It is tempting to believe that some foods are bad for us, that If it tastes good we should spit it out . But the HIM is not an ascetic living in a monastery. He knows that while what he eats may often be outside of his control, how much he eats is always his responsibility. Besides, it takes too much time to learn the nutritional science required to properly demonize some foods for the glory of others. It’s far more realistic (and thus Effective) to simply accept that if the SkyQ saw fit to put something edible within our reach, he must have intended for us to eat it–just not so much of it. In other words, all food is good–the problem is one of portion and balance.

The Neolithic Revolution began about ten-thousand years ago. That was when man discovered agriculture, which led to the wheel and then the ability to write. Since then, recorded human history has been driven primarily by man’s effort to reliably feed himself. Even today, there are parts the world that suffer from periodic famine.

But not in America in the 21st Century. Here and now we have solved the age-old dilemma of hunger and replaced it with a wholly new problem: obesity.

Think about what a time traveler from 1870 would have to say about the drive-thru window at McDonalds. In his day, 80% of the American population farmed. That means that only two out of every ten people did not spend their day in pursuit of putting food on the table. Today, that effort only requires 2% of the American population. Now the overwhelming majority of us can feed ourselves by walking ten steps to the car, driving to a window in the side of a colorful building and exchanging six bucks for 1500 calories.

The time traveler would likely think this to be wonderful, incredible. To him, McDonalds would appear to be the answer to a dream, the solution to everything that has bedeviled man since the dawn of time. But that would only be his first thought. His second should be that there seems to be a lot of fat people rolling through that drive-thru lane, more fat people than he had ever seen back in 1870. Ultimately, he might just ask himself if there wasn’t something of value in the Hardship of having to struggle a bit to feed oneself.

Maybe, but let’s face it, the genie is out of that particular bottle. We are really good at producing food in abundance with less human effort than anyone ever thought possible. The reestablishment of an agrarian society full of skinny people is not a viable solution to the obesity problem. Nor is there much utility in enforcing utopian restrictions over the size of the Mountain Dew cup or forcing McDonalds to stamp every Big Mac with a useless warning that “eating this will make you fat!” When it comes to the Queen, rules don’t work. People find a workaround to get what their heart desires. What has to change is the heart. And this is done through Bricklaying.

Bricklaying is the formation of positive Habits–here the Habit of portion control and balance. To lay that Brick, the Q engages in trial and error to learn how much he can and must eat to maintain his ideal weight given the amount of calories he can burn through exercise. In my experience, this took some time but was not difficult. I started with the internet which told me I could ingest net-2100 calories per day to keep my weight at 175 pounds. So, for example, if I ate 3000 calories that was okay if I burned 900.

By counting and tracking my calories consumed against calories burned over time I found net-2100 to be accurate enough. If I went under 2100, I lost weight over time. If I exceeded it, I gained weight over time. But if I stayed consistently close to net-2100 my weight fluctuated around the mean a bit every day but remained steady over time.

The daily fluctuations I attributed first to the fact my body is dynamic, complicated and not subject to exact measurement. Secondly, the data isn’t exact, particularly calories burned, which I calculated with my Garmin. I found that it seemed to undercount calories burned during a bootcamp type workout, which is what I do half the time. But the bottom line is that I found net-2100 to be an accurate enough foundation to set my Brick on. At net-2100 I can maintain my ideal weight of 175 pounds.

Obtaining the knowledge I needed to practice portion control was something I did internally, by myself, like a science experiment I conducted with my own body. That I found to be the easy part of serving my Queen. The hard part is what came next, and that is daily discipline of doing it. For that, I need help.