This is an incredibly tough question, both because it varies widely from person to person and because it's very hard to quantify in numbers. We are in love wit

This is an incredibly tough question, both because it varies widely from person to person and because it's very hard to quantify in numbers. We are in love with numbers, and we think that we can just count the calories that go into our bodies and that is the secret to becoming skinnier (replace "calories" with "carbs" or any other measurement for the latest diet trend). The BMI is another (albeit much saner) manifestation of this desire to have magic numbers. We're also enamoured with single-focus solutions: eat less tortillas and get fit, eat a stalk of celery every two hours, chug a glass of water before a meal, whatever the magazine rack at the grocery store tells us. I am of the opinion that this is all badly misguided, especially because it needn't be that complicated. Eat on a regular schedule, in portions that leave you full but not satiated. Try to buy more raw food products and less highly-processed stuff. Include different types of food in each meal. Exercise regularly (there really is no substitute for this). Set your goals with yardsticks like cardiovascular endurance (for the layman, "can I jog up a flight of stairs without gasping?") instead of trying to lose x number of pounds in a week. So no, I can't give you an exact answer. It will probably be centuries before nutritional science can do so, if ever. But I firmly believe that we can make ourselves a lot healthier by taking some simple steps to compensate for the fact that our modern lives do not follow the patterns that our bodies evolved to cope with.