The most beautiful women I know don’t prioritize keeping up with the latest fashions or cosmetic techniques. They have more important things filling their lives. But they do scrutinize what goes on and in their bodies. I often find that Here in New York, I am surrounded by fashion "officianados" who look immaculate because they have researched the best brow-pluckers and bikini waxers. This stuff does nothing to make them more beautiful, other than to those in their circle who judge them by such things. For many, taking care of one’s self comes down to skipping meals or eating low-fat foods, working out and investing in the finest clothes, brow-shapings, bikini waxes and lunch hour facials. But eating less or lying back with cream on your face won’t transform you for real. But what will transform you cell by cell and even transform your spirit is getting truly informed about yourself, your health issues (beyond conventional channels), identifying your purpose and your values, taking passionate interest in creating yourself, including what (which is more important than how much) goes in and on your body, investing in the best food and supplements and pure, potent products. If you do those things consistently and passionately (which takes no willpower, because it involves no deprivation if the smartest choices are made and carries short-order physical rewards), you won’t need expensive clothes and cosmetics to make you look fabulous. Even those workouts will pay off like never before. Hormonal issues often determine our shape, which is why we can still be shaped like a pear, though maybe a leaner pear, even if we work out. Often when hormonal issues are addressed, those "stubborn areas" melt away, even if you’ve miss those extra workouts you were convinced were the only way to conquer them.

As someone who didn't believe any of this stuff and was only open when forced by a health crisis, I empathize with skepticism and impatience, which I why in my book and programs, I urge people to first identify their auto-pilot lifestyle choices — the things you do with the most frequency — as the best way to jumpstart one’s own transformation and experience the kind of short and long-term physical rewards that dispel skepticism fast. Transformation isn’t all about spiritual breakthroughs or rites of passage or something that happens only by appointment with our gurus. It’s about what we do day-in and day-out when no one else is around. Tweaking and upgrading auto-pilot routines like what we put on and in our bodies — too often without scrutiny — will affect you body and your soul as much as anything you do.

In lean times, I gladly forego cosmetic and clothing purchases in order to fit the best food and supplements in my budget. I have not yet experienced the moment where investing in a professional brow plucking beat out buying the highest quality supplements, exotic therapeutic teas or even my $13 splurge on “decadent” raw, organic almond butter (you wouldn’t believe the taste, and it is great for your shape, your bones and the skin). This shift in spending priorities was key to my transformation. I learned from my eating disorder and health crisis that all the best clothes and makeup are meaningless the moment you lose the vitality to enjoy them.

Getting informed is what initially motivates change. For me it took a health crisis to move me to get informed, but if someone had just told me some of these things, I could have skipped that dangerous road. And the rewards go far beyond physical. Following through with informed acts — not the choices thrust in front of us every day — builds you up on the inside, as your subconscious registers every informed, good conscious thing you do for yourself. While the standard driving and depriving ourselves leaves us frustrated in the long-term and distracts us from uncovering our real issues and solutions, informed acts based on science and strategy, as opposed to suffering, do not encourage feelings of guilt and inadequacy, and can result in the healthiest, most permanent and most real transformation there is.