Dr. Mike’s 7 Step Weight Loss Plan - Amazon Web …networkmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/products/seminars/7steps_final.pdf · prevents you from falling in the Feast & Famine cycle of eating

Dr. Mike’s

7 Step Weight Loss Plan

Michael A. Roussell, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2011 by Michael A. Roussell, PhD

All rights reserved.

No portion of this manual may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic or mechanical, including fax, photocopy, recording, or any information

storage and retrieval system by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This

manual may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of

Michael A. Roussell, except in the case of a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages

for the sake of a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or journal—and

these cases require written approval from Michael A. Roussell prior to publication.

For more information, please contact:

Address: Naked Nutrition

111 Sowers Street

Suite 514

State College, PA 16801

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: http://mikeroussell.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/mikeroussell

Facebook: http://facebook.com/nutritionphd

Youtube: http://youtube.com/mikeroussell

PLEASE READ

The information in this book is offered for educational purposes only. The author is

not engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader.

The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a

substitute for consulting with your physician. All matters regarding your health

require medical supervision. The author shall not be liable or responsible for any

loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.

Mike Roussell, PhD

Author, speaker, and nutritional consultant Mike Roussell, PhD is known for transforming complex nutritional

concepts into practical nutritional habits that his clients can use to ensure permanent weight loss and long lasting

health. Dr. Mike holds a bachelor degree in biochemistry from Hobart College and a doctorate in nutrition from

Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Mike’s doctoral training was based in one of the country’s top nutritional science

clinical research centers. It was here that he spent countless hours developing and honing the skills required to create

and manipulate nutritional meal plans to elicit specific biochemical changes in the body.

Dr. Roussell’s robust academic background coupled with his broad range of experience from consulting with

pharmaceutical and food companies, medical schools, top rated fitness facilities, and individual clients give him the

unique ability to translate scientific findings into relevant, understandable, and actionable strategies. This has made

Dr. Mike a sought after expert contributor to both national print publications and leading online fitness outlets such

as Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Experience Life, Volleyball, Dick’s Sporting Goods Game On, Ironman, Muscle &

Fitness magazines, T-Nation.com, LiveStrong.com, ShapeUpAmerica.org, Shape.com and Bodybuilding.com. Dr.

Mike writes the weekly “Ask The Diet Doctor” column at Shape.com as well as the biweekly “Ask The Macro

Manager” at Bodybuilding.com. He authored the book Your Naked Nutrition Guide (2007) and The 6 Pillars of

Nutrition (2011) in addition to serving as the nutritionist for Power Training (Rodale, 2007), Strength Training

Cardio (Rodale, 2010), and the Women’s Health Big Book of Abs (In Press). Dr. Mike maintains a popular diet and

nutrition blog at MikeRoussell.com

7StepHotSheets

Add a Snack of Almonds or Another Nut

The first step in your 7 Step Weight Loss plan is adding a healthy snack, we are using nuts. Nuts are a great snack because they are portable, convenient, easily portioned, and contain an ideal nutritional profile.

Research that has looked at replacing traditional snacks foods like pretzels and oatmeal cookies with nuts such as almonds or pistachios show that making this switch will lead to increased weight loss and improvements in cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Nutritionally, nuts are a great snack because they contain fiber, protein, and fat - what I call the feeling full trifecta. Fiber, protein, and fat all work to slow down how fast you digest your food, even out your blood sugar levels, and release compounds that signal your body that you are full and satisfied.

How Much to Snack On? Shoot for 1 oz of nuts. You don’t have to weight out exact amount of nuts; the habit that we are developing is

more important than if you have 0.7, 1.0, or 1.2 oz of nuts.

If you are eating cashews or almonds you’ll want to have about 20 nuts. If you are having pistachios then you can have about 50.

What to Buy? Raw or Dry Roasted - When buying nuts you want to avoid anything described as candied or honey roasted. These versions of nuts are coated with sugar which essentially negates the health benefits of the snack.

If you are buying nuts in the bulk food section of your grocery store, purchase nuts described as raw or dry roasted.

Emerald Nuts Smoked Almonds and Everybody’s Nuts Pistachios flavored pistachios are lightly flavored versions of almonds and pistachios. Everybody’s Nuts have a very small amount of added sugar, but the their flavors are delicious and are good change of pace if you need to mix it up.

Step 1: Snack on Nuts

Let’s Develop Proactive Eating Behaviors,

Not Re-Active Ones

The second step in your 7 Step Weight Loss Plan is all about portion control. Over the last 20 years the portion sizes of many common pre-portioned foods like bagels and beverages have more than doubled. 20 years ago a bagel was only 3 inches in diameter and 140 calories. Now, bagels are 6 inches in diameter and 350 calories.

In later Steps we will manipulate the types of calories you are eating to further control portion size, but right now we need to get the total amount of calories you are eating in check. The Eat and Eat Again Rule is a very easy way to do so.

The Rule The Eat and Eat Again Rule is simple. You can eat as much as you want at a given meal as long as you are willing to eat that same amount of food 2-3 hours later.

Looking at your meal size in this way prevents you from falling in the Feast & Famine cycle of eating. This is

when you eat a large meal and then are so full you don’t eat again for the rest of the day.

The Eat and Eat Again Rule is a pro-active behavior. It is something that you do in the moment while your are about to sit down and eat. It directly impacts how much you will eat at that moment compared to using a food journal to count calories which provides you information about what you’ve eaten, after you’ve already eaten it.

What to Do? Apply the Rule! Putting this in action is very simple. Right now we’re not concerned about changing what you’re eating (we’ll get to that in later steps). Right now, we are working on portion control and sizes.

Apply the Eat and Eat Again Rule to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For most people lunch and dinner are their larger meals so it is very important to put this rule into action then.

This rule is also a good guideline when eating out. Restaurant portion sizes are routinely too big. So when your sever brings your plate, look at it and say “Could I eat this whole thing again in 2 hours?”

Step 2: Eat & Eat Again

Remove Empty Calories to Effortlessly Cut Calories and Improve Your Health

The third step in your 7 Step Weight Loss Plan is a double whammy. It is aimed at shrinking your waistline and improving your health. The fourth largest contributor of calories to the average American’s diet is calorie containing beverages. This includes sodas, energy drinks, sports drinks, sweetened teas, and sweetened bottled waters.

These beverages don’t do anything for you! You don’t feel full after you have them and by having a calorie containing beverage with you meal ,you’re going to end up consuming more calories.

I’m convinced that drinking simple sugars, like the ones found in these beverages is the worst thing you can do for your health. They send you on an energy roller coaster ride and they manipulate your body’s hormonal profile making it harder for you to lose weight.

How to Stop Drinking Calories Step 1: Find out how many sweetened

beverages you are drinking each day. Remove one completely and replace it with water. Take another one of your sweetened beverages and replace it with the ‘diet’ version (you can find the diet version of just about anything). Do this for 1 week.

Step 2: The following week, we’ll start to transition you away from calorie containing drinks even more. Replace your ‘diet’ drink with water or tea. Replace another one of your sweetened beverages with the ‘diet’ version.

Step 3: Repeat the process until you have completely eliminated calorie containing and sweetened beverages from your diet.

What to Drink Instead? When you stop drinking empty calories you’re going need something to drink instead. You have more options than you think. Water is first on the list but beyond water you can have seltzer water, tea, iced tea (check out Lipton Cold Brew tea for a fast way to make iced tea, even at work). Iced green or herbal teas are also great choices. Water with lemon is another simple way to add flavor without calories.

Step 3: Empty Calories

Rebuilding Your Plate

The fourth step in your 7 Step Weight Loss Plan presents the biggest change so far to your diet.

Your Plate Landscape Your plate will look different depending on the time of day.

2 of your 3 meals contain fruits/vegetables with no starchy carbohydrates.

1 of your 3 meals contain starchy carbohydrates and fruits/vegetables. This meal should be either breakfast or the meal directly following an exercise session (preferably following exercise).

Protein for All Occasions In this step, you are going to make sure that you are eating protein at every meal. Here is a list of protein based foods to choose from:

Eggs/egg whites

Poultry

Pork

White or oily fish

Lean beef

Green Yogurt

Cottage cheese

Protein Powders

Lean chicken or turkey sausage

Ideal Starchy Carbohydrates There are lots of different kinds of starchy carbohydrates. Here is a list of the ideal ones to choose.

Brown rice Quinoa Yams & Potatoes Oats Whole wheat pastas Corn tortillas Sprouted grain products (ex:

Ezekiel bread or cereal)

Fruits & Vegetables Essentially all fruits and vegetables are fair game for you to eat. If you want to focus on particular groups of fruits and vegetables to eat, then focus on the big three - green leafy, fibrous, and berries.

Green leafy vegetables are foods like lettuce, spinach, and kale.

Fibrous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.

Berries (is pretty self-explanatory) eat blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries - fresh or frozen.

Step 4: Portion & Protein

Shifting Your Food Choices for a Leaner Body and

Better Health

In the previous steps of this program we’ve made both simple and more involved additions and modifications to your diet. In this step we are going to make a more subtle switch that will have a significant impact on your health and waistline.

By moving your diet from foods that have barcodes to foods that you put into bags, you will be increasing the freshness and quality of your diet immensely.

This shift will also remove excess salt, preservatives, and sugars. From a weight loss perspective, this will help you flush out extra water weight that your body might be holding onto, while also removing dietary additives that are increasing your risk for certain types of cancer and diabetes.

Foods with Barcodes to Leave On The Shelf Here are common types of foods that come with barcodes as well as added sugars, preservatives, stabilizers, additives, food dyes, and more. Let’s

get them out of your diet.

Boxed rice/pasta dishes Processed and preserved meats Cookies and crackers Cake and muffin mixes Overly salted and preserved foods

(frozen or canned)

Foods to Put Into Bags It is time to bag up some fresh nutrient dense foods. Here is a list of the types of foods you want to be switching to:

Fresh Vegetables Fresh Fruits Unprocessed meats & poultry Nuts & Seeds Unprocessed Grains (Quinoa,

Brown rice, etc)

Barcodes to Bags In Action Take a look at your grocery list. What foods can last in your cupboard for months? Is there a fresher version?

Are you buying any boxed/premade meals or dishes? How can you replace these with fresher versions?

Are all the meats that you are buying preservative free?

Identify the places on your shopping list where you can make the switch from barcodes to bags.

Step 5: Barcodes to Bags

Adding Quality Nutrient Dense Calories

If you have truthfully put the last 2 steps of your 7 Step Weight Loss Plan into action then you are eating significantly less calories than you were at the beginning of the program. Now we are going to add some of those calories back to help curb your appetite so that you can keep your main meals reasonably portioned.

If you remember back to the first step of the program we used nuts as a snack because they contained the feeling full trifecta - Fiber, protein, and fat. We are going to accomplish the same thing with the fruit and fat snack.

Fruit Fruit is portable, convenient, pre-portioned, and full of antioxidants as well as some fiber and low impact carbohydrates. Here is a list of fruits to choose from:

Small apple

Peach

Pear

Plum

Tangerine/Clementine

Grapes

Strawberries

Kiwi

Fat Containing Foods The fat containing foods that you are going to be combining with your fruit are primarily nuts, cheese, and natural nut butters (peanut butter, almond, butter, etc). These foods are low in sugar and contain fat and protein for consistent energy and to curb hunger cravings.

Planned Snacking Add one fruit and fat combination snack to your day. If you are having the nut snack in the morning then have a small apple and a piece of string cheese in the mid-afternoon.

Remember that planned snacking is good and will help your weight loss. It is the unplanned unregulated snacking that gets us into trouble.

Step 6: Fruit & Fat Snack

No Matter How Good the Plan, You Need to Follow It

The seventh and final step in your 7 Step Weight Loss Plan doesn’t include any new additions to your diet plan, it is here to make sure that you actually follow the plan and develop the habits that were outline in the previous 6 steps.

The Weight Loss Will Come You don’t actually have direct control over your body’s ability released stored fat and using it as energy. But you do have control over your habits and actions that will cause your body to lose weight.

This is why this entire program is centered on developing and focusing on healthy habits and actions. Consistently do the things outline in this program and the weight will come off.

Tracking Your Adherence Since it is your daily habits and actions that will determine your weight loss, we need to track how well and consistently you are carrying out these habits.

This is where your tracking sheets come into play. You are to select 2

habits to focus on, only two, for 14 days. If you can successfully execute these habits each day for 14 days, then you can select 2 new habits to focus on. Each day you will still execute the habits that you previously mastered but now you will have 2 more habits on your daily action list.

Continue in this fashion until you have all 6 habits mastered. If at anytime you falter in executing any of the daily habits, just put that habit back on your active habit list.

Use the adherence charts included with this program for simple tracking of your progress.

Your Long Term Success Creating the nutritional foundation that is laid out in this 7 Step Weight Loss Plan is essential in your long term success.

The habits of eating fruits and vegetables at each meal, snacking on foods that support sustained energy and curb hunger, while fueling your body with nutrient rich foods is essential no matter what your health and fitness goals become after you graduate from this program.

Step 7: Tracking

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21WaystoEatMore

Vegetables

Dr. Mike’s 7-Step Weight Loss Plan

M i k e R o u s s e l l . c o m Page 1

21WaystoEatMoreVegetables

What is the one thing that you can do to improve your diet, lose more weight, and boost your

health? Eat more vegetables. It sounds pretty simple right? Not necessarily ground breaking

information as I’m sure you’ve been told to eat more vegetables ever since you were born.

Despite being constantly barraged with messages of ‘eat more vegetables,’ whether from the

government via their woefully unsuccessful public health campaigns or my own 3rd Pillar of

Nutrition, you know that you should be eating lots of vegetables.

Recently a member emailed me to ask “How?” They knew they should be eating more

vegetables but weren’t sure how? Maybe you have found yourself in the same boat. The

sticking point is in the how, and you’re not looking for advice like “try a spinach salad.” Let me

help. I have put together 21 novel and delicious ways that you can prepare and eat vegetables.

Kale Chips – This is one of this issue’s Recipes of the Month (See page 12). Toss two large

handfuls of chopped and washed kale in a bowl with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Line

baking sheet with tin foil and bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes. People say they are like

potato chips ‐ I’m not going to lie, they don’t taste like Pringles but they are addictive and really

good.

Sautéed Kale ‐ Another simple way to prepare kale is to sauté it. Place 1 TBSP of extra virgin

olive oil in a frying pan with 2 cloves of minced garlic over medium heat. Let the oil warm and

the garlic cook until the garlic begins to tan. Add as much kale to the frying pan as it can handle.

Using a pair of tongs (you can use a spatula but tongs are much easier) occasionally move the

kale around so that it cooks evenly. Continue to cook until the kale is wilted and the stems have

softened. Season with salt/pepper and enjoy.

Spicy Coconut Spinach ‐ Sautéing leafy greens is a great way to eat more of them since they

shrink in size significantly, especially spinach. This is a favorite in our household. Place a small



about of canola oil in a non stick pan over a medium heat. Add 1‐2 cloves of minced garlic and

heat until garlic begins to tan. Add 3 large handful of washed baby spinach. Just like with the

sautéed kale, use a pair of tongs to move the spinach around so that it cooks evenly. Once the

spinach is about halfway wilted add 1/2 cup of coconut milk and 1‐2 tsp of

Sriracha sauce (Thai garlic chili sauce). Simmer until spinach is completely wilted.

Stuffed Italian Peppers ‐ This recipe makes 4 large servings that will leave you wondering how

it can be only 500 calories. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a medium sized sauce pan over

medium heat; add 1 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil and 12 ounces of 95% lean ground beef. With

a spatula, break up the ground beef and cook until the beef is browned. Drain off excess fat and

place the beef in a bowl. Return the pan to medium heat, add 2 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil

and 2 minced cloves of garlic. Once garlic is tan (not burned), add 4 small zucchinis (cut into

small pieces) and one diced onion. Sauté until the onions become translucent. Add ground beef

back to the frying pan, a 24 oz jar of pasta sauce, and 2 large handfuls of baby spinach. Turn

heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, slice the tops off the

peppers and remove the core, seeds, and white membrane from inside all of the peppers. Place

peppers in a 9x13 baking dish with ¼ in water at the bottom of the pan. Fill each pepper with

meat/vegetable sauce. Bake in the over for 30 minutes. Spoon 1 TBSP of cheese onto each

pepper; bake for another 10 minutes.

Roasted Eggplant & Portabella Mushroom Strips ‐ Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut 2

portabella mushroom caps into 1/4‐1/2 inch wide strips. Next cut up a small eggplant into

similarly sized strips. Toss with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried parsley. Place in a

baking dish and bake for 25 minutes.

Roasted Carrots & Parsnips ‐ Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut 5‐6 carrots and 5‐6 parsnips

into French fry sized strips. Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh minced rosemary. Spread

the carrots and parsnips out on a cookie sheet and baked for 20 minutes.



Mashed Yams & Butternut Squash ‐ Peel 3 yams into large chunks. Steam in a stove top

vegetable steamer until fork tender (steaming yams is preferred over boiling them as you would

regular potatoes because yams have a lower starch content and thus don’t withstand rigors of

boiling). While the yams are steaming, defrost one frozen 12oz box of winter/butternut squash

in the microwave. Once the squash is defrosted and yams are steamed fork tender, place them

together in a bowl. Season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and a tablespoon of smart

balance or butter. Using a hand blender or kitchen mixer, blend everything together until

smooth. For a little added sweetness, add 1‐2 tsp of Brown Xylitol ‘Sugar’ by Ideal.

Fresh broccoli w/creamy onion dip ‐ This is a great snack food that is packed with added

protein making it the perfect snack. Combine 2/3 cup cottage cheese, ½ cup low fat sour cream,

1 TBSP Lipton onion soup mix, and ½ cup low sodium canned chickpeas that have been rinsed.

Using a hand mixer or blender, blend until smooth, adding more onion soup mix to taste. Wash

and cut fresh broccoli florets to dip.

Cucumber / Tomato Salad ‐ This salad is a great alternative for when you are sick of

spinach/lettuce based salads. Peel two cucumbers, cut them in half lengthwise. Using a spoon,

remove and discard the seeds. Cut the cucumber into slices. Next rinse one pint of cherry

tomatoes, dry, and cut each tomato in half. Toss cucumbers and tomatoes in a bowl with salt,

pepper, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and 2‐3 minced basil leaves.

Sweet Potato Fries ‐ Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut 3 yams/sweet potatoes into fresh

fry like pieces (cutting them into thin ‘rounds also works really well). Toss in bowl with canola

oil, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Arrange on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 20‐

25 minutes, flipping the fries halfway through.

Caramelized Onions ‐ Caramelized onions are a great dish to prepare on the weekend when

you have a little more time and you can enjoy them in various dishes (in omelets is one of my

favorite ways) throughout the week. Cut 2‐3 onions in half and then in thin slices. Break up the

onion slices so that you have a large pile of crescent moon shaped onion pieces. Place the onion



pieces in a non stick pan over medium/low heat with 1 TBSP of butter. Cook for approximately

15 minutes, occasionally stirring. The pile of onions should reduce significantly (by 60‐70%) and

turn a deep caramel color.

Sautéed Spicy Cabbage ‐ Place 1 TBSP toasted sesame seed oil in a frying pan with 2 cloves of

minced garlic over medium heat. Let the oil warm and the garlic cook until the garlic begins to

tan. Add 4 cups of shredded green cabbage and 1‐2 tsp of Sriracha sauce (Thai garlic chili

sauce). Stirring often, cook until cabbage softens and becomes translucent.

Wedge Salad ‐ This is a lower calorie spin on a classic salad which normally is served drenched

in blue cheese dressing and bacon bits. Cut a head of iceburg lettuce into thirds, saving two‐

thirds for another meal. Cook two slices of all natural turkey bacon (I like Applegate Farms) in a

frying pan. Once the bacon is cooked, cut up into little pieces. Dice one tomato and one

scallion. Top iceburg lettuce with 1 TBSP of real blue cheese salad dressing (reduced fat and fat

free salad dressing are full of so many additives that you are better off just eating less of the

real thing), bacon pieces, scallion, tomato. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Smoothie ‐ Here is a 300 calorie version of a personal favorite nutrient optimized

shake which has previously been featured as a Recipe of the Month. Mix together in a blender:

½ scoop vanilla protein powder, 2 TBSP walnuts, ¼ cup low fat cottage cheese, 2 TBSP flaxseed

meal, 2/3 cup canned pumpkin, 1 ½ cups water, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp cloves, 1 tsp all spice, 3

ice cubes. Blend until smooth add more water for a thinner shake or more ice for a thicker

shake.

Roasted Red Peppers ‐ Roasted red peppers are much like caramelized onions as they take

some time to prepare but are great to have around as an add‐on for various dishes and snacks

throughout the week. Cut 3 red bell peppers in half lengthwise. Remove stem, core, seeds, and

the white strips of membrane lining the inside of the peppers. Place on a baking pan under the

broiler until the skin of the peppers have been well charred. Remove the peppers from the

broiler and immediately place charred peppers on a plate and cover with a bowl or tin foil. Let



sit for 15 minutes. Next uncover the peppers, and remove the outer charred skin (it should peel

off relatively easily). Cut the peppers into strips and store in the refrigerator until ready to eat.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts ‐ Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut 10‐15 Brussels sprouts in half and

toss in a bowl with a TBSP of balsamic vinegar. Arrange sprouts on a baking sheet with the cut

side down. Season with salt, pepper, and bake for 20 minutes.

Roasted Peppers & Onions ‐ Cut 2 bell peppers (green, red, yellow, or orange) into thick strips,

removing stem, seeds, core, and the white membrane. Cut one large onion in half and then in

thick strips as well. Toss in a bowl with chili powder, salt, pepper, and canola oil. Spread out

evenly on a baking sheet and broil on high for 5‐7 minutes until they soften and begin to char.

Stir the peppers and onions on baking dish half way through cooking.

Broccoli with Tahini Sauce ‐ Steam 3‐4 cups of broccoli florets (fresh or frozen) in a vegetable

steamer or in the microwave. While the vegetables are cooking, combine in a blender or food

processor 1/2 cup of tahini, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of lemon juice, 1 tsp of

Sriracha sauce (Thai garlic chili sauce), 1 tsp powdered ginger or 1 TBSP fresh minced ginger,

and 2 TBSP of water. Add more water as necessary to get the desired sauce like consistency.

Once the broccoli has cooked, top with tahini sauce mixture. The tahini sauce also goes very

well with asparagus.

Raw Asparagus Salad ‐ Break the bottom one inch off 5 asparagus spears. Run a vegetable

peeler lengthwise down the asparagus stalks, peeling off very thin, nearly translucent, strips

until you can no longer safely peel off anymore strips (there is no reason to lose a finger while

doing this). Toss strips with a splash of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a hint of Tabasco sauce

(optional). Let asparagus marinate for at least 2 hours (overnight is even better) before eating.

Rosemary Roasted Turnips ‐ Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Roasted turnips are a great

lower carbohydrate substitute for roasted potatoes either by themselves or in a dish such as

pot roast. Peel and cube 4‐5 tennis ball sized turnips. Toss in extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper,



and fresh minced rosemary and thyme (dried herbs also work but the fresh provide a much

better flavor). Roast in a baking dish for 25 minutes stirring halfway through cooking.

Ginger Soy Marinated Grilled Zucchini ‐ As a kid we always used to cook this dish on a

backyard grill in the summer but the dish is just as good cooked indoors using a broiler. Cut 2‐3

medium sized zucchinis into 2‐3 inch strips (approximately the size of steak fries). Toss in a bowl

or large Ziploc bag with soy sauce, powdered ginger, and black pepper (time permitting

marinate in the refrigerator for several hours before cooking). Cook zucchini strips on an

outdoor grill for 7‐10 minutes until softened or place the zucchini strips on a baking dish and

broil for 7‐10 minutes. If you are going to broil the zucchini make sure to drain off the excess

soy sauce as it will smoke under the broiler.

ProgramSlides&

Transcription

~Note from Dr. Mike~

The following pages are contains the slides and a transcription of the 7 Step Weight Loss Plan

video. Since it is a transcription it reads like someone would speak and not like a book. I don’t

recommend that you sit down and read the transcription. Instead use it to supplement the video.

Have it with you while watching the video, use it to highlight specific points that you find

important and relevant to you so that you have a customized reference to return to if you need a

refresher on a concept or clarification on a step by step process.



Dr. Mike Roussell here and I want to welcome you to the program, your 7-Step Weight

Loss Plan – How to stop nutritional freestyling and start losing weight in just 7 simple steps.

Before we get started, I just want to tell you a little bit about how this program came

about. In the past, I’ve done a bunch of work and created programs – rapid weight loss

programs, programs designed to help people lose as much possible weight in a 4-week period of

time as possible. We call it Warp Speed Fat Loss. We had 7 variations or generations of that

program. But one of the things about Warp Speed Fat Loss and those types of programs is that

they are not sustainable and they’re not designed to be. You can only do them for about a 4-

week period and then you really need to do something else so we’re really looking at one month

out of the year – maybe two months out of the year. So you’re looking at 10 or 11 months out of



the year – what are you supposed to be doing? How are you supposed to be eating? How do you

go about things?

Also, the Warp Speed Fat Loss type programs, those are advanced fat loss so you need to

have generally a pretty good level of fitness as the programs are very intense. The diet is very

intense as well. So what if you’re not necessarily read for something like that or not even

interested in something like that? You’re just recognizing that what you’re doing right now isn’t

working and you want to be able to develop some habits and some behaviors that are going to

allow you to lose weight but, more importantly, keep that weight off forever. So where do you

start? Where is your foundation? That’s where this 7-Step Weight Loss Plan came about and

we’re going to talk about nutritional freestyling, what that means, and how we can take you and

move you away from nutritional freestyling using very simple habits and steps to having a diet

that’s really healthy, very easy to follow, and doesn’t involve a lot of tracking and manipulating

on your behalf – there will be some as we get to the later steps, but not too much. So that’s

really what this program is about. It’s about getting you moving from that average American-

type diet or inconsistently healthy eating to spending a little bit more time thinking about what

you’re doing, making healthier choices, and developing a diet that’s going to allow you to lose

weight and also stay healthy.

One of things is that all of the diets I developed is if they are weight-loss diets, they are

also health diets so as you are losing weight, we are also going to be improving your health. One

of the things that I’ve been really trying to stress in my programs lately, which you’ll notice here,

is at the end of every step that we go over, I give you some action items. We’ll talk a little bit

about theory – not too much theory – but will talk a little bit about theory and why we’re doing

this, but then how do you put that into action? What are the habits and the behaviors that you

can do to put this into action in your life?

I spent a long time in academics and in academics it is all theory. While that is

interesting, I recognize it’s not very practical so I’ve really made strides to incorporate lots of

practical actionable steps for you in this program. So let’s get started.



First, an overview of what we are going to cover. We are briefly going to go over the

stages of nutrition – which are these dietary phases that I’ve identified and named that I have

noticed from working with clients and people over time. So what are the stages of nutrition and

why is it important to follow? Then the first stage of nutrition is called Nutritional Freestyling.

We will do an in-depth look at Nutritional Freestyling, how we can get you to stop freestyling,

why it’s important, and then what is this 7-step weight loss plan. I’m going to show it to you

step by step, day by day.

Originally when I came up with this program, it was another accelerated version where

you would do one step every day and after test driving that and using that with some people, it’s

really not sustainable if you wanted something that you can really adopt and continue using.

Doing one new step every day is just kind of overload. At the end we will talk about how you



can apply this and how to do each of the steps over time. If we’re going through the steps, know

that it’s designed to be a little bit slower so tht it will last forever. If you really wanted to, you

could do a new step every day but it’s going to be hard for you to maintain, I think, over the long

term. You’ll be selling yourself short a little bit by trying to accelerate it. And also know that by

taking it a little bit slower, that doesn’t mean we’re hindering your results at all. In fact, you’re

going to have better results.



The goal of this program is to really change and create a new status quo for you and what

you consider your diet. Lots of people, when they start working with someone – with a

nutritionist or a trainer – and they start doing these new behaviors and eating differently—a

question I got from a client once (which I had to laugh) was “When do I go back to my old diet?

When can I go back to eating the way I used to?” The thing is that you can’t. We’re not going

back. If you want to change your body, you want to lose weight, you want to change your

health, your current state, weight, health, whatever is a result of your current diet and behaviors.

So once we make those changes and you start losing weight and becoming more healthy, you

can’t revert back to your old diet because that’s going to revert your body back to that old state

where we don’t want to be. So we really want to develop and create a new status quo for you.



The stages of nutrition – what is it? It’s a nutritional habit continuum that emphasizes

certain habits based on your current behaviors and requires you to make changes that make sense

for you, personally. It develops a new status quo of long-lasting health and really prevents yo-yo

dieting. One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate is that losing weight is not that difficult.

It’s really keeping the weight off over time that’s the most difficult and I’m sure if you listen to

this program, most people have lost several times in their life, 10, 15, 20 pounds or even more

and the problem is that weight just comes back. So how can we prevent this yo-yo type dieting?

How can we prevent this loss/gain cycle and just make it loss and maintenance.

I know that definition was a little too academic and I apologize. I told you there would

be some theory in here – the definition of the states of nutrition. What I’m going to do is share



with you another thing called “The Six Pillars of Nutrition,” and then revising the stages of

nutrition graphically and I think it will really hit home for you.



The Six Pillars of Nutrition are really your nutritional foundation. This is really what I

want you to adopt. Print this slide out. I actually created a handout for you so you could have

this in a PDF form because this is the core. If you had a nutritional belief system – which is

something that I’ve written about previously – this is what it centers around:

Eating 5 or 6 times a day – so, eating multiple meals per day;

Limiting your consumption of sugar and processed foods;

Eating fruits and vegetables throughout the day;

Drinking more water and cutting out calorie-containing beverages;

Focus on eating lean proteins or protein-containing foods throughout the day;

Save starchy foods and grain foods for breakfast or following your workouts.



We’re going to get into a little bit more of what each of these are and why they are

important in this program.



The Stages of Nutrition – I guess that’s four stages and you want to follow the stages (no

skipping) progressing from 1 to 3 and then we use Stage 4 just when necessary or for what I call

“Stage 4 Surges.” Before when I was talking about advanced weight-loss programs like my

Warp Speed Fat Loss Program, that’s really a Stage 4 Surge. It’s not something you would do

all of the time, but it’s something you’re like, “Let’s do this so I can get over this hump so I can

get extra lean. I want to really focus my effort for 4 weeks and do this,” but it’s not something

you would maintain.

Stage 1 – Nutritional Freestyling, which we’re going to go over.

Stage 2 – you’re using the Six Pillars of Nutrition but you’re really lacking adequate

adherence to the program.



Stage 3 – you’re using the Six Pillars with 90% adherence. We’re going to get back

more to the adherence thing later in the program.

So you can really tell the difference between Stages 2 and 3 is really just adhering to the

program more; so doing what you say you’re going to do because that’s a really big disconnect

where people’s diets often get blamed, but in reality it’s the person not following the diet.

Stage 4 - you’ll notice this is the first time we’re actually talking about counting calories

or portions or anything like that. In Stage 4 we’re going to count calories or

portions using the Six Pillars with 90+ adherence. The reason we’re talking about

over 90+ adherence is if we are going to spend all of the time and effort to

measure, weigh, portion – however we’re controlling our calorie intake more

specifically – we really want to make sure we’re sticking to it as much as possible

because we don’t want to waste our effort.

We’re starting out here in this program as if you are nutritional freestyling. So you’re

here in Stage 1 when I get you started and this is going to get you moving to the next stages.



What is Nutritional Freestyling? Nutritional Freestyling is basically if you are just going

to eat or maybe don’t eat. You really don’t have any plan or organization to your diet. You get

hungry. It’s time to eat – maybe it’s not time to eat. You open the refrigerator and you eat

something. You will eat whatever is around. This is the stage at which most Americans are in.

You might find yourself in this stage two. I know a lot of my friends – talking when I started

sharing these stages of nutrition – they’re like, “You know, I actually spend most of my time

Nutritional Freestyling,” when it’s just you’re hungry, you eat, you’re bored or you really don’t

have a plan.

I have a several month long nutrition course that I taught a year or so ago and it was for a

group of complimentary alternative medical practitioners, some massage therapists, yoga

teachers, people who wanted to become nutritional coaches – things like that. No one in the



program starting out had a nutritional plan. They were basically all nutritional freestyling. So I

worked with them to move away from nutritional freestyling so that they could help people do

the same. So if you’re nutritional freestyling, don’t be ashamed or anything like that. It’s where

most people are.



Stop Freestyling Essentials – Strategy No. 1:

Goal setting is essential to get out of this stage as the change from this stage to the next

stage is really your biggest jump. If you remember back to that graphic, moving from Stage 1 to

Stage 2 is the biggest change of all of the stages of nutrition. Nutritional freestyling, by

definition, is just eating – not thinking about, just eating or not eating – so goal setting is really

essential.



Strategy No. 2 is setting up actionable guidelines that you can consistently follow. So giving

yourself actionable steps that you can consistently do is an essential strategy.



Strategy No. 3 is eating foods that are inherently calorie controlled so that’s one less thing to

concern yourself with. Getting out of this stage is all about behaviors. It’s all about making

choices and we’re going to talk about this – this eating foods that inherently are calorie

controlled – we’re going to talk about that later on. It’s basically – I’ll kind of let the cat out of

the bag here – it’s basically focusing on fruits and vegetables, big leafy, green type foods, and

not carbohydrate dense foods like grains and starches or foods that are overly fatty, so high-fat

foods. We are to avoid those foods and pick foods that you can eat a larger volume of but less

calories. That’s going to be a strategy that we use to control calories without really counting

them.



So, your 7-step plan, this is what we’re going to go over now.

Step 1 – we’re going to be adding a snack of almonds or another nut.

Step 2 – is going to focus on portion control with what I call the “Eat and eat again rule.”

Step 3 – is to remove empty calories.

Step 4 – is about fruits and vegetables and protein.

Step 5 – is moving from barcodes to bags and we’ll get into that in a little more detail.

Step 6 – is adding a fruit plus fat snack.

Step 7 – tracking and monitoring.



Let’s get into Step 1 – Adding the Perfect Snack.

You see here a picture of pistachios which is what I think is a perfect snack.



The key behind why we’re doing this – adding the perfect snack to your day – is we’re moving

to multiple meals per day. I’m going to under the assumption that you’re eating breakfast, lunch,

and dinner. If you’re not eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that’s kind of a prerequisite to the

program. I need you to be there. I appreciate that you might not be because a lot of people, it’s

coffee at breakfast, a business lunch, and then a huge dinner. Maybe it’s even a smaller lunch

that’s on the go and then a really big deal. So I want you to try to do the baseline of this program

which is breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The first step here, we’re actually talking about adding calories to your diet, so you maybe you

might be wondering, “Well, aren’t I going to eat too much?” What’s really interesting is that

there was a 2011 scientific review that looked at eating frequency – eating more often; eating

less often; is there a sweet spot in regards weight loss and calorie control? What they found is

that 3–6 planned (that’s key) meals and snacks per day seems to be the ideal distribution for



appetite control with little risk of overeating. So moving to multiple meals per day – and what

we’re doing in this step is right in the ideal range for weight loss and also controlling appetite

and there’s no risk of real overeating. But the key is “planned.” When you go too many snacks

or you go above 6 or you go not planned, your risk of overeating increases. So this is the sweet

spot, 3–6, and that’s what we’re going to hone in on this. But right now we’re going from 3 to 4

by having you add the snack.



Nuts are the ideal snack as long as you are not allergic – because if you’re allergic, then it

would be a deadly snack. If you are allergic, when we get to the other step about a fruit and a fat

snack, you can just include one of those instead.

So specifically, I’m talking about snacking on almonds and pistachios have been shown

in scientific studies to lead to greater weight loss comparing to snacking on higher carbohydrate

snack foods which are really traditional snack foods such as oatmeal and pretzels.

You really see me start moving away from these grains and carbohydrate-based snacks

like oatmeal and pretzels to nuts. In addition to losing weight, you also get improvements in a

whole array of risk factors for different diseases. In a study with pistachios, the group who

switched from pretzels to pistachios also saw reductions in their triglyceride levels which is a

risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The lab which I got my Ph.D. in ran a study with



pistachios and found that eating more pistachios decreased your level of oxidized LDL

cholesterol, so basically the oxidation of your bad cholesterol, which is really making your bad

cholesterol even worse. So that was reduced when people were eating more pistachios.

Moving to nuts – nuts are a great food. They have – in nutritional science I would call it

a nutrient package. They have a great nutrient package because they have protein, they have fat,

they have fiber, but then they also have lots of antioxidants and when all of those things come

together – the effect is greater than the sum of all the parts is what I’m trying to say and that’s

really where the nutrient package comes in. So that’s why nuts are really fabulous to snack on.



Your action steps for Stage 1:

Don’t change anything about your diet except adding a snack. I want you to add the

snack during your day of either almonds or pistachios. You want to use a small palm full of

nuts, so about 1 ounce. Now, for almonds that’s 22 almonds, and for pistachios it’s 49

pistachios. I once you do this either mid morning or mid afternoon. So just put it in one of those

two places.

One of the things that is the pistachio’s claim to fame is you actually get to eat more

pistachio nuts per ounce than any other nut. You get 49 pistachios versus 22 almonds.

Another reason why I like pistachios is that you’re forced to eat them slower because you

have to shell them. So shelling 49 pistachios takes a little bit longer and you’re going to slow it



down and that’s also going to help increase your feelings of fullness and insatiety; so 1 ounce of

almonds or pistachios either mid morning or mid afternoon. That’s Step 1.



Step 2 – the “Eat and Eat Again Rule”



In Step 2, we’re not talking about calorie counting. Instead, we are going to use mind

tricks. The key point here as in all of my nutrition programs is to focus on proactive behaviors.

Counting calories is not a proactive behavior, plus no one likes to do it. It’s not proactive

because a lot of people, when they count calories, they will eat something and then they will

figure out how many calories they have eaten and then they record it. That doesn’t do any good

because you’ve already eaten it. You’ve already consumed those calories. So we’re not going to

do that and it’s also miserable because who likes to look up every calorie and then record it? So

instead, we are going to implement these proactive behaviors and some mind tricks.



The first mind trick I want to introduce you to is the “Eat and Eat Again Rule.” It allows

us to control portion sizes and calories without counting or obsessing over it. The Eat and Eat

Again Rule is something that a friend and colleague of mine, Alwyn Cosgrove – who is a

wonderful trainer that runs a gym with his wife, Rachel, out in California – I’ve mentioned Warp

Speed Fat Loss several times – Alwyn and I created that program together and he told me about

using this with some of his clients, especially college-aged students. So the Eat and Eat Again

Rule (I gave it the cool name – he just said “This is what I do”) is you can eat as much as you

want at any meal and the only caveat is that you have to be able to eat that same amount two

hours later. I also call this the Waffle Shop Effect.

Currently, I live in State College, Pennsylvania and there’s a local chain of breakfast

places called The Waffle Shop and whenever you go to The Waffle Shop for breakfast – or



whenever we go as a family – I swear no one ever eats lunch because you sit down and you have

a stack of pancakes. We don’t go very often so when we go we like to enjoy pancakes and

everything. So I have a stack of pancakes, maybe some eggs and sausage and it’s like this big

breakfast and you’re so full for the rest of the day. It’s like those pancakes literally sit in your

stomach for 8 hours and the Eat and Eat Again Rule says, well, that’s fine. If you want to go and

eat this huge Waffle Shop type breakfast, you can do that; you just have to be willing to eat the

same amount of food two hours later. So when I would sit down at the Waffle Shop knowing

that I had to eat this large plate of pancakes, eggs, and breakfast sausage two hours later, there’s

no way I would eat that same volume of food. So this really automatically is going to curb (if

you’re honest with yourself) how many calories you’re going to eat because you wouldn’t sit

down and eat a whole pizza if you knew you had to eat a whole other pizza two hours later. So

that’s the Eat and Eat Again Rule.



The action steps for Step 2 of the Eat and Eat Again Rule is I want you to apply this rule

to your day breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner. So when you sit down at breakfast, I don’t want

you to count or measure any portions, but I want you to eat an amount of food that you would be

willing to eat to eat 2 hours later.



Now, in this scenario as I’ve outlined here in the chart, if you were doing breakfast, lunch, snack

and dinner you wouldn’t be eating lunch 2 hours after breakfast, so you‘ll just kind of have to

imagine, “If I eat this, could I sit down and eat it again 2 hours later?” But I want you to apply

that rule – the same thing – to lunch, snack and dinner. With a snack it’s no problem, but really

lunch and especially dinner as well because that’s usually the biggest meal of the day for most

people.

Reigning in your calories and eating a portion that you would be willing to eat 2 hours

later, takes out a lot of overeating or overeating larger portions. So that’s really your focus and

your action here is when you sit down to eat, say to yourself, “Am I willing to eat this same

amount of food in 2 hours?” If the answer is no, take some food away.



Step 3 – Removing Empty Calories.



As you can see by the graphic here, our focus is really on calorie containing beverages.

Something is interesting that larger beverages are meaning more calories. Now, what I’m talking

about here – it seems like that headline, it makes sense, right? But it’s a very important point.

Go for the smaller size. So when you’re given a larger sized beverage, you’re automatically

going to consume more calories. Here is where we got this from: Researchers from Penn State

found that when given a 20-ounce soda versus a 16-ounce soda with a meal, men consumed 25%

more calories and women consumed 16% more calories.

An example would be: You have an 8-ounce coke, a 20-ounce coke and a liter coke.

You could buy those three different sizes at the grocery store or your local gas station. Just pick

the 8-ounce coke if you have to drink one of them because whichever one you drink, you’re

going to drink it all. Just drink the smaller one, drink it all, and then you won’t have all of those



extra calories if you were just to have the 20-ounce drink. If you sit down at a meal and the

person next to you has an 8-ounce coke and you have a 20-ounce coke, you’re not just going to

drink 8 ounces, whereas the person next to you will because that’s all they have.

We’re talking about 25% more calories here with the men in this study. That’s a

significant amount of calories.



Our goal is really to completely eliminate calorie containing beverages but I understand

and appreciate that it’s a weaning process and that’s something that we’re going to go over that if

you’re drinking two or three Cokes or Pepsis or what have you a day, it’s hard to go cold turkey.

One of the strategies, in addition to the ones that I’m going to share with you next, is to just opt

for a smaller size because if when you go to the supermarket you are always buying the 20-ounce

Coke packs, buy cans. So, Step 3 is removing empty calories, specifically sugar-sweetened

beverages. These are bottled sweetened teas, sports drinks (Gatorade, Powerade – that class of

beverages) or the energy drinks (Monster, Red Bull, and all of the other brands). These drinks,

carbonated drinks such as sodas, you want to avoid all of these drinks.

Sports drinks are fine if we’re talking about post-workout and workout nutrition. Sports

drinks are fine there, but there is no need to be drinking a Gatorade in the office at 11:00 in the



morning. You’re not making a healthy choice. You might as well just be drinking Coke. They

don’t add anything to your diet and actually they might be impairing your health. Aside from

consuming all of the sugars – drinking these sugars is actually going to be hurting your health in

a way that most people don’t realize. What I’m talking about here is impaired anti-oxidant

defenses.



I know I have some pictures of Snapple here. They’re made with good stuff – so the

commercials say – but this good stuff is still sugary and let me show you here how it can hurt

you. Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages can actually inhibit your body’s ability to fight free

radicals for 2 hours or more.

Free radicals – there is a lot of talk about anti-oxidants and basically what anti-oxidants

do is they quench these things called “free radicals” which are basically rogue soldiers all

throughout your body. Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages inhibits your body’s ability to fight

these rogue soldiers. Researchers from Italy found that people with or without Diabetes had

impaired anti-oxidant activity – they used a test called a “TRAP Test,” – for at least two hours.

This effect was more pronounced in people with Diabetes, which you will find across the board.



Usually people who are more overweight and/or have Diabetes have an exaggerated

effect on these types of tests. So if you have Diabetes, it’s even more important that you stop

drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. But what they did is basically when people had these

glucose drinks (these pure sugar drinks) and then they measured the anti-oxidant status and your

body with this TRAP Test ability, anti-oxidant activity and they found that with the sugar-

sweetened beverages, your body had impaired defenses against free radicals.



Sugar-sweetened beverages provide you with no health benefits and long-term detrimental

effects. But what this is really showing is that you are really getting instant and immediate

detrimental effects with sugar-sweetened beverages. The goal here is to have you drink more

water and unsweetened beverages (teas, seltzer, water, etc.).

So how can you do this? If you’re someone who drinks several Gatorades, 3 or 4 Cokes

a day – what can we do to get off this?



Step 1 – Find out how many sugar-sweetened beverages you are drinking each day. Let’s say

you’re drinking 3. So I want you to remove one of those completely and replace it just with

water. So you’re going to have 2 Cokes a day and when you would normally reach that third

Coke, have some water. Then I want you to take one of your sweetened beverages and replace it

with a diet version. This is pretty easy because you can find a diet version of just about

anything. If your complaint about the diet is you don’t like the taste, then there are lots of now

diet drinks that supposedly taste just like the sugary drinks so Pepsi Max, Coke Zero. Use those.

They are zero calorie, but they taste a little bit more like the actual sugary drinks.

So if you normally drink 3 Cokes a day, you’re going to remove one of them and replace

it with water; you’re going to remove another one and replace it with a diet version. So now

you’re only drinking one Coke and then water and a diet version. Do this for 1 week. If you are



a big sugar-sweetened beverage drinker, this is going to be a big change so I don’t want you to

do anything else. Do that for one week.



The next week we are going to start transitioning you away from calorie containing drinks even

more. So I want you to replace that diet drink. If you’re drinking that one Pepsi Max a day,

replace that with either water or tea (not artificially sweetened – just straight up tea). We’re kind

of moving away from all of that. Then replace one of your sweetened beverages with the diet

version. So initially you were at three Pepsi’s a day and then you were down to one water, a

Pepsi Max, and a regular Pepsi. Week two, now your water and tea twice a day and a Pepsi

Max; so you have no sugar sweetened beverages. Then you repeat this process until you

completely eliminate the calorie containing sweetened beverages from your diet.



Following this progression, but the third week all you would is you remove that final diet drink

and replace it with something else. So it’s going to take you three weeks to get off sugar

sweetened beverages, but that slow transition is really going to allow your taste buds to adapt

because habitually you’re just used to going for the Coke and drinking it, so we’re also dealing

with things from a habit base as well as a taste and nutrition base. So this is a really good plan.

It works very well.



Step 4 is Portion Control and Protein



Portion Control and Protein – we’re adding in another portion control mechanism. So the first

little mind diet hack was the Eat and Eat Again Rule. Now we are adding in another one. We

also going to start using what is called “Nutrient Timing” to our advantage and we’re going to

maximize the Thermic Effect of food.

Let’s talk about the thermic effect of food right now. We’re going to talk about nutrient

timing in a second. We’ll talk about the thermic effects of food and then we’ll revisit.

Basically, what the thermic effect of food is that when you eat something to process,

digest, and get your body ready to use the energy from that food, that costs and that takes energy.

So the thermic effect of food is the energy that your body expends processing and getting the

food ready for your body to use it. That’s called the thermic effect of food and protein has the

highest thermic effect of food of any other type of food other than fats, other than carbohydrates



and other than alcohol. So when we eat more protein, we are innately going to get a little bump

in our calorie burn and so it’s going to allow us to burn more calories just by changing what we

are eating. So we really want to maximize this thermic effect of food.

Some people just “Oh, it doesn’t matter – the thermic effect of food,” but I’m of the

belief that it’s the little things, stacking together little changes, that make a huge impact and the

thermic effect of food, I think, is one of those foundational things that you want to stack together.

There are lots of other benefits of eating protein which we’re not going to discuss in this

program, but this is just the one that I wanted to highlight here.



Step 4 with portion control, we’re going do portion control in this step by modifying your

carbohydrate choices. We want to increase our focus on the fruits and vegetables. So as I talked

about your baseline for this diet and this approach is you need to be eating three meals a day

starting out. So now I want you to change those three meals such that two of your three meals

contain fruits and vegetables with no starchy carbohydrates. We’ll get a little bit more detailed

about the starchy carbohydrates. Basically we’re talking about pastas, grains, cereals, breads,

thins like that. And then one of your meals can contain starchy carbohydrates and fruits and

vegetables. I want this meal to be either breakfast or the meal following exercise. So if you are

working out before dinner after work, then you can have that starchy meal at dinner. Or if you

work out on your lunch hour – you work out then you eat lunch – have that starchy meal be

lunch.



Let’s do a graphic to how you would set up your plate. So basically, on your starch-free meals,

you get 1/3 of your plate being a lean protein, 2/3 of your plate being fruits or vegetables. It’s

very simple. Just by making these changes without counting calories you’re already controlling

them.



Then if we’re looking in the morning or post-workout (the example here is pasta, so this

probably isn’t first thing in the morning) we have another 1/3 of our plate is protein, 1/3 is fruits

or vegetables, and then 1/3 would be starchy carbohydrates or grains.



The reason we’re doing this is something called energy density and I talked about this at the very

beginning. At Penn State where I got my Ph.D., there was a researcher there named Barbara

Rolls who has done a lot of research in this area of energy density. The nutrition researchers at

Harvard, which is a huge nutritional research group, they have shown a lot more interest in this

concept as well for the past several years with a lot of the studies that they do.

Basically, what it says – this is my favorite example – you can eat 2 cups of spinach or 2

cups of rice. The volume is the same. They are both 2 cups. But the amount of calories is vastly

different. The amount of carbohydrates is also vastly different. There are hardly any calories or

carbohydrates in 2 cups of spinach, but there are a very large amount of carbohydrates and

calories in 2 cups of rice.



Taking this energy density approach (using a low energy density diet) would mean you

would choose the spinach. You would choose the high volume foods with low calories and

carbohydrates. One of the reasons this works is the mind and the body, when it registers feeling

full, feeling satiated, part of it is visual. So if you see a large plate of food, in your mind you’re

like, “Wow, that’s a lot of food. When I eat that, I’m going to be full.” And also, in your

stomach, your stomach has stretch receptors so when a large volume of food goes into your

stomach and your stomach is stretches, that also sends a signal to your brain saying, “Whoa,

there’s a lot of food here in the stomach; it’s stretching out; I think we’re full. Let’s not eat

anymore.” You can achieve this by eating lots of spinach instead of eating lots of rice. So it’s

really just another simple mind hack that allows you not to count calories, but greatly reduce

your calories while still feeling full and still enjoying what you’re eating.



Why are we doing protein as well here? Your body, like I said, the thermic effect of food uses

more energy metabolizing protein than it does other nutrients. Now, protein also stimulates

hormones that promote fat burning and better health, and protein signals your body that you are

full and satisfied. So protein does a whole bunch of things. Like I said, it’s more than the

thermic effect of food. It has all of these other benefits and I should note, if we’re talking about

health and not weight loss, eating more protein at the expense of carbohydrates is also going to

show to improve your cardiovascular disease risk profile, improving your cholesterol, and

lowering your blood pressure more than if you would eat more carbohydrates.



Your action steps:

2 of your 3 meals contain fruits and vegetables with no starchy carbohydrates.

1 of your 3 meals contains starchy carbohydrates with fruits and vegetables and

you want that to be breakfast or following exercise.

If you remember the graphics that I showed you, 1/3 of your plate is going to be protein.



Now, it’s not about eating salads at every meal. We’re talking about eating more vegetables and

when I was explaining energy density, it was a big thing of spinach, but I’m not dooming you to

eat salads at every meal. There are lots of different ways that you can eat more vegetables. I’ve

included with this a report that I put together called “21 Ways to Eat More Vegetables” to give

you more ideas. Out of those 21 ways, only one of those ways is a salad and it’s a wedge salad,

so it’s not even a traditional diet salad. It’s usually a salad that would be served at a steakhouse.

Wedge salad is traditionally a ¼ or ½ iceberg lettuce with bacon bits and bleu cheese, so it’s

usually an indulging salad, but I’ve modified it to make it more health and calorie conscious. So

you’re going to find 21 unique ways that you can eat more vegetables. If you think you’re

dooming yourself with Step 4 to eating more salads, it’s not the case and check out this report to

find out more.



One of the things, since we’ve been talking about it in Step 4, building these complete

meals is you might be asking, “What about fats?” If you think back to the 6 Pillars of Nutrition,

there wasn’t anything in there that mentioned fats. Basically, what you want to do is you want to

add it to every meal. You can use oils in cooking or on salads, have cheese, use whole eggs,

butter, margarine, etc., and also nuts and seeds. We’re having nuts as snacks so you can include

them. I know I just said you don’t have to eat salads all of the time, but you can include them on

salads. Crushed up walnuts go really well with baked salmon. So there are lots of different

things that you can use and how to get fats into your diet. I want you to use a wide variety. You

can do hard cheeses; you can have a little bit of butter, but also have the oils. Have olive oil,

canola oil, whole eggs, have nuts and seeds, eat a wide range of dietary fats.



Step 5 – Moving From Barcodes to Bags



Moving from barcodes to bags really builds on the previous steps and we’re going to clean up

your diet even more. As you can see from this graphic, I want you to move red (being stop) from

purchasing foods in boxes that come with barcodes and move to purchasing foods that require

you to put them into bags.



What am I talking about here “Foods that require you to put them into bags”? When you

go to the supermarket, things that you have to bag yourself are traditionally vegetables, fruits,

nuts and seeds (if you’re in the bulk section filling a bag with nuts). If you’re in the produce

section, you fill a bag with red peppers or carrots. Meats, a lot of times you’re going to take your

meat and put it in a bag (more so it doesn’t leak on other things). And also, certain grains –

whole grains (I’m not a huge fan of the word “natural” foods because I think the food industry

uses it to manipulate you) but I want you to eat grains in their naturally occurring forms, so

grains that you could buy in the bulk section and put it in a bag such as quinoa, brown rice, and

other grains. I have a really good kind of case study on looking out for things that are labeled

“whole grains” but really aren’t.



Foods in boxes that come with barcodes – I’m talking about boxed rice and pasta dishes,

processed and overly salted meats, cookies, crackers, breakfast cereals, and overly salted and

preserved foods. All of these things, you want to stop eating those things and you want to start

moving to these things.



Let’s look at the case study Whole Grain White Rice. This is, I think, very interesting.

Once I explain this and you kind of see what’s going on here, this is cocktail party talk, too, like,

“Did you realize Uncle Ben’s was doing this?” This came to my attention, actually, from one of

the editors at Men’s Health had contacted me and said, “Have you see this product? I don’t

understand how can white rice be a whole grain,” and it’s really an anomaly. You can see here

why you want to get this product sold in a box and you can see why you want to be careful of

what you’re buying even if it says “whole grains.”

The product is Uncle Ben’s rice product. Here is the ingredient list: whole grain white

rice (which doesn’t exist). It’s an oxymoron. Whole grain and white rice – those two things are

opposite. Now, if you look in parentheses, it starts telling us what is in here – “partially milled

parboiled brown rice.” What that means is they basically take brown rice and when they mill it,



that’s how you make white rice. So they partially mill it. So they turn brown rice into sort of

brown rice and then they parboil it, so they start to cook it which means it will be faster for you

to cook because normal brown rice takes about an hour. Then they add – so during the milling

process, you remove parts of the whole grain called the bran and the germ. That’s what makes it

the whole grain. That’s what makes it healthy. But since those are removed, they add back to

the product – they add it back to the rice using some magic of food processing. Then, to make

up for the fiber that was lost during this partially milling process, they end Inulin and Guar Gum.

So they add two more artificial fibers. Guar Gum, some people consider it a franken fiber. It’s

put it in a lot of foods as a thickener. And then they also then fortify it with some B vitamins and

Iron.

Now if you think about if you buy brown rice, if you look at the ingredient list, it’s just

“brown rice.” If you look at the ingredient list of here, this is whole grain white rice. I’m not

really sure what it is. Would you get the same health benefits of this as you were if you were just

eating brown rice? I don’t know... I would go with no, but there’s really no research to show.



So you can see the difference here – whole grain white rice cooks in 10 minutes on the

left. On the right we have traditional brown rice that cooks in 60 minutes – at least 45 to 60

minutes. As you can see here on the Uncle Ben’s whole grain white rice label, it says “twice the

fiber of brown rice.” That’s because they’ve added Inulin and Guar Gum. So they’ve added

these two – what the USDA would consider “functional” fibers to it to artificially pump up the

fiber content. So go with the naturally occurring in its natural form brown rice over the

processed in the box with the bar code whole grain white rice and those types of products.



Your action steps:

Identify the foods that you are currently eating which fall under the barcode

category

Replace them in your diet with comparable food that falls into the bags category

This is a perfect example. If you traditionally eat boxed rice products, move to the

bagged rice products. It’s very, very simple.



Here are some switches:

Canned Green Beans (preserved, overly salty) – use fresh or frozen green beans. Frozen

green beans are just as convenient as canned green beans.

Precooked chicken (usually in the section of your grocery store where they sell cheeses

and yogurts and things like that). It’s precooked chicken which is in a bag which is then in a box

and they are cut up chicken breasts. They are very salty because they’ve been pumped with salt

to preserve them. Move away from eating those and move to boneless skinless chicken breasts.

If you need something that is precooked at your supermarket, get a rotisserie chicken. Use those

chicken breasts.

Instead of eating boxed cereals, move to something like oatmeal.



Here I even give you a quick recipe; so Spanish Rice‐a‐Roni – instead make your own

Spanish type rice. Cook brown rice, mix in diced tomatoes, scallions, and a little bit of chili

powder. It’s much better for you. It may not be as convenient. It takes a little bit longer. I think

Rice-a-Rona cooks in 5–10 minutes and this might take you 45 minutes to an hour to make, but

if you plan ahead, you are all set and it’s much better for you.

So identify where in your diet you can make these switches and make the switches.



Step 6 –The Fruit and Fat Snack



This is the Fruit and Fat Snack going back to multiple meals per day. What I want you to

do here is add another very simple snack to your diet – a piece of fruit and a fat-containing food;

and again, you might be thinking, “More calories?” But this is planned snacking and, if you

remember from the previous steps, we have put in several mechanisms to actually get you to start

eating less calories anyway and by adding these small snacks throughout the day, you are going

to be less hungry. If you find yourself previously showing up at dinner ravaged or lunch cannot

come fast enough because you’re so hungry, when you’re eating at 10:00 in the morning and

you’re at 3:00 in the afternoon, those little infusions of calories are going to help tide you over so

you won’t be starving and thus overeat at the subsequent meals.



A question you might have here – “What about fruit? Doesn’t fruit make you fat?” There are

lots of rumors floating around in your book stores and on the internet about fruit making you fat.

It’s just not going to happen. I’ve never had a client eat too much fruit. Never in my life have I

had to advise someone, “You’re eating too much fruit; it’s making you fat.” You would have to

eat an inordinate amount of fruit and if you think you are, you can personally contact me and I

will look at your diet. If you think fruit is making you fat, you can contact me. I will look at

your diet and I can assure you that it is or is not. I’m sure it’s going to be a “not” but if you still

don’t feel good about it, send me an email and I’ll look at it. Mention this program so I can put

your mind at ease.

Now, why does fruit work here? (1) it’s portable; (2) it’s convenient and readily

available; (3) it has fiber in it which certain types of fiber in fruits like apples and oranges can



help control your cholesterol levels and also promote weight loss and feelings of fullness and

also has nutrients like anti-oxidants (lots of anti-oxidants) and phytonutrients. I like to call

phytonutrients the things that scientists know are good for you but don’t know exactly why they

are good for you yet.



If we look at an apple here as an example, it’s portable; you can put it in your pocket; you

can put it in your briefcase; you can put it in your bag and take it with you. It can go. It’s

convenient and they are available everywhere. Where can you not find an apple? You can even

find them at gas stations. It has fiber and specifically, apples have a fiber called pectin which is

a soluble fiber that aids in fullness, weight loss and controlling cholesterol levels, and it has lots

of nutrients. In addition to the fiber, it has vitamins, minerals, and it’s loaded with anti-oxidants

– especially the peel. Don’t neglect the peel. Wash it well unless – if you’re not buying organic

apples, wash it well so that you can get rid of the pesticides, but then know that you get so many

more anti-oxidants from the peel.

So with the fat part we’re looking at, here are some examples:



String cheese or cheddar cheese

Almonds

Pistachios

Macadamia nuts

Nut butters (peanut butter or almond butter)

One of the things with the fat snack is, if you look down this list (apparently I like

pistachios so much that I added it twice) but if you look down this list, all of these things also

contain protein – all of these fat-containing foods. So cheese contains fat and protein. Both of

those things are going to help you feel more full and satisfied.

We already talked about two of the benefits of protein and some of these foods, if we

move away from the cheeses but look back at the nuts, they also contain fiber and anti-oxidants

and phytonutrients. Then we look over at the fruit side. What can you eat? A piece of fruit:

A small apple

Pear

Plum

Peach

Tangerine/Clementine

Grapes

Strawberries

Kiwi



These are all generally automatically portion controlled (except for the grapes – you’d eat

a bunch of those). The rest of them, you would eat one. So it’s portion controlled, it’s portable,

and the two of them – the fruit and the fat snack come together in this perfect nutritional

marriage to give you a great snack.



Three of my favorite pairings:

Small Apple & String Cheese - If you are a Naked Nutrition insider and you read

the Strong, Fit & Healthy Newsletter, you know that I write about that. I include

that all of the time as a snack food.

Tangerine or a Clementine & Cashews – those are two great flavors. I’m a big

believer in that eating healthy and eating to lose weight doesn’t mean you’re

sacrificing taste and flavor. When you combine those two flavors – Clementines

and Cashews – that’s a really nice snack.

Kiwi & Pistachios – another two flavors that compliment themselves very well.



Those are three ways that you can combine the fruit and fat snack – very portable; very

easy. It’s not like you need to stop work, go to the microwave, heat this up, lay down a table

cloth at our desk, fork, knife, the whole thing. You can eat this even if you’re busy.



Using one of the previous recommended snack combinations or one of your own, add a

fruit and fat snack to your day. Now, keep the nut snack previously – the almond or pistachios –

so that you have now three meals and two snacks so we’re up to 5 meals or 5 eating occasions a

day, which is right in the middle of that 3–6 being the perfect marriage of meal frequency.



Step 7 – Tracking and Planning



This is really when it all comes together. I want you to start tracking your adherence to

each of these steps. Adherence and planning is what is going to get you to the next stage.

Identifying if your plan is or isn’t working is essential. I don’t want you to make blind changes

to your diet anymore. If you think back to the Stages Of Nutrition graphic, the definition of

nutrition freestyling is just eating whatever whenever you want. So once you have a plan and

you start working on your adherence, even if it’s not perfect, you automatically get to move out

of that stage into Stage 2. So you’re making a big step towards having a healthier and better diet

and you’re not making these blind changes. So if you have your plan, identify your plan, see

how you’re putting your plan into action and then you can make changes based on what is

happening instead of just telling yourself that you’re doing what you should be doing – taking it

on faith that you’re doing it consistently and then making changes as a result.



In the clinical trial that I ran for my Ph.D. thesis, it was a controlled feeding study. So we

gave everyone all of their food and beverages – everything to eat and drink – for about 6 months

and we, of course, tracked their adherence to the diet because we wanted to be able to say we

gave them this diet, they ate those foods, and this is what happened to their cardiovascular

disease risk factors. So, overall there was an adherence of 94%. All I am asking from you is

90%. That’s your goal. This is something that years ago, prior to my Ph.D. thesis – prior to

actually starting my Ph.D. work, I had heard Dr. John Berardi talk about this and then I didn’t

realize how profound and important it was and then as I got into my own nutritional research, I

saw the importance of this tracking and monitoring adherence. I think he calls it the “90%

Rule,” so that’s what I’m asking of you is 90% adherence to your plan.



So you’re plan, which we’re going to talk about, could even just be initially Step 1 of this

diet plan. I want you to do Step 1 90% of the time and then we’ll move from there. So I want

you to move to the next stage to better implement the 6 Pillars of Nutrition, but before you can

do that I need you to develop a solid base of habits and behaviors which are really going to

ensure lifelong success.

So you go through this program, you graduate, and you’re on your way. You keep using

what you’ve learned instead of doing it a little bit and then not applying it and then having to

come back 6 months later because you’re in the same spot. So we take a little bit slower

approach, slower pace, more methodical, just as intense and it’s going to leave you with long

lasting success.



I want at least 2 straight weeks of 90% adherence – and we’re talking about 4–6 weeks of 90%

adherence is really preferred. I don’t want you to be in a huge rush to lose weight because

you’re going to lose weight and your clothes are going to continue to fit better even just as you

start applying the first couple of steps. Always keep in mind that we’re talking about laying the

foundation here.



So how are you going to put this into action? What I want you to do is track your

adherence to each of the previous 6 sticks. So the first 6 steps are really actionable things you’re

doing in your diet. Step 7 is really making sure and monitoring that you’re doing them. So take

Steps 1–6 and you’re going to track your adherence and how well do those things.



First, start with no more than two steps and build from there. So start with Step 1 and 2 –

pick two of them. I think it’s best if you start at the very beginning because they all build on

each other. But if for whatever reason you don’t want to, you don’t have to, but my advice is to

start with the first two. Now, track your adherence to those two steps that you picked for 2

weeks. If you’ve achieved 90% adherence to both of those things, add two more steps to your

tracking and put those other two on what I call “maintenance mode.”



So if you start out doing a snack of nuts and the Eat and Eat Again rule – I’ll have a little

tracking grid that you can use to make this very easy, so if you’re not following too clearly, don’t

worry about it because when you see the download that is below this video, it will make a lot

more sense. So pick two – a snack of nuts and the Eat and Eat Again rule. So if you can follow

that 90% of the time, which still leaves you Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon to have a

large pizza and then not be willing to eat a large pizza two hours later – if you’ve achieved this

90% adherence, then we’ll say you’ve mastered those steps and those are in maintenance mode.

So you still have to do them, but they’re not necessarily your focus. Hopefully your behaviors

have kicked in such that they can go on autopilot.

Now add a new step to where you would achieve 90% for the ones that you were working

on. So let’s say you mastered the Eat and Eat Again rule but you weren’t very consistent with



eating the snack of nuts. So in your next 2-week block, you’re not going to take on two new

steps because you still need to work on that snack of nuts. So we’ll just add one more; so we’ll

do sugar sweetened beverages and cutting out empty calories. So now you have one step in

maintenance (the Eat and Eat Again rule) and two are your main focus (the snack of nuts and the

cutting out sugar sweetened beverages). You continue on that process.



If at any time you miss 90% adherence on both of them, don’t add the new steps.

Refocus your efforts on the step that you missed until you hit 90%. That’s exactly what I was

talking about with the example us if you don’t hit 90% adherence with the snack of nuts, re-up

your efforts with that one until you can master it and if you put the Eat and Eat Again rule in

maintenance and you fall off on that, don’t add more steps for you to work on; go back and

refocus your efforts on that one.

Now, once you have all six steps in rotation; so you’ve mastered or have them in

maintenance mode (all 6 steps), I want you to maintain that for 4–6 weeks. As you can see, this

is not an overnight fix. This is going to take some time. This is going to take a couple of months

of your life, but this is time very well spent. This is time when you’re going to lose weight. This

is time when your pants and your clothes are going to fit better. And this is also time when



we’re laying the foundation for the rest of your life and your dietary habits. So even though you

may be thinking, “Oh, it’s going to move a little slow,” I’ve always been of the belief that the

goal isn’t counting calories. Your goal is maybe to lose 20 pounds or your goal is to lower your

cholesterol. Your goal is to lose 2 inches off of your waste. Whatever it is for you, that’s your

goal. So your goal isn’t to get through this program as fast possible. This program is going to

allow you to achieve your goal while also ensuring that you never have to go back and achieve

that goal again because there will be no backsliding.



Summaries and Conclusions



Remember we are talking about creating the new status quo. There is no going back to the old

way of eating.



Focusing here on the stages of nutrition, this program is really about you being at Stage 1 –

Nutritional Freestyling, and moving you to Stage 2 using all of the 6 pillars and then in the next

stage, we focus a little bit more on adherence.



Now when you look at the 6 Pillars, you can see how it’s been incorporated into this program:

• Eat 5–6 times per day

• Limit your consumption of sugar and processed foods

• Eat fruits and vegetables throughout the day

• Drink more water and cut out calorie containing beverages

• Focus on eating lean proteins and protein containing foods throughout the day

• Save starchy foods for breakfast or following your workouts



All of those things are all integrated into the first 6 steps of this program and then with

the seventh step, we work on tracking.

When you take this program, go through it again. Watch this video again and really

apply it. I want you to go through these steps, track your adherence to this program and just

make a difference so you don’t have to lose the weight again. If it’s not about weight loss, if it’s

about health so your doctor doesn’t have to put you on meds. You would be amazed at just the

little changes – if you have had discussions with your physician about putting you on some sort

of medication (blood pressure, cholesterol, Diabetes medication) following these steps are the

changes that you need to then not have to go on medication. So making the changes in this

program – this isn’t a medical guarantee – check with your doctor – but what I am saying is, it is

these types of behavior changes that will put your health back where it needs to be so going on



medications isn’t going to be an issue. So if health is your concern, this is going to help. If

weight loss is what you want to do, this is going to help. You’ve just go to put it into action. If I

can do anything to help you, please let me know.

Documents

Dr. Mike’s 7 Step Weight Loss Plan - Amazon Web …networkmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/products/seminars/7steps_final.pdf · prevents you from falling in the Feast & Famine cycle of eating