Q: I work out 4 times a week, lifting weights and running on a treadmill. My goals are to burn fat and build muscle. How many calories and grams of protein do you recommend I eat?

A: I'm a big believer in not counting calories, or grams of protein, or fat, or carbs, or how many times I've asked my daughter to empty her lunchbox when she comes home from school.

Here's why:

Humans (and our pets) are the only creatures on the planet who get fat, who eat foods that are bad for us, who have to buy books from Dr. Phil before we can go grocery shopping. Why is that? What's wrong with us? Why is the squirrel in my backyard better equipped to eat properly than I am?

No other animal needs to count anything. They eat what gives them pleasure and stop when they're full. They focus on their food (I never saw my dog reading the label on the dog food container while having dinner).

So why can't we also do that? We can, when we return to our natural diet of real, whole, plant-based foods. When we start eating consciously, instead of wolfing down our meals while trying to occupy our minds.

I also want to suggest that "burning fat and building muscles" are problematic fitness goals. They may be means to an end, but they don't excite me.

Let me share my current fitness goals with you:

• dunk a basketball
• run my morning route in 14 minutes without getting the dry heaves
• strengthening my back so I don't seize up after driving for two hours and lifting a suitcase out of the trunk

You see, I don't work out for weight control or cosmetics. I work out so I can perform better in my life.

What are your "performance goals"? When you set up a fitness regimen that moves you in that direction, you'll then have information that you can use to test your diet.

You are different from everyone else - so nobody knows for sure your optimal nutritional strategy - except you. Trust that your body has tremendous nutritional wisdom, and if you give it a chance to recover from the standard nutrient-deficient Western diet, it will naturally gravitate toward the right foods for you.