In L.A., I get a meal delivery service called Diet Designs. I

When Fergie said, “In L.A., I get a meal delivery service called Diet Designs. I like a nice butter lettuce salad with some avocado, fresh grapefruit, shredded chicken breast and raw almond slices with a sesame vinaigrette dressing. I also love juicing and am kind of obsessed with it,” she was not merely describing her meals—she was revealing a truth about the modern pursuit of balance, beauty, and self-mastery. Beneath her words lies the echo of an ancient discipline: the effort to live consciously, to nourish both body and spirit with care and attention. In her ritual of chosen foods, we see not vanity, but the eternal human desire to cultivate harmony within the self.

The ancients would have recognized this devotion as part of the art of living well. In the teachings of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, food was not only sustenance but philosophy: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” To choose what enters the body was to practice wisdom itself. So when Fergie speaks of “Diet Designs,” we might hear in her words the echo of that same ideal—the shaping of life through intention, the design of diet as the design of destiny. The meal she describes is not accidental; it is the product of awareness, of taste guided by purpose, of pleasure balanced with restraint.

Her description of the butter lettuce salad, of avocado and fresh grapefruit, is almost poetic in its harmony—sweet balanced with savory, richness softened by light. This is not merely food; it is a metaphor for equilibrium. The ancients often used the image of balance to describe virtue. Just as a meal must contain both nourishment and delight, a soul must hold both passion and peace. The one who learns to balance the senses does not fall prey to gluttony or denial; they walk the golden mean, the path Aristotle praised as the highest form of wisdom. Fergie’s devotion to such choices reveals not indulgence, but the mindfulness that sustains health and grace.

When she admits that she is “kind of obsessed with juicing,” we hear both the devotion and the danger of modern wellness—the yearning to perfect what is already whole. The ancients, too, knew this peril. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus warned against becoming a slave to routine, reminding his students that virtue lies not in rigid control but in conscious freedom. The body is sacred, but obsession—even with purity—can turn health into vanity. Yet, to love the act of care, to find joy in the ritual of nourishment, is also an act of reverence. Her “obsession,” then, may not be compulsion but celebration—a modern liturgy of the self, where each glass of juice becomes an offering to vitality.

The city of Los Angeles, where she lives, is itself a symbol of this dual nature—a place where image and authenticity wrestle, where discipline and indulgence coexist. To thrive there, one must learn what the ancients called autarkeia—self-sufficiency of the spirit. Fergie’s careful attention to diet and design is not only an aesthetic choice, but a way to protect her equilibrium amid chaos. Just as monks once withdrew to the desert to preserve their spirit, so does the modern individual retreat into habits of care—diet, meditation, movement—to maintain clarity in a world of noise.

There is also a subtler lesson within her words: the recognition that beauty is a form of discipline. The ancients did not separate the beautiful from the good. To care for the body was not vanity, but virtue, for it honored the divine order of nature. The philosopher Plotinus wrote that one must “sculpt the soul” as an artist sculpts marble, removing excess until only harmony remains. Fergie’s salad, her juicing, her thoughtful design of meals—all reflect this same principle of artistic self-creation. Through mindful practice, she sculpts herself—body, mind, and spirit—into balance.

And so, the wisdom of her words extends beyond the table. To live well is to live deliberately—to choose not only what we eat, but what we consume in thought and emotion. Each choice, small or great, shapes the pattern of our being. The lesson is not to imitate her diet, but to embrace her intention: to treat life as design, not accident. Eat with awareness. Move with purpose. Celebrate what sustains you, and do not apologize for your rituals of care.

For as Fergie reminds us, the body is not a burden but a vessel—a temple for the spirit’s expression. To feed it with attention is to honor the life within. The ancients would call this kalokagathia—the unity of beauty and goodness. And when one lives in this harmony, whether through a humble salad or a sacred habit, one partakes in the oldest wisdom of all: that health, like art, is not an achievement, but a practice—a daily act of love for the miracle of being alive.