The easiest way to find out how many calories are in certain foods is to look them up on MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal has the largest database of foods with calorie counts on the web, so chances are they will have the exact food you’re looking for. If they don’t have your exact match, you can substitute one of their generic food items or a similar item from another brand or restaurant…

My biggest goal is to achieve financial independence. I’ve been thinking about this goal for a long time. Since age 19 or 20, maybe even earlier. I still think about it almost every day. I think about my typical weekday and what that would look like. I’d wake up without an alarm after a full 8 hours of…

But I Won’t Do That — This is one of the best memes I’ve seen recently. There’s no shortage of people who claim they will do whatever it takes to lose weight, but when it comes to actually doing things that are boring or uncomfortable (but effective), they never last. The key is to keep playing the game until you learn to love it. I didn’t…

The job economy is transforming in a way that will benefit some people, but destroy others. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport describes two emerging work trends that will continue into the next 10–20 years. It is important to understand these trends because they will change the way employers and employees operate. Trend #1: “High-skilled workers” While technology and automation are replacing many low-skill jobs, high-skill jobs such as…

I reached 100,000 views on Quora in less than four months by writing nearly every day. Do you have to do this to reach 100k? Not necessarily. But if you’re looking for a shortcut, then you’ll probably need to get lucky. It’s possible you write a one-hit wonder answer that goes viral and call it quits, but the top writers on Quora all have hundreds or…

At each new phase of life, you must reinvent yourself. When I was in elementary school, I had a certain group of friends and interests. Then, I got to middle school and my friends and interests changed. Then, in high school, they changed again. Then, again in college. Now, I’m more than 15 years out of college and the people…

My friends and I were the biggest nerds in our high school class. We took the hardest classes and were ultra-competitive with grades. All of us worked hard because we wanted the highest GPA. During high school, I studied when other people partied. I spent hours in the library and at Barnes and Noble doing homework. But my friends were right there beside…

The word “calorie” is somewhat arbitrary. We could just as easily use “joules” or some other unit of energy as the golden standard for food. But “calories” won out as the standardized unit of measure for food quantity that most people know. The societal implications of this are significant. Even people who know very little about…

Warning: It’s Controversial — There are some weekends I end up losing weight unintentionally because I’m busy running around doing family stuff and I don’t actually sit down to eat a proper meal. How does this work? My meals end up being more like snacks in terms of calories. Half a bagel, a couple of slices of pizza, half a kids turkey sandwich and some chips…