The Balanced Book Diet You Should Try

Know your literary carbs, fats, and proteins...

I was six years old, staring down a plate of something green and suspicious. I can't remember what it was—probably spinach or brussel sprouts—but I remember the standoff. My mom stood over me with that look that said this wasn't a negotiation.

"Steven, if you don't eat healthy foods, you're not going to grow."

That got my attention. My older sister was already six feet tall, and here I was in eighth grade, barely scraping 5'5". I needed to be taller than her. I couldn’t go into high school being shorter than my sister.

My mom was right. What you put into your body becomes what you are. Eat healthy, you’ll likely be healthy. Eat junk food, and your body will follow suit. Eating isn’t the thing that matters — you have to eat the right stuff.

The same principle applies to your mind. We act like all books are created equal. People think they're being healthy when they're really just eating refined sugar. "But I'm reading!" Yeah, and someone eating donuts is "eating food." Your brain, like your body, is built from what you consume.

The fitness world figured this out decades ago with something called macros—the idea that your body needs different types of fuel in the right proportions. Carbs for quick energy, protein for building muscle, fat for long-term fuel. Now every guy at the gym who can bench press his body weight thinks he's a nutritionist, obsessively tracking whether he hit his 40/30/30 split.

But here's the thing: those meatheads are onto something. They understand that what you eat determines what you become. It's time we applied the same logic to reading—because right now, most of us are living on the literary equivalent of Lucky Charms for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (me included).

Learn Your Literary Macros

I’m going to posit that your mind needs three types of fuel:

Carbs (Immediate Satisfaction): Genre fiction, comfort reads, anything that gives you that dopamine hit without much work. Thrillers, romance novels, fantasy escapism. Quick energy, easy to digest, immediately satisfying.

Protein (Brain Building): Classics, serious non-fiction, anything that makes your brain work harder. These books challenge you, stretch your vocabulary, force you to think in new ways. Harder to digest, require more effort, but they're literally building your intellectual muscle.

Fat (Long-term Nourishment): Poetry, philosophy, spiritual texts, memoirs that stick with you for years. These books change how you see the world. You return to them again and again. They fuel your soul for the long haul.

Here's the problem: most readers are eating 80% carbs with almost no protein or fat. They're binge-reading romance series, self-help books, thrillers, or sci-fi like someone eating cereal for every meal, then wondering why they feel intellectually malnourished.

Why Your Current Reading Diet Is Failing You

Walk into any bookstore and you'll see the literary equivalent of gas station food. The bestseller shelves are packed with reading energy drinks and candy bars—designed for immediate gratification, engineered to be consumed quickly, leaving you hungry again within hours.

BookTok has turned reading into an endless cycle of literary sugar crashes. Readers finish one romantasy novel and immediately reach for another, not because they're satisfied, but because they're still hungry. The book gave them a hit of dopamine, but no lasting nourishment.

This is what happens when you eat only carbs. You get immediate energy followed by a crash, then crave more of the same. Your body never learns to burn fat for sustained energy. Your muscles never get the protein they need to grow stronger.

Feed your mind only easy, immediately satisfying content, and it loses the ability to handle anything more challenging. Your attention span tanks. Deep ideas start to feel like a chore. Pretty soon, your brain just wants its next little dopamine snack.

The Reading Diet Worth Going On

But like our actual diet, we can make changes! The following numbers are rather arbitrary—you will have find what works for you. But here are some general guidelines for a healthy, balanced, literary diet:

40% Protein: A challenging book that makes you work. A classic you've been avoiding. A serious biography, philosophy that requires real thought. Something that builds your intellectual capacity.

30% Carbs: The fun stuff. Your guilty pleasure genres, comfort reads, the books that remind you why you love reading. These keep you engaged and provide mental downtime.

30% Fat: The books that nourish your soul. Poetry that makes you see differently, spiritual texts that challenge your assumptions, memoirs that expand your empathy. The slow-burning fuel that sustains you over time.

Notice what's missing from most people's diets: protein and fat. We've become a culture of literary carb-loading!

It ain’t easy. Nothing good ever is.

Reading challenging books is like going to the gym. It's uncomfortable at first, you might not see immediate results, and there are easier alternatives everywhere you look.

Most people avoid classics for the same reason they avoid the weight room—it requires effort, and the benefits aren't immediately obvious. Why struggle through Crime and Punishment when you could breeze through another fantasy series?

Because struggle is the point. Your brain only grows under resistance. That moment you reread a sentence three times and suddenly it clicks? That’s a mental PR. And you didn’t get it by skimming.

The readers who can handle Dostoevsky aren't smarter than us—they've just been doing intellectual push-ups while we’ve been in the drive thru line for the second time in one day.

Start slow — set yourself up for success.

Start where you are. If you're currently reading 90% “carb-like” books, don't immediately switch to Kant. You'll burn out and quit.

Instead, try this: for every two "carb" books you read, add one "protein" book. Pick a classic that's actually engaging—The Count of Monte Cristo instead of Ulysses.

Add some "fat" to your diet. Read a poet like Mary Oliver. Pick up a spiritual memoir like When Breath Becomes Air or Confessions. These books won't give you immediate satisfaction, but they'll stick with you in ways that surprise you.

Most importantly, pay attention to how different types of books make you feel. After a week of thriller novels, do you feel energized or drained? After reading something challenging, do you feel stronger or frustrated?

Your mind will tell you what it needs if you learn to listen.

The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think

This isn't just about becoming a better reader. It’s not just about books. It’s about how we raise kids, elect leaders, solve hard problems. A culture that can’t read hard things won’t survive hard things.

A culture that reads only for immediate satisfaction is a culture that thinks only in the short term. We become intellectually flabby, unable to handle complex ideas or sustained argument. We lose the capacity for deep thought, for sitting with difficulty, for growing through challenge.

My mom was right about those vegetables. What you put into your body becomes what you are. The same is true for your mind.