We live in a time where there's absolutely no shortage of dietary advice. But what if there was a proven strategy that, if pulled off, could dramatically improve your weight, your mood, and even boost your longevity? Would you go for it?
Brittany Williams tried everything to lose weight, Weight Watchers, counting calories, fasting, paleo, juicing, nothing worked. And then one day, Brittany decided to do something different and well, pretty bold. Going forward, she committed to making all of her meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home for an entire year.
What ensued was nothing short of remarkable. Armed with an Instapot and a lot of hustle, Brittany got cooking. In just one month she lost 19 pounds and in three months, 46 pounds. By the end of the year, Brittany had lost 125 pounds simply by preparing all of her family’s meals at home. This story gets even crazier.
Beyond the weight loss, Brittany’s overall health improved. Gone was her insomnia, hair loss, and chronic fatigue. Her whole family got healthier and her low thyroid levels that had plagued her since she was a teenager improved so much that she was able to get off all of her meds.
Nearly ten years later, Brittany is still crushing it and today, I’m going to share her story and strategy with you.
Welcome to the Better Medicine Podcast. I’m Dr. David Zodda and my job is to help you live a better life. I do this by digging into the most up to date research in health, fitness, and nutrition to uncover what actually works. I then share actionable insights and strategies so that you can get more of what works into your life.
What sets the Better Medicine Podcast apart from others is that all of our content is referenced, evidence-based, and peer-reviewed by some of the most forward thinking leaders in the health and wellness space.
In Act 1 of today's podcast, we’re going to look at how Brittany actually pulled this off. I’m going to share with you her strategy and the specific foods that helped her lose all that weight. I don’t expect all of you to go as hard core as Brittanny but if you’re looking to get to a healthier weight, there are some nutritional gems in here.
In Act 2, I share with you the factors and habits to help you get more of these foods into your daily routine. We’re going to explore how food affects your mood and how nutritional variety is linked to longevity. Heck, I may even get you to try a brussel sprout by the end of this thing.
The man or woman who has their health has a thousand dreams and the man or woman that does not has but one.
Act 1: What Works?
While Brittany’s story is compelling, the fact that three out of every four Americans now is either overweight or obese begs the question.1 How did we get here?
I was born in the 70’s around the same time the obesity crisis in America was gaining its footing. By the time I turned twenty, obesity in the United States doubled and in the next twenty years, obesity doubled again.2
What changed in the seventies to cause so many waistlines to grow out of control?
It’s not that we all suddenly had a collapse in willpower and became lazy. It turns out that this explosion in obesity happens to countries that make one small change.
It began when Americans went from eating a diet focused on whole foods prepared at home to a diet mostly consisting of ultra processed foods made in factories.
It’s fair to say that over the last fifty years, our consumption of processed food has gone off the rails. Ultra-processed foods now account for more than half the American diet.3
We’ve essentially gone from eating fruit to eating Froot Loops. Three year olds in the United States are more likely to recognize the McDonald's arches than their own name.4
And it turns out that these new ultra processed foods, which never existed in the past, affect our bodies in completely different and often unintended ways.
Name any chronic medical condition, diabetes, hypertension, dementia, depression, anxiety, and you'll find that processed foods have been linked to it.5
The problem is that ultra-processed foods are packed with large amounts of salt, sugar, and fat. We’re wired for comfort and therefore, we consume more and in return, we gain weight.
Ultra processed foods also contain less protein than whole foods.6 Every cell in our body requires protein to function and therefore we have no choice but to consume more and more processed foods to meet our body's protein requirements.
Turns out that Brittany may have been ahead of her time. By preparing more meals at home, Brittany was able to control what she included in her meals. Interestingly, she doesn’t ascribe to any one type of diet. She’s not vegan, paleo, or keto. Brittany’s secret is that her diet is based nearly entirely on whole foods.
A whole-food diet emphasizes things like vegetables, fruits, nuts, and plant-based proteins while minimizing or avoiding foods like meat and dairy. In Brittany’s words, “If it comes from the earth and it’s unprocessed, I eat it.”
Let’s talk for just a minute as to what whole-foods actually are so we know how to spot them. There are basically four categories of foods.
Category 1: Whole Foods:
These are fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, rice, pasta, flour, coffee, and tea.
Category 2: Culinary Ingredients:
These include cooking oils, butter, sugar, honey, vinegar and salt.
Category 3: Minimally-Processed Foods:
These foods are made by combining foods from Category 1 with the ingredients of Category 2 and preserving or modifying them with relatively simple methods like canning and baking.
An example of a minimally processed food would be: adding a category 1 whole food, apples with a category 2 culinary ingredient, sugar, to make apple-sauce. It could be combining flour, yeast, salt, and water to make bread. Simply put, when you combine whole foods and simple culinary ingredients you get minimally-processed foods.
Category 4: Is where we find Ultra-Processed Foods.
These foods are made using ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in grocery stores. They often contain lots of sugary additives like high-fructose corn syrup and fats like hydrogenated oils. These additives make ultra-processed foods more flavorful and craveworthy. The downside is that in return, they’re packed with extra fat, sugar, salt, and calories.
Examples of ultra-processed foods include basically every soda, potato chip, breakfast cereal, frozen pizza, chicken tender, and fast-food anything you’ve ever eaten.
If the four food categories are too complicated, there’s a simpler method. If you look at the ingredient list on a product and it contains something that you don’t have in your own kitchen, it’s likely an ultra-processed food.
What happens to our bodies when we eat these foods? The NIH actually studied this. They put one group of individuals on a whole-food diet and another group on a processed food diet.
Those on the processed food diet consumed 500 more calories per day when compared to those on the whole-food diet and they gained one extra pound of weight every week. That’s more than 50 extra pounds your body has to sort out every year just from eating processed foods.
The study found that the opposite happened on those on the whole-food diet. Not only did they consume more nutrient rich food, but without even trying, those on the whole food-diet lost one pound of weight every single week.6
Brittany’s whole-food diet worked and the science backs it up. Numerous peer-reviewed studies confirm that people who eat at home more frequently are less likely to be overweight.7
A recent study looked at nearly ten thousand Americans who prepared the majority of their meals at home and compared them to individuals who ate out.
They controlled for race, education, socio-economic class, you name it but they didn’t control for diet. The researchers essentially said eat whatever you normally eat.
They found that those who consumed more meals prepared at home consumed fewer carbs, fats, salts, sugars, and total calories than those who ate out.8
You see, by simply preparing more meals at home you’re more likely to use whole foods simply because you don't have fructose or whatever mono-diglyceride is in your pantry.
We’ve all likely heard of Blue Zones, regions across the world where folks tend to live longer than the rest of us and by longer, I’m talking ten years longer than the rest of us. It’s not surprising that those who live in these Blue Zones eat primarily whole-foods and prepare and eat the majority of their meals at home.9
From a public health perspective this is big. Individuals and families that prepare more whole-food meals at home are less likely to develop type two diabetes.10 They also have a lower risk of developing high blood pressure and high cholesterol.11
What’s really cool is that Brittany’s whole family benefited from her wholefood diet. Studies show that children who regularly eat home cooked meals consume more fruits and vegetables.12 They perform better in school, have healthier relationships, and are less likely to drink, smoke, or get into trouble.13
I mean come on, cooking more meals at home leads to more well behaved kids, sign me up for that!
As Brittany’s weight improved, so did her overall mood and sense of wellbeing.
There’s an emerging field called nutritional psychology which looks at the relationship between diet and mental wellness. The premise is that a healthy diet promotes a healthy gut which in turn communicates with the brain via the gut-microbiome-brain axis.
Whenever you eat something, microbes in your gut produce little neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine which travel to our brain and regulate our mood. Makes you wonder, does eating wholefoods actually make us feel better?
A recent study looked at this very question. They recruited individuals all of whom were already diagnosed with major depression and they split them into two groups. The first group was the control group, they occasionally met with a research associate but were given no dietary guidance.
The other group met with a dietician and were taught how to prepare and eat a diet consisting primarily of whole-foods. This group ditched candy, fast-food, and desserts. They replaced sugary cereals with oatmeal. They ate less dairy and meat and ate more veggies, fruits, and plant-based proteins.
After 12 weeks, the participants were reevaluated by their doctors. 33% of those in the whole-foods group were no longer considered depressed compared to 8% in the control group.14
I’d say it’s fairly remarkable that one third of those diagnosed with major depression no longer met criteria for that diagnosis just three months after switching to a whole-food diet.
What about the argument that whole foods are more expensive? In this same study, the researchers tracked the expenses of participants and discovered that those on the whole-food diet actually spent less money on groceries than those eating processed foods.
Bottom line, Brittany’s incredible story demonstrates that whole foods are what works and the results speak for themselves, better weight, better mood, better health, gosh even better kids.
So if whole foods work, how do we get more of what works into our life? We tackle that very question in Act II of today’s podcast.
But just before we do, I just want to pause for a moment and say thank you for listening to the Better Medicine Podcast. Our goal here is simple. We research what works in health, fitness, and nutrition so that you can get more of what works into your life.
Please take a moment and go to our website BetterMedicine.com and subscribe to our monthly newsletter. It’s free and frankly, it’s the best way for us to stay in touch. At BetterMedicine.com you can find links to all of our podcasts, show notes, as well as discounts from our sponsors.
And if you’re interested in taking your health to the next level, you can sign up for personalized coaching sessions with me. As a certified health and wellness coach, I work one-on-one with you to help you explore and enhance your own personal nutrition and fitness goals to get you living and feeling your very best. Sign up today at BetterMedicine.com and thanks for listening.
Act II: How to get more of What Works into your life.
What can we learn from Brittany’s story and how can more of us swap out ultra processed foods for whole-foods? I’m going to give you three science-backed fixes for just this.
A few years ago a group of researchers wanted to see what effect intentional planning had on developing a healthy habit.
They looked at about 250 people who were interested in building healthier habits. They divided them into three groups. The first group was the control group and they simply asked them to set a goal for themselves and record their healthy habit after every time they did it.
The second group was the motivation group. They set a goal and recorded their healthy habit after they did it. In addition, they also reviewed some literature on healthy living.
The third group had to record their health habits, they also got the motivational lit, and they were asked to set a written goal using the template “During the next week, I will perform my healthy habit on (blank) DAY at (blank) TIME.
For example, folks would write in their journal: “During the next week I am going to go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5 to 6pm”. Pretty simple.
So what did they find? After a few weeks, around 30 percent of people in the first two groups met their goals. The motivational literature had almost zero effect. This was compared to the third group who formulated a written goal where more than 90% of those individuals met their healthy habit goals.15
Simply by creating what the researchers called a written intention, a plan for your healthy habit, these individuals were three times more likely to achieve their health goals.
I share the concept of written intentions with you because it demonstrates that it’s not enough to have the best data or information. A lot of us know that a healthy diet is good for us. It’s the “how do I implement this knowledge into my life” that often matters the most.
Step 1 of What Works: Create a Written Weekly Meal Plan
Brittany Williams is a meal planning jedi. At the start of each week, she sits down with her husband and kids and creates a written intention by planning her weekly meals. “During the next week we will prepare 21 home cooked meals that include primarily whole foods.”
Notice how she engages all of the key stakeholders, i. e. her family, in this process. Together they make a shopping list. She and her husband signup for which meals they will prepare and then they just go for it. They devote a portion of every Sunday to prepare a few meals to have on hand for the coming week and after the kids go to bed, they prepare the next day’s lunches the night before.
Studies show that when an individual adopts a healthy eating habit, like preparing more meals at home and eating more whole-foods, it’s contagious.16 Not only do they lose weight, their spouse and children get healthier as well. 17
When Brittany engaged her husband and kids in the family food making process, they essentially created a new culture for their family built upon creating and sharing healthy meals together. It was contagious and everyone benefited.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at thousands of Americans and revealed that if your spouse or sibling is obese, your risk of obesity increases by more than 50% and if your friend is obese, your risk increases by more than 150%.18
The opposite is true when individuals engage in healthy habits with others. One of the most effective things you can do to build healthier habits is to create a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.
As we mentioned, the main key to Brittany’s success is that she incorporates primarily whole-foods into her home-cooked meals. This means more vegetables, fruits, nuts, and plant-based proteins. That leads us to the next step…
Step 2 of What Works: Shop The Perimeter
One of my earliest memories as a child is sitting in one of those old rickety shopping carts. You know the ones with the back wheel that refuses to correctly spin in the direction of travel. I remember staring at my Mom as we made our way around our local supermarket.
As a kid, I wanted the colorful marshmallow cereal, the sugary drinks, and all of the cookies. The thing is that most of the stuff I wanted was located in the main isles of the grocery store and I couldn’t help but notice that my Mom was way more interested in the perimeter of the market.
She was doing what is now known as shopping the perimeter. The perimeter of the grocery store is where you're more likely to find fresh, wholesome fruits, vegetables, dairy, and whole grains.
If you looked at a heat map of where the majority of ultra-processed foods are located in a grocery store, they’re primarily located in the isles. Now shopping the perimeter is not perfect. You will have to take an occasional aisle or two to grab healthy foods like nuts, beans, and baking supplies but mostly stick to the outer ring of the grocery store.
Shopping the perimeter is a strategy that works and it’s backed by the American Heart Association.19 You have to understand that grocery stores are intentionally laid out in a way to get you to purchase more items than you actually need.
Ever wonder why the dairy section is so far away from the entrance in a grocery store? That’s because four out of every five shoppers that enter the grocery store are there to purchase at least one dairy item. They place the dairy section at the back of the store so that even if you’re just there for a carton of milk you need to walk past literally hundreds of items you had not intended to buy.
Bottom line. Number one, be a meal planning master like Brittany and prepare a written weekly meal-prep list. And number two: when you shop, navigate like my Mom, stick to the perimeter where you’ll be more likely to find wholefoods.
What Works, Strategy #3: Your Gut Loves Variety
Nearly ten years later, Brittany is still eating a whole food diet and even after having kids, has kept the weight off. She attributes this to her emphasis on incorporating different varieties of whole foods into her diet and it turns out that variety has benefits as well.
A recent observational study looked at thousands of women from Sweden. The researchers essentially looked at the variety of foods in their diets. They literally counted the number of different types of whole foods these women consumed.
They found that women who followed a healthy diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads, and plant-based proteins like beans had a significantly lower mortality than women who consumed less of these healthy items.
Okay, that’s not a big surprise, but when they looked at the variety, the actual number of different whole foods each woman was eating, they found that consuming a higher variety of whole foods correlated with increased longevity.
Women who consumed 16 different types of whole foods had a 42% less all-cause mortality when compared to women who consumed eight or fewer whole foods in their diet. In fact, for each additional whole food consumed, their risk of death was 5% lower.20
It turns out that a diet high in whole food variety, meaning lots of different types of healthy foods, leads to a healthy gut microbiome. Our stomach is packed with healthy bacteria that help us process food and fight off disease.
When we incorporate more variety of healthy foods into our diet this adds to the health of our GI tract which in turn supports our overall health and well being.
So the next time you’re in the supermarket and you're shopping the perimeter, take a look at your shopping cart and see how many different types of whole foods you’ve included. Maybe it’s time to grab that brussel sprout and up your variety, your lifespan will thank you for it.
Okay, it’s recap time. Let’s take an inventory of what we covered today.
We met Brittany Williams who lost over a hundred pounds in one year simply by preparing more whole-food meals at home.
We dug into the obesity epidemic and found out that the biggest contributor to our waistlines is not laziness but actually, ultra-processed foods. We looked at the NIH data that showed that eating processed foods leads to an extra pound of weight gain per week.
We covered the four classifications of foods and discussed how to spot ultra-processed foods with their added sugars, fats, and other badness on the label.
We discussed the physical and mental health benefits of consuming whole foods that include lower rates of diabetes, hypertension, depression, and not just for you but for your kiddos as well.
My call to action for you is to follow Brittany’s lead, prepare more wholefood meals at home, and improve your odds by gathering your stakeholders, shopping the perimeter, and add a little variety for a healthier and longer life. Your future self will thank you for it.
Thank you for listening to the Better Medicine Podcast where we research what works so that you can get more of what works into your life.
I truly hope you enjoyed our conversation today. To learn more about today's show, including links, resources, coaching, and references to everything discussed go to BetterMedicine.com
I have one ask and that is that you take a few seconds now, go to BetterMedicine.com and subscribe to our newsletter. Once a month, you will receive a link to a podcast just like this one filled with actionable insights and strategies to help get you feeling your very best.
If you would like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful way to do so is to subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube and feel free to leave a review. Sharing this episode with friends or on social media is also very much welcomed.
Thank you for listening.
References
1. GBD 2021 US Obesity Forecasting Collaborators. National-level and state-level prevalence of overweight and obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the USA, 1990-2021, and forecasts up to 2050. Lancet. 2024 Dec 7;404(10469):2278-2298. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01548-4. Epub 2024 Nov 14. PMID: 39551059; PMCID: PMC11694015.
2. Website Accessed 8/1/2025: https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/#:~:text=How%20have%20obesity%20rates%20changed,2017%2D2018
3. Wolfson JA, Tucker AC, Leung CW, Rebholz CM, Garcia-Larsen V, Martinez-Steele E. Trends in Adults' Intake of Un-processed/Minimally Processed, and Ultra-processed foods at Home and Away from Home in the United States from 2003-2018. J Nutr. 2025 Jan;155(1):280-292. doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.10.048. Epub 2024 Nov 2. PMID: 39489418; PMCID: PMC11795699.
4. Fischer PM, Schwartz MP, Richards JW Jr, Goldstein AO, Rojas TH. Brand logo recognition by children aged 3 to 6 years. Mickey Mouse and Old Joe the Camel. JAMA. 1991 Dec 11;266(22):3145-8. PMID: 1956101.
5. Lane MM, Gamage E, Du S, Ashtree DN, McGuinness AJ, Gauci S, Baker P, Lawrence M, Rebholz CM, Srour B, Touvier M, Jacka FN, O'Neil A, Segasby T, Marx W. Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses.
6. Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, Chung ST, Costa E, Courville A, Darcey V, Fletcher LA, Forde CG, Gharib AM, Guo J, Howard R, Joseph PV, McGehee S, Ouwerkerk R, Raisinger K, Rozga I, Stagliano M, Walter M, Walter PJ, Yang S, Zhou M. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67-77.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008. Epub 2019 May 16. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):226. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.020. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2020 Oct 6;32(4):690. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.08.014. PMID: 31105044; PMCID: PMC7946062.
7. Berge JM, Wall M, Hsueh TF, Fulkerson JA, Larson N, Neumark-Sztainer D. The protective role of family meals for youth obesity: 10-year longitudinal associations. J Pediatr. 2015 Feb;166(2):296-301. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2014.08.030. Epub 2014 Sep 27. PMID: 25266343; PMCID: PMC4308550.
8. Wolfson JA, Martinez-Steele E, Tucker AC, Leung CW. Greater Frequency of Cooking Dinner at Home and More Time Spent Cooking Are Inversely Associated With Ultra-Processed Food Consumption Among US Adults. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2024 Dec;124(12):1590-1605.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2024.03.005. Epub 2024 Mar 8. PMID: 38462128; PMCID: PMC11380703.
9. Chrysohoou C, Pitsavos C, Lazaros G, Skoumas J, Tousoulis D, Stefanadis C. Determinants of All-Cause Mortality and Incidence of Cardiovascular Disease (2009 to 2013) in Older Adults: The Ikaria Study of the Blue Zones. Angiology. 2016;67(6):541-548.
10. Zong G, Eisenberg DM, Hu FB, Sun Q. Consumption of Meals Prepared at Home and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: An Analysis of Two Prospective Cohort Studies. PLoS Med. 2016 Jul 5;13(7):e1002052. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002052. PMID: 27379673; PMCID: PMC4933392.
11. Mills S, Brown H, Wrieden W, White M, Adams J. Frequency of eating home cooked meals and potential benefits for diet and health: cross-sectional analysis of a population-based cohort study. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2017 Aug 17;14(1):109. doi: 10.1186/s12966-017-0567-y. PMID: 28818089; PMCID: PMC5561571.
12. Gillman MW, Rifas-Shiman SL, Frazier AL, Rockett HR, Camargo CA Jr, Field AE, Berkey CS, Colditz GA. Family dinner and diet quality among older children and adolescents. Arch Fam Med. 2000 Mar;9(3):235-40. doi: 10.1001/archfami.9.3.235. PMID: 10728109.
13. Fulkerson JA, Story M, Mellin A, Leffert N, Neumark-Sztainer D, French SA. Family dinner meal frequency and adolescent development: relationships with developmental assets and high-risk behaviors. J Adolesc Health. 2006 Sep;39(3):337-45. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2005.12.026. Epub 2006 Jul 10. PMID: 16919794.
14. Jacka FN, O'Neil A, Opie R, Itsiopoulos C, Cotton S, Mohebbi M, Castle D, Dash S, Mihalopoulos C, Chatterton ML, Brazionis L, Dean OM, Hodge AM, Berk M. A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the 'SMILES' trial). BMC Med. 2017 Jan 30;15(1):23. doi: 10.1186/s12916-017-0791-y. Erratum in: BMC Med. 2018 Dec 28;16(1):236. doi: 10.1186/s12916-018-1220-6. PMID: 28137247; PMCID: PMC5282719.
15. Milne S, Orbell S, Sheeran P. Combining motivational and volitional interventions to promote exercise participation: protection motivation theory and implementation intentions. Br J Health Psychol. 2002 May;7(Pt 2):163-84. doi: 10.1348/135910702169420. PMID: 14596707.
16. Watson PM, Dugdill L, Pickering K, Bostock S, Hargreaves J, Staniford L, Cable NT. A whole family approach to childhood obesity management (GOALS): relationship between adult and child BMI change. Ann Hum Biol. 2011 Jul;38(4):445-52. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2011.590531. Epub 2011 Jun 17. PMID: 21682574.
17. Savage JS, Fisher JO, Birch LL. Parental influence on eating behavior: conception to adolescence. J Law Med Ethics. 2007 Spring;35(1):22-34. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720X.2007.00111.x. PMID: 17341215; PMCID: PMC2531152.
18. Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. N Engl J Med. 2007 Jul 26;357(4):370-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa066082. Epub 2007 Jul 25. PMID: 17652652.
19. Website Accessed (8/1/2025): https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/cooking-skills/shopping/grocery-shopping-tips#:~:text=Start%20on%20the%20perimeter%20of,that%20aren't%20healthy%20choices.
Karin B Michels, Alicja Wolk, A prospective study of variety of healthy foods and mortality in women, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 31, Issue 4, August 2002, Pages 847–854, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/31.4.847
20. Karin B Michels, Alicja Wolk, A prospective study of variety of healthy foods and mortality in women, International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 31, Issue 4, August 2002, Pages 847–854, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/31.4.847