Dieting as we know it does not work. In fact, 97% of people who diet do not end up losing weight and keeping it off, according to Dr. Pam Popper, founder and Executive Director of The Wellness Forum. Dr. Popper, who published the diet-altering guide Food Over Medicine earlier in 2013, lays it out simply: Calorie counting and portion control really have no effect if you are eating the wrong foods.

“Get the word ‘diet’ out of your vocabulary,” Dr. Popper says. “This isn’t some temporary thing where you use willpower to eat the right things until you lose the weight. We’re going back to the diet that you were engineered to eat: a plant-centered diet. It’s not necessarily vegan, but most of your calories are going to come from fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.”

Food Over Medicine guides readers to carefully select and prepare the foods that ward off disease and obesity and promote a healthful, energetic lifestyle.

“When you do that, you can eat with careless abandon, and while you do that you’re going to lose 2 or 3 pounds a week until you hit your target weight without ever counting a portion again,” Dr. Popper explains. “You’re going to be lean for the rest of your life.”

Jan Withers began speaking at drunk-driving victim impact panels following her daughter’s death as a result of a drunk-driving accident in 1992. Over time, Withers’ involvement with the cause only deepened. Her platform was simple: drunk-driving deaths do not need to be a part of life — they are 100% preventable.

Withers is now the National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization that aims to stop drunk driving, support drunk-driving victims and prevent underage drinking. MADD is one of the largest victim-services organizations in the country with 1,400+ certified victim advocates across the U.S.

Still, 27 people are killed due to drunk driving every day in the U.S. — a total of nearly 10,000 lives annually. MADD’s volunteers not only offer support and counseling, but also push for improved legislation and better education to help curb this unfortunate epidemic.

“People believe that this issue has been solved,” Withers explains. “There is such awareness now about ‘designated driver,’ ‘don’t drink and drive’ — all of [MADD's] messages. It has definitely not been solved. One life is one life too many. We won’t stop until there are no lives lost to drunk driving.”