Empty Calories
I’ve been clarifying a few things lately.
One of the biggest is that a large part of designing a life you love and getting out onto the Highway to YEAH ultimately comes down to deciding.
And two of the most fundamental decisions we face are:
what to leave out
what to leave in
Today, I want to focus on what to leave out.
But there are two important things I’ve noticed about eliminating things from your life.
First, reducing or eliminating things that do not serve you or your vision for the good life only gets you so far.
Think about cleaning out a junk drawer or finally tackling your overloaded email inbox. Usually, it is relatively easy to eliminate the first 75–80% of obvious junk. That initial purge creates space, relief, and room to breathe very quickly, which is why it feels so satisfying and effective.
But after that point, things get harder.
Because then the question becomes:
What do you actually want to leave in?
Second, not everything you want to leave out carries equal weight.
Some things contribute disproportionately to the clutter, distraction, stress, expense, or lack of alignment in your life. In other words, instead of the first 80% of junk being easy to remove, there are certain smaller categories — maybe only 20% or less — that create the majority of the problem.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of these things as empty calories.
Let’s look at diet, finances, stuff, distractions, and possibilities for examples of these.
This morning, I was struggling a bit with writer’s block for today’s article, so instead of forcing it, I shifted my routine and did my daily tracking first.
As I looked over my calorie and protein intake for the month, I noticed something interesting:
my calories had dropped noticeably yesterday.
What was different?
I had avoided sweets entirely.
Then I went for a walk and realized something even simpler:
there is really only one thing I consistently want from my diet.
I want foods that are nutrient-dense and relatively high in fiber and/or protein.
That’s basically it.
And when I look honestly at what tends to derail me, it is almost always foods with high calorie-to-low nutritional value ratios — empty calories.
For me, there are three major culprits:
sweets
alcohol
French fries
French fries are actually the easiest for me to manage because I don’t make them at or bring them home. They mostly appear when eating out, and even then, they are probably the least problematic of the three.
Alcohol is more complicated.
I can leave alcohol sitting untouched for days, weeks, even months. So it is not a daily temptation in the same way sweets are.
However, I have noticed a pattern:
if I go out, have a few drinks socially, and come home in a celebratory mood I sometimes wat to listen to music and groove, thus, it becomes very easy to continue the evening.
Not constantly.
But enough that I’ve realized it is probably best for me to either keep very little alcohol at home or none at all.
And honestly, I’m beginning to question how often I even want to include it with meals out.
Yesterday, for example, my group had three drinks total with a meal.
With tax and tip, it was nearly $40.
Whoa.
Necessary?
Not really.
Enjoyable?
Sure.
Worth being more intentional about?
Absolutely.
But sweets are the real issue for me.
If sweets come home with me, there is a very high probability they are not surviving the evening.
And again, when I look at the numbers honestly, they are almost pure empty calories:
high calorie,
low fiber,
low protein,
low satiety.
If I consistently leave out sweets and reduce alcohol, my calorie intake drops by roughly 500-1000 calories per day almost automatically.
That’s significant.
Now let’s apply the same idea to finances.
What are the financial equivalents of empty calories?
A few obvious examples come to mind:
interest payments on debt
fees and surcharges
subscriptions and memberships you barely use
impulse purchases that add little real value
The point is not that every unnecessary purchase destroys your life.
The point is that many people are leaking money constantly through small, low-value expenditures that collectively drain enormous amounts of life energy over time.
What about stuff?
Empty calorie possessions might include:
“just in case” items you never use
duplicates of things you already own
unfinished projects
hobby equipment tied to abandoned identities or interests
Again, none of these are morally bad.
But they occupy physical and psychological space.
What about distractions?
Social media scrolling without intention.
Checking your phone every few minutes.
Constant email refreshing.
Binge-watching things you barely care about.
These are not always catastrophic behaviors.
But they can quietly consume astonishing amounts of attention and energy.
And then there are possibilities.
If you get stuck in the Dreaming and or Analysis mode, these can turn into empty calorie pursuits.
I’ve spent tremendous amounts of time contemplating possibilities such as:
pursuing a PhD
deciding where to live
real estate searches
starting businesses
designing different versions of post-FIRE life (e.g., Van Life)
And while exploration absolutely matters, I’ve also realized that possibilities endlessly entertained but never meaningfully acted upon can become a form of empty calories too.
They create the emotional sensation of movement without always producing actual movement.
Of course, not all “empty calories” are bad.
Right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop writing this article while drinking an Americano with a little oat milk.
Nutritionally?
About 15 calories, almost no protein, no fiber.
But experientially?
Thirty or forty-five minutes spent in a pleasant environment doing something I love: creating.
That’s worthwhile.
And that is really the larger point.
The goal is not rigid optimization.
The goals are Increased awareness and taking action.
To look honestly at the categories of your life and ask:
What is nourishing me?
What is merely consuming my energy?
What do I want to leave out?
Because answering that question helps prepare you for the more important one:
What do you want to leave in?