Quotes from Danica Patrick

In the Lamborghini I have to avoid certain roads because of pot holes, and there's nowhere to put my drink, no cup holder. And I'm not going to lie, it looks pretentious. I used to think it was cool to, like, drive it to dinner. Now? Like I really need to be looked at any more.

I just go where my heart tells me, where my gut tells me to go, where I'm enjoying my life the most, where I feel like I can have the most success. I've truly enjoyed my experience in NASCAR, to the point that I want to do it full time.

On Memorial Day, I was out floating on Lake Norman and came across Denny Hamlin. We struck up a conversation, and one of the first things we were talking about was how much it helped him when he started racing the Cup car and how much it helped his Nationwide program.

I'm a big believer in everybody being themselves. If not doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, that's great. But if doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, then you should be able to do it. What I do outside the car adds to who I am and expresses a different side of me.

Take those chances and you can achieve greatness, whereas if you go conservative, you'll never know. I truly believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Even if you fail, learning and moving on is sometimes the best thing.

In 2015, researchers found that when people took walks in nature, then submitted to a brain scan, their sgPFC showed less activity, and the subjects reported fewer feelings of self-doubt. But when they took walks in an urban setting, they got no relief. Their brains were still shooting out sparks, and their thoughts were still running to the negative. Turns out the beauty of the natural world is a palliative against feeling sorry for ourselves.

To make the most of my time in the outdoors, sometimes I'll treat walking through nature as more of a moving meditation. I'll listen to something slow and positive like Rising Appalachia, Trevor Hall, Nahko, or East Forest (all worth checking out if you don't know them), or simply put on a Pandora station for yoga workout music.

I hate the idea of "resolutions." When we make a resolution, we try to plan out the next month or the next year. It's a total trap. We can't control what's going to happen down the road; pledging to go to the gym four days a week or to never eat chocolate cake for a year is just a recipe for failure. So forget the future; just make the next healthy choice for yourself right now.

Tabata: Tabata training is a type of workout named for Dr. Izumi Tabata, a Japanese researcher who found that four-minute exercises seemed to be optimal for building lean muscle. Ahh, just four minutes! But those four minutes are intense. For each exercise, you'll: Push yourself as hard as you can for 20 seconds. Rest for 10 seconds. Complete 8 rounds (for a total of 4 minutes).

Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."—MICHAEL POLLAN

by constantly bombarding ourselves with things that aren't food, we're creating a low level of chronic inflammation throughout our bodies. Inflammation plays a major role in weight gain, and puts us at greater risk for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and just about every other disease worth freaking out about. Inflammation is the key to everything. Inflammation is your body's response to foods and additives it deems unhealthy.

And eggs are the most bioavailable source of protein per calorie known to man.)

If you ever feel bloated after a meal, it's a sign that your body is reacting to the foods you ate. It's not necessarily a "food allergy," but it may be that your body is reacting to the foods in a way that can cause inflammation and, eventually, weight gain. Try eliminating wheat from your diet entirely for two weeks and see if you feel better. Then do the same with dairy. You'll be amazed how effective this is—

Paleo is based on the idea that you only eat foods that were available to ancient man before the invention of agriculture. So no grains, no dairy, no beans or legumes, no added sugars or preservatives. Instead, you focus on naturally raised meats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.

It's all about eating real food! Sweet potatoes come from the ground, maple syrup comes out of a tree, carrots grow in the dirt, bees make honey, and hopefully we can all find more and more pasture-raised, grain-free, cruelty-free animals for protein. Because what our animals eat becomes what we eat, too. I don't see ever getting too far from these principles. Real food is medicine, and I like to put the highest-quality food into the only body I will ever have.

a 2011 study found that gluten causes gastrointestinal symptoms in people even if they don't have celiac disease.

a 2016 study linked another protein in wheat, amylase-trypsin inhibitors (ATIs), to inflammation in the lymph nodes, kidneys, spleen, and brain, and suggested that it could be linked to arthritis, asthma, and fatty liver disease, among other things.

Don't focus on your weight. This program is going to help you reshape your body by adding lean, firm muscle and burning off fat. But muscle weighs more than fat, and you may not see the same changes on the scale that you see in the mirror. Weight isn't a particularly good measure of your fitness, or your look. (In fact, you may actually gain a couple of pounds in the early stages as your body gets stronger and prepares to burn off flab.)

I'm always telling myself that my primary goal is to be the best I can be at this time, and if I keep that as my focus, I'll always be okay with myself and where I am right now.

A best friend is there for you when you're down. A best friend acknowledges your feelings, forgives your mistakes, and lets you be whomever you really are. A best friend listens to your truth without judging you, and tells you the truth even if you don't want to hear it. A best friend empowers you to be the person you want to be. You never have to pretend to be someone else when you're with your best friend.

When you're always taking the next healthy step mentally and physically, you're as in charge of your life as you can be. But what happens after you take that action—how others react to you, whether you get that job or that award or that opportunity—isn't something you're in charge of. Wallowing in "what ifs" doesn't do you any good; in fact, it's a distraction from taking the next positive, powerful, passionate step forward.

When you look back at your life, I bet you can think of quite a few situations that happened, things that seemed like setbacks, but of which you can now say, "I'm so glad that happened!" Everything happens for a reason. I believe that with my whole heart.

To put this in perspective, if you cooked these three meals at home instead of going out to eat, you'd save yourself, on average, 2,381 calories and 6,724 mg sodium over the course of just three nights.

Becoming a chef—and, yes, you can do this—will pay off in many, many ways. You will eat at home more, which is great for the waistline and the bottom line.