The House You Build: How I Stopped Dieting and Reconstructed My Health, One Real Food at a Time

I used to feel like a stranger in my own body.

For years, I was walking around in a fog—tired, bloated, moody, and breaking out, convinced this was just the normal state of “mom life” or getting older.¹

I was a veteran of the diet wars, fluent in the languages of calorie counting, carb restriction, and intermittent fasting.

I’d follow the rules with punishing discipline, lose a few pounds, and then, inevitably, the willpower would fray, the cravings would win, and I’d find myself right back where I started, only with an added layer of shame.²

I felt like I was constantly failing.

My wake-up call didn’t come as a gentle nudge.

It was a gut punch.

I was at a friend’s wedding, feeling happy, and someone snapped a candid Photo. When I saw it later, I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me.

The fatigue I felt every day had a face, and it was puffy, exhausted, and profoundly unfamiliar.³

Around the same time, my doctor, looking at my routine bloodwork, used the word “prediabetic”.⁵

The combination was terrifying.

All my efforts, all the punishing diets and obsessive tracking, had led me here: to a body that was failing me and a reflection I couldn’t even recognize.

I knew something was fundamentally broken, but I didn’t know what.

The real turning point, my epiphany, didn’t come from a new diet book or a wellness guru.

It came from the world of architecture.⁷

I realized I had been treating my body like a house with a crumbling foundation.

I was a frantic decorator, constantly trying to fix the place up with a new coat of paint (a low-carb diet), different furniture (a new workout plan), or trendy wallpaper (expensive supplements).

But it didn’t matter how much I redecorated, because the structural beams were made of cheap, water-logged particle board.

The house was fundamentally unsound.

That was the moment everything changed.

I had to stop being a decorator and become the architect of my own health.

I had to stop focusing on the superficial rules and start focusing on the quality of my building materials.

This is the story of how I learned to read the blueprints of food, demolish a lifestyle built on shoddy ingredients, and reconstruct my health from the foundation up, one real food at a time.

In a Nutshell: The Architect’s Four Principles

For those who want the blueprint upfront, here is the core philosophy that changed everything for me.

We’ll explore each of these principles in exhaustive detail, but this is the foundation on which my new life is built.

1. Stop Decorating, Start Building: Forget dieting (the endless cycle of restriction and rules). The real path to health is to think like an architect, focusing on the quality of your “building materials” (your food) rather than just the “design” (the diet plan). A house built from granite and oak is strong regardless of the paint color.
2. Learn the Blueprint (The NOVA System): The most powerful tool for identifying quality materials is the NOVA food classification system. It ignores confusing nutrition labels and instead groups food by its level of processing. This simple framework is the key to seeing past marketing hype and understanding what you’re truly putting in your body.⁹
3. Prioritize Foundational Materials (Group 1 Foods): Build your diet primarily from NOVA Group 1 foods—unprocessed or minimally processed items like fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, and whole grains. These are the solid, reliable materials that create a strong, resilient structure.
4. Build Resilient Habits, Not Rigid Rules: True change isn’t about achieving perfection; it’s about building consistent, resilient habits. The “all-or-nothing” mindset is the enemy of progress.¹¹ If you forget to brush your teeth one night, you don’t give up on dental hygiene forever. Apply that same grace to your eating habits.¹²

Part I: The Architect’s Blueprint: A New Way to See Food

Every great construction project begins with a clear, detailed blueprint.

Without one, an architect can’t distinguish between a load-bearing beam and a decorative facade.

For years, I was building blind.

I was judging my food materials by their calorie count or their fat content, which is like judging a 2×4 by its color instead of its structural integrity.

I was lost in the confusing, often contradictory, advice of the nutrition world.

The blueprint that finally brought clarity was the NOVA classification system.

Developed in 2009 by a team of researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil led by Carlos Augusto Monteiro, NOVA was revolutionary because it proposed a new way of looking at food.¹⁰

Instead of getting bogged down in the minutiae of nutrients—how much vitamin C, how many grams of protein—NOVA classifies food based on a much more fundamental question:

what has been done to this food, and why?.¹³

It looks at the extent and purpose of industrial processing, providing a powerful framework for understanding the journey a food takes from the farm to your plate.

This system cuts through the marketing noise.

A cereal box can scream “whole grain” and “heart healthy,” but if the NOVA blueprint shows it’s an industrial formulation packed with additives, you know its true nature.

For me, learning the four NOVA groups was like being handed a special set of glasses that allowed me to see the true structural quality of everything in the grocery store.

Deconstructing the Four Groups: Your Architectural Material Grades

Using my newfound architectural analogy, I began to see the entire grocery store as a builder’s supply yard.

The NOVA system was my guide to sorting the high-quality materials from the junk.

Here’s how the four groups break down:

Group 1: Unprocessed or Minimally Processed Foods

• The Architectural Analogy: These are the Granite, Marble, and Solid Oak of your house. They are the foundational, strongest, most natural, and highest-quality materials available. They form the very structure of a sound building.
• The Blueprint Explained: This group includes the edible parts of plants (fruits, vegetables, seeds, roots) and animals (meat, eggs, milk), along with fungi, algae, and water, directly after being separated from nature.¹⁵ “Minimally processed” refers to natural foods that have been altered in basic ways that don’t add any industrial substances. These processes are designed to preserve the food, make it safe, or simply make it more convenient to eat.¹⁵ Think of processes like chopping, grinding, drying, roasting, boiling, freezing, pasteurizing, or vacuum-packing.¹⁴ The key is that no salt, sugar, oils, or other industrial additives are introduced. The goal is simply to make the natural food last longer or easier to prepare.¹⁵ Examples are plentiful: fresh, frozen, or dried fruits and vegetables; plain milk and unsweetened yogurt; fresh meat, poultry, and fish; eggs; legumes like beans and lentils; whole grains like rice and oats; and plain pasta.¹³

Group 2: Processed Culinary Ingredients

• The Architectural Analogy: These are the Mortar, Nails, and Fasteners. You cannot build a wall out of mortar alone, but you absolutely need it to hold your granite blocks together. These ingredients are essential for assembly but are not structural elements themselves.
• The Blueprint Explained: This group contains substances derived from Group 1 foods or from nature through processes like pressing, refining, grinding, or milling.¹⁵ These are the ingredients we use in our kitchens to prepare, season, and cook Group 1 foods to create meals from scratch.¹³ They are rarely eaten by themselves. This category includes things like vegetable oils, butter, vinegar, honey, salt, and sugar.¹⁴ They are the essential toolkit for turning a pile of high-quality materials into a delicious, coherent meal.

Group 3: Processed Foods

• The Architectural Analogy: These are the Prefabricated Components, like a pre-hung door, a canned beam, or a pre-assembled window frame. They are essentially a combination of Group 1 “raw materials” and Group 2 “fasteners.” They are still recognizable as modified versions of their original form and offer convenience without sacrificing too much structural integrity.
• The Blueprint Explained: Processed foods are relatively simple products made by adding Group 2 ingredients like salt, oil, or sugar to Group 1 foods.¹⁵ The processing aims to increase the durability of the original food or enhance its taste.¹⁵ Most foods in this group have just two or three ingredients and are still recognizable as versions of their whole-food counterparts.¹⁵ Think of canned vegetables, canned fish like tuna or salmon, fruits packed in syrup, most cheeses, cured meats like bacon and ham, and freshly made bread from a local bakery.¹³

Group 4: Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)

• The Architectural Analogy: This is the Particle Board, Plastic Veneer, and Drywall. These are cheap, mass-produced, industrial materials designed for maximum profit and a long shelf life, not for structural integrity. They often mimic the appearance of real materials (like wood-grain plastic) but lack their quality and can actively weaken the structure over time by off-gassing chemicals or crumbling under pressure.
• The Blueprint Explained: This is where the real danger lies. UPFs are not modified foods; they are industrial formulations, typically containing five or more ingredients.¹³ These ingredients often include things you would never find in a home kitchen: protein isolates, hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, and a host of additives like artificial colors, flavors, emulsifiers, and non-sugar sweeteners.¹⁰ These products often contain little to no intact Group 1 food.¹³ Their primary purpose is to create convenient, cheap, and “hyper-palatable” ready-to-eat products that are aggressively marketed and designed to replace whole foods in our diet.¹⁰ The list is long and familiar: mass-produced packaged breads, sugary breakfast cereals, flavored yogurts, packaged snacks like chips and cookies, frozen pizzas, instant noodles, soft drinks, and candy bars.¹⁷ These are the items that are “better at preserving shelf life than human life”.¹⁹

To make this blueprint tangible, I created a guide for myself that I mentally carried into every grocery store.

It became my definitive reference for sourcing quality materials.

NOVA Group	Architectural Analogy	Definition	North American Examples
Group 1	Granite, Marble, Solid Oak (Foundational Materials)	Unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Natural foods altered only by basic processes like chopping, freezing, or pasteurizing, with no added industrial substances.	Fresh, frozen, or dried fruits & vegetables (apples, carrots, spinach); whole grains (oats, brown rice); legumes (beans, lentils); plain milk & unsweetened yogurt; meat, poultry, fish; eggs; nuts & seeds; plain pasta; herbs & spices. 13
Group 2	Mortar, Nails, Fasteners (Essential for Assembly)	Processed culinary ingredients derived from Group 1 foods or nature. Used to prepare and season meals, not typically consumed alone.	Vegetable oils (olive, canola); butter; sugar (granulated, brown); honey; maple syrup; salt; vinegar. 13
Group 3	Prefabricated Components (Convenient & Still Recognizable)	Processed foods made by adding Group 2 ingredients (salt, sugar, oil) to Group 1 foods. Typically have 2-3 ingredients and are recognizable versions of whole foods.	Canned vegetables & beans; canned fish (tuna, salmon); fruits in syrup; most cheeses; cured meats (bacon, ham); freshly baked bread (from a bakery). 13
Group 4	Particle Board, Plastic Veneer (Shoddy Industrial Materials)	Ultra-processed foods. Industrial formulations with 5+ ingredients, including additives not used in home kitchens. Designed to be cheap, convenient, and hyper-palatable.	Packaged snacks (chips, cookies, crackers); sugary breakfast cereals; mass-produced sliced bread; frozen pizzas; instant soups; soft drinks; candy; flavored yogurts; processed meats (hot dogs, chicken nuggets). 13

This blueprint was my liberation.

It wasn’t about “good” or “bad” foods in a moral sense.

It was about structural integrity.

It was about choosing granite over particle board.

With this new understanding, I was ready to look at my own crumbling house and begin the difficult, messy, but necessary work of demolition.

Part II: The Demolition Phase: My Messy Breakup with the Modern Diet

Armed with my new architectural blueprint, I felt empowered.

I was ready to tear down the old, shoddy structure of my diet and rebuild.

But demolition is never clean.

It’s dusty, noisy, and reveals problems you didn’t even know you had.

My breakup with ultra-processed foods was exactly like that—a messy, challenging, and profoundly revealing process.

The first thing I learned is that quitting UPFs is not simply a matter of “making healthier choices.” For me, it was a genuine withdrawal.

The book The Pleasure Trap explains the addictive nature of these refined foods, and I felt it firsthand.²²

The first week was brutal.

I was irritable, my head was foggy, and I was hit with waves of fatigue that felt like I was walking through wet cement.²³

My body, so accustomed to the quick-hit energy from sugar and refined carbs, was in open rebellion.

I craved the specific textures and intense, engineered flavors of my go-to snacks.

It felt less like a lifestyle change and more like an exorcism.

As one person I read about later described it, I couldn’t stop thinking about junk food.²²

This internal battle was difficult enough, but it was compounded by the realization that my entire environment was designed to support my old, unhealthy habits.

The world, it turns out, is built with particle board.

The practical and social challenges quickly piled up.

The first was the Time Tax.

I had never fully appreciated how much I relied on convenience until it was gone.

No more grabbing a “healthy” granola bar for breakfast, no more chucking a packet sauce into a stir-fry for a quick dinner.²⁴

Suddenly, every meal required planning, shopping, chopping, and cooking.¹¹

My evenings and weekends, once free, were now filled with meal prep.

Then came the Dining Out Dilemma.

Eating at a restaurant, once a simple pleasure, became a forensic investigation.

I’d scan menus, trying to deconstruct dishes to figure out what was hiding in the sauces or dressings.

Most restaurant kitchens run on processed vegetable oils, pre-made sauces, and other shortcuts.²⁶

I became “that person”—the one asking the waiter to check with the chef if the dressing was made with olive oil or if there was sugar in the marinade.

It was socially awkward and often fruitless.

Perhaps the most frustrating challenge was navigating the “Health Halo” Deception.

I started reading every single label and was horrified by what I Found. Foods that I had long considered healthy were riddled with the hallmarks of ultra-processing.

That “organic” packaged bread? Full of dough conditioners and emulsifiers.

That “all-natural” flavored yogurt? Packed with modified corn starch, artificial sweeteners, and “natural flavors”—a term so ambiguous it’s practically meaningless.¹⁶

I even did a search on Target’s website for “unprocessed food,” and the results were a parade of frozen mac and cheese, potstickers, and ready-to-heat meals.²⁸

It felt like a deliberate deception, a system designed to confuse and mislead even well-intentioned consumers.

During this demolition phase, I failed many times.

There were days when stress hit and the craving for salty, crunchy chips was overwhelming.²⁶

There were moments of trauma and exhaustion where I fell back on the sugary, comforting foods of my past, just as others have described in their own journeys.²²

In those moments, it was easy to feel like a failure.

The old voice of the chronic dieter would whisper, “See? You can’t do this.

You don’t have the willpower.”

This is the critical juncture where most people, including my past self, give up.

We fall into the “all-or-nothing” trap.

The thinking goes: “I ate a cookie.

I’ve ruined my ‘perfect’ day.

I might as well eat the whole box and start over on Monday.” This mindset, this demand for perfection, is a recipe for failure.¹¹

It turns a minor deviation into a catastrophic collapse.

My architectural epiphany is what saved me.

I started to see these slip-ups not as a moral failing, but as a structural reality.

The world is full of cheap materials, and the forces encouraging you to use them are powerful.

The cravings I felt weren’t a sign of my weakness; they were a predictable biological response to foods scientifically engineered to be irresistible.¹⁰

My struggle wasn’t a personal flaw; it was a feature of the modern food environment.

This shift in perspective was monumental.

It allowed me to have self-compassion.

I began to apply what one dietitian brilliantly calls the “Toothbrush Analogy”.¹²

If you go to bed one night and forget to brush your teeth, what do you do? You don’t declare dental hygiene a lost cause, stop brushing for the rest of the week, and eat candy to spite your own teeth.

You simply wake up the next morning and brush them.

No drama, no shame.

You just get back to the routine.

I learned to treat a dietary slip-up the same Way. Ate a slice of office birthday cake? Acknowledge it, and make your next meal a salad.

It’s not about perfection.

It’s about consistency.

A well-built house can handle a rainstorm.

A well-nourished body can handle an occasional treat.

The demolition was messy, but through it, I learned the most important lesson of all: resilience is more valuable than perfection.

Part III: Sourcing Your Materials: The Ultimate Unprocessed Grocery Guide

Once the demolition was underway and I had adopted a more resilient mindset, the next phase of the project began: sourcing high-quality materials.

The grocery store, once a minefield of temptation and confusion, became my architectural supply yard.

My shopping list was my bill of materials, and my mission was to fill my cart with granite, oak, and solid fasteners, leaving the particle board on the shelf.

This required a new skill: learning to read the true blueprints of a food product—its ingredient list.

The flashy marketing on the front of the package is just an advertisement.

The truth is always on the back, in the fine print.

I developed a simple set of rules for deciphering these labels.

How to Read the Blueprints (Ingredient Labels)

1. The Shorter, The Better: As a general rule, the fewer ingredients, the less processed the food.²⁰ A bag of raw almonds should have one ingredient: almonds. A jar of natural peanut butter might have two: peanuts and salt. If you see a list that wraps around the package, it’s almost certainly a Group 4 UPF.
2. The Kitchen Test: Read the ingredients. If you can’t pronounce them, or if they aren’t things you would typically use in your own kitchen (e.g., soy protein isolate, potassium sorbate, monoglycerides), it’s a major red flag.¹⁸ This is a simple but incredibly effective filter.
3. Spot the Aliases of Sugar: Manufacturers have become experts at hiding sugar. Be on the lookout for its many names: high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, sucrose, evaporated cane juice, barley malt, rice syrup, and dozens more.²⁹ If a sweetener is one of the first few ingredients, put it back.
4. Ignore the Health Halos: The front of the package is marketing, not science. Claims like “all-natural,” “made with whole grains,” “low-fat,” or “organic” can be slapped on highly processed products.¹⁶ An organic cookie is still a cookie. The ingredient list is the only source of truth.

The Architect’s Shopping Strategy

With these principles in mind, I developed a new way to navigate the grocery store.

First, I embraced the classic advice to Shop the Perimeter.

The outer ring of most supermarkets is where the foundational materials are located: fresh produce, the butcher counter, the seafood case, the dairy aisle, and the eggs.²⁷

I started spending 80% of my time and budget in these sections, loading my cart with vibrant, single-ingredient foods.

Second, I learned to make Strategic Forays into the Aisles.

I used to believe the center aisles were a complete no-go zone.

But that’s not entirely true.

The center is where you find essential “fasteners” and high-quality “prefabricated components.” This is where you get canned beans, frozen vegetables, whole grains like brown rice and quinoa, nut butters, and olive oil.

The key is to venture into these aisles with your blueprint-reading skills fully engaged.

You must be a discerning architect, carefully selecting the canned tomatoes with no added sugar and the canned tuna packed in water, not oil.²⁷

To make this process as clear and actionable as possible, I’ve compiled my master shopping list.

This is the ultimate guide to stocking your pantry and fridge with the highest-quality building materials.

Table: The Foundational Pantry: An Architect’s Shopping List

This list is organized by category, with “Architect’s Notes” to guide your selections.

Category	Items	Architect’s Notes
Fresh Produce (The Foundation Stones)	Vegetables: Leafy greens (spinach, kale, lettuce), broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, onions, garlic, carrots, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms. Fruits: Berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries), apples, bananas, oranges, avocados, lemons, limes, pears, peaches, melons.	This is where the bulk of your cart should be filled. For produce with thin skins (like berries and spinach), consider organic to minimize pesticide exposure (the “Dirty Dozen”). For thick-skinned produce (like bananas and avocados), conventional is often fine (the “Clean 15”).29
Proteins (The Structural Beams)	Poultry: Boneless, skinless chicken or turkey breasts/thighs; whole chicken. Meat: Grass-fed beef (ground, steaks); pork (loin, chops); venison; bison. Fish: Wild-caught salmon; cod; trout; canned tuna or salmon (in water). Eggs: Pasture-raised or organic eggs.	Look for meat without added solutions, flavorings, or preservatives. Avoid processed meats like ham, bacon, hot dogs, and sausages, which are Group 4 UPFs.20 For fish, check sustainability ratings from resources like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.29
Dairy & Non-Dairy (Insulation & Fixtures)	Yogurt: Plain, full-fat Greek yogurt or regular yogurt (unsweetened). Milk: Organic whole milk; unsweetened almond, soy, or coconut milk. Cheese: Block cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, feta, goat cheese).	Always choose “plain” and “unsweetened” varieties. You can add your own fruit or a touch of honey at home. Avoid pre-shredded cheese, which often contains anti-caking agents like cellulose.29
Whole Grains & Legumes (Solid Flooring)	Grains: Brown rice, quinoa, steel-cut or rolled oats (not instant packets), barley, whole-wheat pasta, whole-grain bread (from a bakery or with minimal ingredients). Legumes: Dried or canned beans (black, kidney, chickpeas); lentils.	For canned beans, look for “no salt added” or rinse them thoroughly to remove excess sodium. For bread, check the label for a short ingredient list you recognize; many mass-market breads are UPFs.29
Healthy Fats (Lubricants & Sealants)	Oils: Extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil. Nuts & Seeds: Raw, unsalted almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews; chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds. Nut Butters: Peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter.	Choose cold-pressed, unrefined oils when possible. For nut butters, the ingredient list should ideally just be nuts and maybe salt. Avoid any with added sugars or hydrogenated oils.29
Pantry Staples (Fasteners & Varnish)	Canned Goods: Canned tomatoes (diced, crushed), tomato paste, full-fat coconut milk. Spices & Flavorings: Individual dried herbs and spices (oregano, basil, cumin, paprika, cinnamon), garlic powder, onion powder, pure vanilla extract, vinegars (apple cider, balsamic), clean mustard (check for no added sugar). Natural Sweeteners: Pure maple syrup, raw honey, unsulfured molasses.	Read labels on all canned goods to ensure no added sugar or excessive sodium. Avoid pre-mixed seasoning packets, which are often full of salt, sugar, and fillers. Use sweeteners sparingly as a Group 2 ingredient.29

This list became my guide.

Shopping was no longer a chore or a battle of willpower; it was a treasure hunt.

It was the satisfying work of an architect carefully selecting the finest materials to build something beautiful, strong, and lasting.

Part IV: The Construction Site: Rebuilding Your Life in the Kitchen

With a blueprint in hand and a steady supply of high-quality materials, the project moved to the construction site: my kitchen.

This was where the most profound transformation occurred.

For years, my relationship with food had been defined by negativity—restriction, deprivation, guilt.

Cooking was a chore designed to produce the lowest-calorie meal possible.

But as I started working with my new, beautiful materials, my mindset began to shift.

I stopped “dieting” and started “creating.” This wasn’t just semantics; it was a fundamental change in perspective.

A dieter asks, “What can’t I have?” An architect asks, “What can I build with these amazing materials?” My kitchen was no longer a place of temptation; it became my workshop, a place of joyful, messy, delicious construction.²

I fell in love with the process: the vibrant colors of chopped vegetables, the savory aroma of garlic and onions in olive oil, the deep satisfaction of turning simple, whole ingredients into a nourishing meal.

I’ll never forget my first true success story, the meal that proved to me this new way of life was not only possible but joyful.

It was nothing fancy.

I roasted a whole chicken with lemon and herbs, surrounded by chunks of carrots, onions, and sweet potatoes.

I made a huge salad with a simple vinaigrette I whisked myself—just olive oil, vinegar, and a dab of mustard.

As my family and I sat down to eat, I felt a sense of pride I had never associated with food before.

And afterward, instead of the usual bloating and sluggishness I felt after a meal, I felt energized.

I felt deeply satisfied.

It was the first time I didn’t just understand the architectural analogy intellectually; I felt it in my body.²⁶

This was the feeling of living in a well-built house.

It was sturdy, comfortable, and full of light.

This single positive experience became the cornerstone for building new, lasting habits.

But as any architect knows, a strong structure relies on a solid framework of repeated, reliable processes.

I learned that building healthy habits is a design challenge in itself, and I found a few powerful analogies that helped me engineer a lifestyle that would last.

1. The Snowy Hill Analogy: Harvard neurology professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone offers a brilliant metaphor for habit formation. He says the brain is like a snowy hill in winter. The first time you sled down, you can steer anywhere. But if you go down the same path again and again, you create a deep track. Soon, the sled naturally falls into that groove, and it becomes very difficult to steer out of it.³² My old habits—reaching for a packaged snack when stressed, ordering takeout when tired—were deep, well-worn sled tracks. To change, I had to exert significant effort to steer onto a new path. I had to consciously choose to chop vegetables instead of opening a bag of chips, over and over again. At first, it was hard work. But with every repetition, the new track—the healthy habit—got a little deeper. Now, that healthy path is my new default groove.
2. The “Weave Your Parachute Daily” Analogy: Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Make sure you weave your parachute every day, rather than leave it to the time you have to jump out of the plane”.³³ This became my mantra for meal prep. I used to live in a state of reaction, only thinking about dinner when I was already starving—the equivalent of jumping out of the plane and then trying to figure out the parachute. Now, I weave my parachute every Sunday. I spend an hour or two chopping vegetables, cooking a batch of quinoa, and grilling some chicken. These small, daily acts of preparation are the threads that create a safety net for the busy week ahead. When I get home late and tired, the parachute is already packed. A healthy meal is just minutes away.
3. The Habit Stacking Method: The easiest way to install a new habit is to attach it to an existing one.³⁴ I used this to build small, consistent routines. For example, my morning coffee was a non-negotiable habit. I “stacked” a new habit onto it: while the coffee brewed, I would drink a large glass of water and take out my vitamins for the day. After unpacking my groceries (an existing habit), I immediately stacked on the new habit of washing and chopping some of the vegetables for easy snacking later. This process removes the need for decision-making and willpower; the new habit simply becomes part of an automatic chain of events.

By reframing my journey as a creative construction project and using these principles to engineer my habits, I built a new lifestyle that didn’t feel like a diet.

It felt like building a home.

It required effort, planning, and skill, but the result was a place of safety, comfort, and vitality I never wanted to leave.

Conclusion: Living in the Home You Built

It’s been years since I laid the new foundation for my health.

The construction phase is long over, and now I’m simply living in the house I built.

The change is profound.

The constant fatigue and brain fog are gone, replaced by a steady, reliable energy that powers me through my days.

My weight stabilized effortlessly, without a single calorie counted, because my body is nourished with high-quality materials.

I no longer feel like a stranger in my own skin; I feel, for the first time in a long time, truly at home in my body.³⁰

This journey taught me that the opposite of a “processed food diet” is not a “perfect diet.” The enemy of sustainable change is the “all-or-nothing” mindset that haunted my years of dieting.

That’s why the final, and perhaps most important, piece of my architectural framework is the principle of sustainable maintenance.

I live by what many call the 80/20 rule.³⁷

About 80% of the time, I am a meticulous architect, using only the finest Group 1 and 2 materials to build my meals.

But the other 20% of the time, I allow for life.

I eat the slice of birthday cake at my friend’s party.

I have pizza with my family on a Friday night.

I enjoy a glass of wine.

A well-built house with a solid granite foundation and oak beams can easily withstand an occasional storm.

It doesn’t collapse because of one cracked window pane.

Similarly, a body built on a foundation of whole foods is resilient.

It can handle occasional deviations without compromising its overall structural integrity.

The goal was never to build a sterile, untouchable museum.

It was to build a strong, comfortable, and joyful home to live in for the rest of my life.

My story began with a feeling of failure and a desperate search for a list of foods to buy.

But a list was never going to be the answer.

The answer was a new way of seeing.

It was the shift from being a frustrated decorator, endlessly trying to patch up a crumbling structure, to becoming an empowered architect, taking control of the design and materials of my own life.

I’ve shared my story and my blueprints with you.

I’ve given you the NOVA classification to identify your materials and the grocery guide to source them.

The tools are now in your hands.

My hope for you is that you see this not as the start of another diet, but as the beginning of your own great construction project.

It’s your turn to be the architect.

It’s your turn to build a body that feels like home.

Works cited

1. This Was My Wake-Up Call – Clean Monday Meals, accessed on August 13, 2025, https://cleanmondaymeals.com/blogs/news/this-was-my-wake-up-call
2. How Changing My Diet Changed My Life | by Cara Fielden – Medium, accessed on August 13, 2025, https://medium.com/@carafielden/how-changing-my-diet-changed-my-life-f55770a9b4ba
3. What was your wake up call? Did you have a your fat wake up call? – Reddit, accessed on August 13, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/1irz1e2/what_was_your_wake_up_call_did_you_have_a_your/
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