Disclaimer: I am in recovery from an eating disorder. In college, I suffered from Orthorexia/Exercise Bulimia and, at times, can exhibit some of those tendencies. I combat it by allowing myself to eat anything except the majority of animal products.  I am plant-based, not vegan, as I still eat pizza and honey, and if I want meat, I eat it. Once a commercial vegan cheese that can withstand high heat is created, I will no longer eat milk-based, cheese-covered pizza.

The tools you will need to begin not only Phase I, but needed throughout the next twelve months (and beyond):

• Food Scale
• Measuring Cup/Measuring Spoons
• Calorie Tracking app or analog journal
• Bodyweight scale
• All-cuisine cookbook
• PCP/GP approval for structured and non-structured exercise as well as weight loss
  • Labs
    • Baseline metabolic panel (Kidney/Liver function, Protein, HbA1c, Glucose, Red/White blood cell count, PSA for Men/Liquid Biopsy for Women)
    • Lipid panel
• Physical therapist exam with range of motion and balance testing
• DEXA scan or BOD POD for starting body fat percentage
• Registered dietitian consult for assistance with personal food philosophy
  • Not your diet because philosophy is general and foundational, and rarely changes unless it is incorrect for your personal needs
• If you are 40 or older and have health insurance, get a colon cancer screening kit or schedule a colonoscopy with a trusted gastroenterologist

The food scale is to familiarize yourself with volumetric weighing, especially if you do not want to use measuring cups or spoons. We often use our eyes to determine what is a good amount of food rather than a scale. However, you are consuming extra calories without even realizing it. A common example I use is rolled oats. Rolled oats are one of my favorite breakfast/pre-workout meals outside of dry cereal. I could eat oats most days if I had to do so. Almost every producer of old-fashioned, rolled oats states on their nutrition label that a serving size is 40 grams or 1/2 cup. I wanted to see if using a 1/2 cup was accurate, so I placed my bowl on the scale and poured 1/2 cup of oats into it. It was 60 grams!

For years before logging my meals, I had assumed I was eating the correct portion size. Instead, I was eating one and a half portions with each bowl of oats. That was an extra 75 calories unaccounted for in my daily accounting of personal nutrition. Over the course of a year, unaccounted calories add up. I began weighing all of my food after that.

People think it is weird or unusual to measure M&M’s or jelly beans or snack chips or crackers, but I want to be as accurate as possible when I log my meals and snacks. Food measuring is a starting point and will not be needed as you enter Year 2 and beyond. Using a scale is part of the program to get you used to what a portion size looks like for the staple foods in your diet. After a year of consistency with weighing your food, you will be able to go out to eat or to a party and know how much you are consuming with each serving with decent accuracy. This does not mean restriction; it means accountability.

Measuring cups and measuring spoons are also present to assist with portioning your foods and additives such as salt and oils. Unless you cook on a consistent basis, you have no idea what a tablespoon of oil looks like. Additionally, I am a cook and baker. Using measuring utensils has made me a better chef as I know when I taste something that I have used too much or too little of an ingredient.

I strongly advise you to use a calorie-tracking application on your phone or computer. If you do not have a phone or home computer, miniature journals/notebooks and pens are sold at any department store. You can enter information manually.

Using a calorie-tracking application allows all your data to be exported into a spreadsheet. If you have basic spreadsheet skills, you can total your macros, see daily, weekly, or monthly trends, and determine areas of improvement or adjustment. I was aware of MyFitnessPal, but always thought I could get by without it. Then came the rolled oats measuring fiasco mentioned above, and I knew I needed to start logging all of my food. I pay for the premium version as it unlocks additional features such as recipe tracking.

NOTE: This is not a paid endorsement of MyFitnessPal. It is what I use for my weight management, but there are other applications such as Carbon that will do the same thing, if not more so.

I am a data person; therefore, the more data I can see, the better I am at making decisions for myself as those decisions are no longer guided by feelings, but by concrete numbers.

You will use a bodyweight scale to mark the starting point of your weight as well as the day you officially begin your twelve-month journey. I always start a task either the first of the following month or on a Monday if it is something that I want to incorporate immediately. Using the calendar to track your progress is better than guessing your progress.

I watch a lot of YouTube and get weight-loss videos recommended to me constantly. I watched one with a creator who reacts to morbidly obese television content. This creator chronicled the delusion of a woman who was working toward gastric bypass surgery who swore she had lost over 100 pounds off of her 600-pound-plus frame. When the scale registered a twenty-three-pound loss – after two months, when the expectation was fifty pounds – the woman swore the scale was broken and that she knew she had lost more weight. A functional scale, whether digital or analog, does not lie. This is a distinct data point for your progress.

Do not become a prisoner to the scale.  It is a data point, not a measure of your self-worth.

Professional fighters, horse jockeys, bodybuilders, and in some cases, professional athletes are the only members of society that may need a daily or weekly weigh-in. With some professional athletes, their bonuses are tied to maintenance of their weight. I suggest a monthly weigh-in, but understand if you would like to do a weekly weigh-in. Weigh in once per week: the goal is to know your progress, not be a slave to the scale.  The scale is a data point, not a self-flagellation tool. However, if you are someone who struggles with their mental health or has obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I strongly advise against daily weigh-ins. If you are not a professional athlete or training for a specific athletic event where you need to weigh a specific amount come Contest Day, then do not weigh in daily. Most people’s weight will shift daily based on many factors, but particularly hydration. You do not want to sabotage your progress because you gained a pound or two from yesterday’s weigh-in.

Monthly weigh-ins are the preference. “What happened the last 30 days?” is how you should approach the next twelve months. One of the biggest cues outside the scale is how your clothes fit you. The scale may not move as much as you want it to when you first begin the program, but your clothes will tell a different story.

As I have said to many friends, family, and clients: it is better to be overweight than overfat.

Borrow from a friend or family member who enjoys cooking or go to an online or brick-and-mortar bookstore for an all-cuisine cookbook. Watch cooking shows or videos, read cooking and food blogs if you do not want to spend money. There are literally millions of resources available for a person to learn how to cook. Learning how to cook is one of the foundations of this program and will be transferred to the maintenance phase and beyond. If you know how to cook, then you know what the base ingredients of any processed food you buy at the grocery store or when you dine out are. If you know how to cook, then you will have an idea of how much oil was used to make something taste the way it does. If you know how to cook, then you will know how much salt could have been used if you were making a dish instead of eating it at a restaurant.

I am not anti-eating out or against processed food. I enjoy eating out once in a while and will often do so when I drive or fly to see family members who live out-of-state. I still buy processed food because sometimes I want something from the microwave or air fryer that will satisfy my hunger quickly. However, if I have access to a kitchen, I prefer to use it instead of someone cooking or preparing my meal for me.

If you have health insurance, then make sure you get clearance to begin a structured (certified personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach) or non-structured (self-driven) exercise program. If you do not have health insurance, you may be able to get a discount from a provider if you pay in cash, or you can use the minute clinics provided by major retailers like CVS, Walgreens, or Walmart. If you have a pre-existing condition – high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. – you want to understand your limitations and your trainer needs to be insulated from liability. Non-disclosure of pre-existing conditions could be a matter of life or death in certain instances.

Along with clearance from a medical provider, you will need a baseline metabolic panel consisting of various blood tests. These tests include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Kidney and Liver function
• Pituitary gland function
• A1c
• Fasting glucose
• Lipid panel
• PSA for men or a liquid biopsy for women

Optional, but highly advised: You are not required to do this, but after working as a physical therapy technician, I would advise you to see a PT to get a list of your range of motion at the shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle joints. Additionally, a PT can perform baseline balance/proprioception testing to alert you and/or your trainer to instabilities in your gait or movement.

A DEXA scan or “Bod Pod” test is advised whether insured or uninsured. Whether you use a search engine or discount services websites like Groupon, there are health and wellness service providers outside of insured medicine that will conduct these tests. These tests are for a baseline measurement. If you are over 25% body fat as a man and over 30% as a woman, then you need to know how far you are from that measure.

NOTE: these are arbitrary body fat percentage numbers and are by no means your goal percentage. However, based on weight and BMI, these are numbers that are easily managed by the average participant.

Finally, if you can afford at least one consultation or if a referral is covered by your health insurance or if your employer provides EAP/wellness services in addition to health insurance, then make an appointment to visit with a registered dietitian. Most dietitians will have an “About Me” section on their webpage or company bio; or you can call them to discuss their philosophy to ensure this one visit aligns with your own philosophy and future maintenance goals. Example: if you are vegan, but the dietitian swears by animal protein in order to maintain iron levels, then they are not the one for you. If your dietitian swears by the Ketogenic diet, but you will not live your life without bread, potatoes, and rice, then they are not the one for you. If the dietitian is dogmatic and inflexible to new ideas or how you view your day-to-day needs, then it is not a good fit for you, and you have wasted your money. They are paid professionals and should be able to guide almost anyone in establishing a balanced diet that does not restrict food from you. This information should not come primarily from a fitness professional. They do not have your day-to-day challenges, and it is their job to look a certain way. Additionally, unless you are a bodybuilder, you do not need to worry about “eating clean.” You need to concern yourself with moderation.

Optional, but highly encouraged: If you are forty years of age or older, then get screened for colon cancer or schedule a colonoscopy. Every year the minimum age for screening drops. It was fifty years old; now it is forty-five years of age. Since we as a society are getting more and more overweight and obese each year, the minimum age will drop again, probably to forty. As a colon cancer survivor (Stage 3A), I spent the last five years being poked and prodded for blood samples, having to get CT scans and monitoring/preventative colonoscopies, and most importantly, having to do chemotherapy. If you can avoid those by getting an advanced screening, then you will save yourself medical visits as well as out-of-pocket, uncovered medical expenses. In the five years of post-operative monitoring (you are not considered in remission until you are five years post-op), I spent $10,000 to $15,000 on visits and modalities not covered by insurance. That is money I could have saved or used to pay debt.

After you have gathered all of your tools and received baseline data for your health, you will maintain your current sources of food for intake. The difference: now, you have to measure your portions and document them in an app or analog notebook. It seems counterintuitive to continue eating in a way that helped your weight proceed to its current state, but the process is to meet people where they are rather than forcing them to go cold turkey on foods they normally eat.

If you normally eat fast food every day, then you will continue to do so, but in moderation. If you normally eat sugar-sweetened cereal, you will have to portion every serving. If you drink soda by the liter bottle, then you will place your glass on a food scale and set the measurement to milliliters to understand how much you are actually consuming.

The goal in this phase is to understand portion sizes and how they relate to hunger. As I developed this plan, I used myself as the test subject. One of the immediate concerns I noticed is that I thought I had a good idea of what a portion is and is not. I did not. I will never forget the first time I measured peanut M&Ms and Sour Patch Watermelon candies. Seeing an actual portion size instead of eating out of the bag opened my eyes to how much extra food I was consuming, but more importantly, made me understand the difference between eating to satiety and eating to the stretch on the stomach muscle.

Eating to satiety has to do with how your mind perceives fullness; eating to the stretch on your stomach muscle has to do with a physiological feeling in your midsection. “My stomach is so full I have to let my pants out in order to feel comfortable. I know I have had enough to eat.” Many people have been taught that the physiological feeling is more important than the mindful approach to feelings of fullness. The creation of processed foods has pushed people to value the physiological feeling as well. This is where an increase in dietary fiber consumption comes into play.

We have been told by doctors, influencers, and fitness fanatics that the most important aspect of healthy eating is protein consumption. I disagree. The most important aspect of healthy eating is fiber. Not fiber from a pill or gummy, but fiber from fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods. Protein is needed, but not in the quantities that are currently being pushed.

Unless you compete in CrossFit, Hyrox, marathons/ultramarathons, triathlons, bodybuilding, or are a semi-professional or professional athlete, your protein needs are minimal.

“Minimal” is specific to each person. You may feel better physically eating more protein, but it is the scale of consumption which is most important. I work out at least two, but no more than five, times per week, with each session lasting about one hour. My RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) on a scale of 1 (walking) to 10 (Metcon workout) averages about 6-8 each workout. I am simply not breaking down or catabolizing enough lean muscle tissue to justify eating more than 100g of protein each day. If I were training for the marathon as I was three years ago, then I might adjust upward. Even still, the number would probably not be more than another 25g of protein.

“Where do you get your protein?!?” is what I hear often from people who are skeptical of how I eat. I eat a variety of foods and make sure my calorie consumption is high enough I get my minimal protein needs met each day. Again, my minimal is different from your minimal.

“Plant protein is not as bioavailable as animal protein.” It is true that proteins from plants might have to be liberated from their fibrous shells/seeds before uptake in the gut, but I point to the fact that amino acids, whether from plants or animals, are the same. There is no plant scale or animal scale of amino acids. My kidneys have to do the same amount of processing whether my 100g comes from plants or poultry, fish, beef, and pork.

This is not to push an agenda. I am plant-based and eat this way because it is sustainable and helps to decrease the chances of my colon cancer reoccurring. I advocate for more fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and fermented foods because they are nature’s natural GLP-1s. If these foods are combined with your average meal – breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack – then your body will accurately signal to your mind you are satisfied and do not need to eat more. If this involves eating animal products, then that is what works best for you and you alone. More on GLP-1s later.

* Hunger Scale 1 -10 (1 = Not registering to 10 = Famished)