, diet, exercise routine, etc., the grand total of which can make for some pretty gloomy skies.

Let’s do something different.

For the next twelve months, let’s take a different tack. Let’s be patient with ourselves. Let’s forgive ourselves for any dietary lapses that pop up, and let’s realize that this is just the first big step on a journey that’ll last the rest of our long, healthy lives.

Let’s realize, now, that this is it. That face you see staring back from the mirror? That’s yours. The body that supports it? Surprise! That’s yours too. You get just one body, folks, so why don’t we treat it kindly? Why don’t we appreciate where we’re starting, appreciate where we’re going, and why, over the course of the next year, why don’t we celebrate every step towards better health?

Let’s not bog ourselves down with perfectionism. Let’s not throw in the towel when our body does something weird, and let’s not rant and rave when we don’t lose weight in a consistent, linear fashion (hint: it rarely runs so smooth).

Let’s be kind to ourselves – starting today.

3. Hide the scale.

Take a piece of tape. Stick it firmly over the readout on the scale and prevent yourself from hopping on it every morning in some misguided (yet well-intentioned) attempt to monitor our progress.

Not too put too fine a point on it, folks, but the scale sucks. The number you see between your toes fluctuates on a near daily basis, doesn’t account for your ratio of lean muscle mass to stored body fat, and tugs your focus away from what counts: what you see in the mirror, and how you feel day in and day out.

Hop on that scale one last time, if you like, to get your starting weight. Hop on it again in a year’s time to see how much it has changed. But do so with the knowledge that neither of those numbers mean all that much, and that you’re not somehow a worse person if the number doesn’t move as much as you like.

4. Get naked.

Skip the scale, folks, but don’t be afraid to monitor your progress. Here are my favorite two ways:

1. A monthly photo shoot featuring you, yourself, and scandalous amounts of nudity. Get naked. Weight loss, sad to say, doesn’t always come from the places you’re most sensitive about, so stripping down and showing off can be a great way to track just which parts of your body are leaning out as you proceed.

Stomach fat, coincidentally, is often the last to go. Trust me on this one.

2. Take a pair of jeans that you currently squeeze into and set it aside for later. As you take the monthly photo mentioned above, slide on those jeans and take a few minutes to strut about. Sit in them, stretch in them, and see how much looser they’ve become in the last thirty days. As someone who now fits easily in a pair of jeans that I couldn’t even wear in high school, trust me too when I say that this is satisfaction at its finest.

You want to keep track of your progress, in other words, but you want to do it in a meaningful way – one that reinforces just how far you’ll go without bogging you down in numbers. Keep the monthly perspective in mind, in fact, and you’ll do far better to keep your sanity intact.

5. Get inspired.

Still not sold on this whole eating natural thing?

Start here. And then go here. And then, you know, stare at the pretty pictures.

The three links above lead to Paleo success stories, the tales (with photos!) of men and women all across the world who tried Paleo, absolutely loved it, and found themselves carrying around far less weight as a result. If you need inspiration at any point during your journey – today, tomorrow, six months down the line – then the links above are exactly where you can go to find it.

Start reading, folks. Try and study some of the common themes, too, if you’re feeling academic. I’ll give you a hint on the big one: it takes time, damn it.

Don’t forget these.

That’s easier said than done once you’re deep into the diet and exercise side of things, focusing all of your energy and attention on what you see standing in front of the mirror. Just as important as the physical changes, though, is what’s stirring upstairs.

Remember that you’re not just doing this to impress that tall, dark fellow at the beach. Remember that you deserve a way of eating and exercising that is simple, enjoyable, and not stressful, and realize, lastly, that Paleo can be it.

There’s just one catch: you have to try.

And what better time than the start of a brand-spankin’ new year, right?

Tune in next week for parts two and three. See you then, folks!

1. Make every day count. My life mantra. This is my Big Deal — the four words that keep me smiling, walking, and trying to make a difference.

2. Common sense is not common. If it were, I wouldn’t be writing this post.

3. Ask the (damn) question. Consider this: feeling dumb/stupid/silly, you can hold that question in. Alternatively, you can risk it all, raise your hand, and ask someone who knows the answer. Do the former, and nothing changes. You still feel dumb/stupid/silly. Do the latter, and you risk momentary embarrassment to learn something in the process. Which makes more sense?

4. Don’t be afraid to change. If there’s any one facet of yourself that you don’t like, change it — take the steps necessary to correct the behavior. Your genetics, I’m glad to say, do not dictate how you live your life, and your parents’ approach does not have to match your own.

5. Don’t be afraid to apologize. It hurts, sometimes. It can suck. But a simple “I’m sorry” goes tremendous lengths toward saving the situation, and being able to admit when you’re wrong — that you’re not perfect — might just be key to surviving this world with your sanity intact.

6. Look back with a smile. I’ve been a sappy poet, a middle-class emo kid, and a nose-to-book library fanatic at varying points in my life. The first two are (more than) a wee bit embarrassing, but I try and look back with a smile — knowing they’ve helped shape who I am today, and knowing that all these different phases make me so incredibly, delicately human above all else.

7. Eat everything (at least once). Even the fried grasshoppers. Even the head cheese. Even the ant egg guacamole. If you only get one shot at this big, blustering, beautiful thing called life, why wouldn’t you try and explore every part of it? Why not cultivate an adventurous spirit? (This might apply to more than just food).

8. Listen to bad music. You know that modern pop song that secretly makes you want to dance? You know that song that everyone publicly craps on, but you not-so publicly enjoy? Embrace it. Three to four minutes of happiness, I think, are always worth having — even if they come from something all the cool kids like to hate.

9. You don’t always have to eat. Whether you’re hip to fasting or not, the point stands: if you’re not hungry, you don’t have to eat. No one is forcing that fork into your mouth. And it’s better, I think, to risk upsetting a friend for all of five minutes than to let peer pressure put something unhealthy on your plate.

10. Go to bed. Proper sleep is one of the few things that we truly, absolutely need, so why in the world do we sit awake in bed and check our Facebook feeds instead?

11. You can’t do everything. But you can damn well try.

12. It’s okay to cry. Don’t let any societal misconceptions about manliness, ruggedness, nor torrential levels of testosterone convince you otherwise. If you can watch the first 15 minutes of Up and not shed a single tear, please submit yourself to science.

13. “Being thin and eating bacon is a lot better than being fat and eating bread.” You knew Paleo would creep up somewhere, right?

14. Take pleasure in simplicity. The simple things, I promise, will last you a lot longer than everything else.

15. Nothing is black and white. Don’t let the media or modern American politics suggest otherwise. If twenty-four years have proven anything, it’s this: the sooner you accept that life is complex, messy, and multicolored, the better — and happier — you’ll be.

16. Don’t forget to say thanks. For your friends, for your family, for every single part of your life that has helped you become who you are today. Personally speaking, I owe a lifetime of gratitude to my mother and father, both of whom have sacrificed a tremendous amount to raise my brother and myself in the kind of household that encouraged our growth.

17. Do the work. Success only rarely happens by accident. The formula to create it, in fact, tends to involve just two ingredients: lots and lots of work, and doing it well. This is a good thing.

18. Keep your phone in your pocket. We’ve come to rely on them as easy escapes — easy ways to distract ourselves whenever we’re bored, uncomfortable, etc. Rather than falling back to your iPhone, then, why not try and actively change the situation? Why not try and live life, then, instead of reading other people’s tweets about it?

19. The world is not out to get you. It’s easy to think otherwise, sure, when TV and the media paint life in a pretty harsh light: a murder on every corner, seething violence in the big city, and every dark alley a home to something that most definitely wants you dead. This might come as a surprise, but you’re not surrounded by villains. The people around you, in fact, are far more similar than you might think: a little nervous, a little hungry, and desperately wanting to be happy — and, y’know, alive — for as long as possible.

20. Slow down. We get wrapped up in this life of productivity, going as fast as possible from the minute we first sit up in bed. Here’s a different take: go slow. Realize that nothing happens overnight, and realize too that you have a long, full life to accomplish everything you’d like to do. (Coincidentally, I am terrible at this).

21. Don’t be afraid to take a break. Following from the point above, don’t be afraid to take some time off and recharge. It’s not a weakness, it’s not indicative of a massive character flaw on your part, and it’s most definitely not going to derail your progress. It will let you recharge, however, which is too often a process we reserve for our electronics and nothing else.

22. Never stop learning. That’s easier said than done given the plentiful ways we have to distract ourselves, but the Internet is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a portal to a land of lost time, pointless status updates, and Facebook stalking, and on the other it’s a learning tool like no other in this world. Choose wisely.

23. You get one shot. That’s debatable, sure, but the idea is a useful one. Realize that you might only get one shot at this and act accordingly. Work hard, play hard, and try and expose yourself to as many things — as many ideas, dishes, countries and personalities — as possible. I think I’d rather look back on a long, full life than one spent too afraid to live it.

24. Be kind to yourself. If there were one message I could imprint on every person, young and old, who populates this planet, this would be it. We’re human, right? For better and for worse, for good and for really, really bad, we’re all emotional creatures — prone to mistakes, prone to accidents, and prone to never forgive ourselves for both. Don’t do that. You’re stuck with yourself for the rest of your life, so why not try and get along?

What’s on your list? Sound off below!

Worry about your waistline on the 27th.

Worry about your job on the 28th.

Worry about everything else on the 29th.

Or, you know, don’t.

Don’t worry.

Take this weekend – this twenty-four and twenty-five – as a great act of kindness to your friends, to your family, and to you above all else. Give yourself a break (the kind you normally don’t like to give), and try and be happy with every incredible thing that’ll carry you forward into a brand-spankin’ new year.

Don’t stress the holidays, the gift-wrapping, nor the caloric content of that gleaming Christmas pie. Don’t stress every tiny detail you can’t fix, and don’t stress every one of life’s little oddities in this most exhausting of seasons.

Instead, try and celebrate.

Celebrate your food – every steaming dish on the table, whether it’s gluten-free, sugar-free, flavor-free, or something the complete opposite.

Celebrate your health – the body you have, now, and the body you’ll be seeing soon enough in the mirror.

Celebrate your memories – the ones you’ve collected in this year alone, and the ones you’ll no doubt create in your next year on Earth.

Celebrate your friends – every incredible person who has helped you become who you are today.

Celebrate your family – because they’re family, if nothing else, and because (for at least one day a year!) you hope they can find a similar kind of happiness.

Lastly, celebrate yourself. And on this Sunday, a day of gift-giving for a fair few corners of the world, try and give yourself the two greatest presents: kindness and time. Kindness for who you are here in the twilight of 2011, and time for every thing listed above – every thing that matters.

Happy holidays, folks. I’ll see you next week.

What are you going to celebrate this weekend? Sound off below!

Leave it on your nightstand. Leave it on the table, but just leave it, next time you can, and embrace the uncertainty that comes when you step outside the cloud.

We spend so much time and coin on connecting: on wireless routers, smart phones, and Twitter-enabled TVs, a dozen slick toys for the sole purpose of keeping us online. Every new piece of tech that rolls down the pipes has just one goal in mind – to tether us to our internet connections, and to make sure we can tweet, talk, and text from wherever our feet might take us.

But what if you forgot your phone for a day?

You might feel out of the loop.

You might feel weird.

You might also feel free.

You’ll remember, a few hours in, how this used to be normal. You’ll remember how you used to spend hours outside with dirt on your fingers and grass stains on your clothes. You’ll admire every color along the skyline, and then you’ll notice the quiet – this strange kind of calmness that stretches from the empty space in your pocket to somewhere deep in your skull.

You’re still out of the loop. That’s okay. You’d rather live your life, you’ll think, than read someone else’s tweets about it. You’d rather be happy with what’s left behind: you, yourself, and your relationship with the world around you (the world, by the way, that matters most).

Walk without the wire.

Embrace an entire day without a phone to fall back on, and embrace then what those twenty-four hours really are: a day with no distractions, no escape routes, and no chances to miss every incredible thing around you.

Want to do Christmas a little differently this year? Want to help make my sole birthday wish come true? You’re in luck! Read here.