Daily Dozen Diet Put to the Test for Weight Loss

What did a pilot study on How Not to Die’s Daily Dozen and How Not to Diet’s 21 Tweaks for weight loss find?

I explain my traffic light system for ranking the relative healthfulness of Green Light vs. Yellow Light vs. Red Light foods in Dining by Traffic Light: Green Is for Go, Red Is for Stop ( ).

The Daily Dozen was first introduced in How Not to Die ( ). Rather than being a meal plan or diet in itself, the Daily Dozen is to be used as a checklist to inspire you to eat more healthfully and design more balanced meals.

Join us for 11 weeks of Daily Dozen support emails ( ) to help you Do the Dozen with ease! Each week, we will send you an email with tips, tricks, facts, and tasty recipes to help you incorporate some of the healthiest of healthy foods into your daily routine.

Check out How Not to Die ( ) and How Not to Diet ( ) at your local library, available in print, e-book, and audio. (All proceeds I receive from the books are donated directly to charity.)

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Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it.

Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at . You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics.

Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

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Leroy Johnson
 

  • @AndrewPawley11 says:

    I love this channel!

  • @KrwiomoczBogurodzicy says:

    Hopefully more studies will follow soon! This could help people a lot.

  • @Obez45 says:

    Why is there never anything about putting on weight? It so bloody hard to do so.

  • @deepakhiranandani6488 says:

    Great to see this. 👍😊

  • @stephanieb3344 says:

    Love the daily dozen and the app! Thank you for all you do, glad you were able to put it to the test ❤

  • @hsot351 says:

    “Feedback from millions of people”….the app has 12k likes

    This channel is nothing more than: eat more vegetables

    Activist doctor

    • @reinux says:

      “Eat more vegetables” happens to be the best advice to give a population that doesn’t eat nearly enough vegetables.
      Any other place, any other time, people would be laughing at how controversial that supposedly is.
      Also, free apps with no ads tend not to get many reviews.

    • @catecurl3790 says:

      Feedback takes many forms

    • @dianeladico1769 says:

      It’s really much more than ‘eat more vegetables’ but to understand that you’d have to actually watch the videos and pay attention as opposed to swooping in for some oversimplified drive-by snark.

  • @youganon says:

    I know from my experience that my waist size dropped, for sure!
    The author of the study must be so proud watching this video!

  • @Alexander-ok7fm says:

    Thank you!

  • @Crickify-g2l says:

    “For months, I felt exhausted no matter what I did—better sleep, exercise, nothing worked. Finally, I decided to test my vitamin levels, and it opened my eyes to what my body truly needed. It’s amazing how much a simple test can change your life. If you’re feeling drained, it’s worth

  • @fatcat220 says:

    Yeah I also found that the daily dozen stuffed me to the gills! And yet I lost body fat without even trying! Weird? Who knew? After 5 years of wfpb eating, I’ve lost most cravings for the unhealthy foods, and I have a passion for the tastes I find in unprocessed plant foods.

  • @AlanTyree says:

    ישר כוח!

  • @phillippinter7518 says:

    Too few calories? I did the math counting for the highest calorie options, some options have have over twice the calories of others. A 100g “serving” of tempeh is about 200 kcal, some varieties of avocado ate very high in fat and around 50% dm making a 120g “serving” around 380 kcal. Purple sweet potatoes are much higher in calories than orange about 120kcal/100g raw. He clearly didn’t account for all of them when he said “higher calorie options” it could exceed 2000 calories. Meaning I would have to restrict what options I choose if I wanted to lose weight. And I wouldn’t have room for an extra serving of something, like fruit for example because it doesn’t fit in my calories with all that other stuff

  • @rebeccahenderson7761 says:

    Thanks for reminding to get back to my app!

  • @andeybrown says:

    Dumb question, but what about increased protein for building muscle? I tried the Daily Dozen app years ago while working with a coach with the goal to lose fat and increase muscle. I found it hard to meet my protein goal (around 130 grams) and caloric goal while also trying to fit in the daily dozen

    • @Skweepa says:

      Search for Simnett Nutrition on here – very informative about high protein foods/recipes, most that also qualify for the daily dozen.

  • @mjs28s says:

    people claimed it was too much food?!?

    I put that into cronometer a long time ago and, depending on your specific choices, it is around 1,100 calories (1200 in their test with their food selections) which is less than pretty much every adult should be getting in a day less you have some specific condition. Most people would burn that many calories even if bedridden, let alone moving about, working, chores, daily life.

    This is verified in the video so how do people claim it is too much food while both my testing, and the commentary in the video state that it is not enough calories? If you mean too much by volume, simply pick higher density foods where you can and actually chew your food. A large “volume” of veggies or fruit or leafy greens is not large at all after you chew them properly.

  • @DeathByFashion1 says:

    I lost 15 lbs and ate so much! But I was being very obsessed lol slowly I was able to find a balance and not be stressed about it haha
    I want to add I think this is my body’s weight because I never gained it. I believe somehow your body knows your ideal weight. Nature.

  • @meonyoutubenow says:

    Does not work.

  • @dianeladico1769 says:

    I followed the Daily Dozen and no, I couldn’t eat all that food but I made sure I hit each category at least once in a day. I lost more weight than I care to mention and everything improved. Everything. Cholesterol, a1c, BP, inflammation and of course BMI. I dropped three T2 diabetes meds and cut Metformin in half. Blew the endocrinologist’s mind. Quote: ‘this just doesn’t happen’.
    Every meal I ate to satiety, snacked if I felt like it and really didn’t measure-just eyeballed amounts. I counted calories once, based on what I was eating just to see. Turns out I was naturally eating the number of calories needed to maintain my ideal weight. How cool is that?
    If you’re on the fence-try it. Yes, you’ll probably end up doing more shopping, chopping and cooking but aren’t you worth it?

  • @TheBigMamaFreak says:

    I just wish the app had a search bar and you could search the food to check it off instead of looking for it all over

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