Ask Sonny
I’m at a Thai place with friends. What do I order?
Chicken satay or a larb salad — both fit. Go easy on the sweet sauce, and enjoy the evening.
A Different View of Nutrition
A path, not a diet
Tomorrow morning — a pint of water. That’s it. That’s step one out of two hundred and forty.
Open the appThe Nutrition Strategy
Read why it works — before you change a thing.
an opening, 14 chapters and a finale · 6–10 minutes each
- 0Getting started: the strategy and loving yourselfday 1
- 1Why diets don’t workday 1
- 2The brain and habitsday 15
- 3Food is energy, not a cultday 29
- 4Taste: loud food and the classicsday 43
- 5The basics: three meals, home and outday 57
- 6What to eat at homeday 71
- 7What we skip at home, and what we drinkday 85
- 8Breakfast is the foundationday 99
- 9How to eatday 113
- 10How to cookday 127
- 11Shopping and your surroundingsday 141
- 12Slips, eating out, guestsday 155
- 13Body, measurements, the indicatorday 169
- 14A parting wordday 183
- 15A path for lifeday 197
Eat nearby.
The places around you, already read through.
- Green Table0.3 mi9 of 31 dishes fit
- Casa Verde0.6 mi5 of 18 dishes fit
Snap your plate.
Take a photo of your food — Sonny checks every item against the system.
Granola · added sugar
Fruit yogurt · added sugar
Honey
Orange juice · sugar
Delivery that fits
Harbor Kitchen25–35 min
12 of 41 dishes fit
Grilled chicken plate · $14.50
Step one out of 240
Exercise is for your heart. Food decides your weight.
Don’t throw anything out of the fridge tonight. Don’t start on Monday. Don’t lose weight by summer. The first week takes nothing away from you — it only adds: water in the morning and something fresh next to the food you already eat.
Nobody gets lean in a gym or on an empty stomach. You change what’s on the plate — then two hundred and forty days, one step a day. No calorie counting, no food scale, nothing forbidden.
Your own GLP-1, no shots
What you get
Your own GLP-1. Protein and vegetables raise your own satiety hormone — the same GLP-1 the shots imitate. Hunger quiets down on its own, no needle needed.
More energy. Three steady meals instead of sugar spikes and crashes — energy that lasts through the evening, not just until lunch.
Snap the barcode. In the store, point your phone at any package — see the hidden sugar and additives and get a straight yes or no before it goes in the cart.
31 long-term studies
Why the things you tried didn’t work — and why it isn’t you
You’ve held on before. You know how that ends.
Diets
Hunger, a slip, the weight back with interest, guilt — and around again. That isn’t weakness, that’s how it’s built: researchers went through 31 long-term studies of dieting — first 5–10% comes off, then most people put all of it back, and a third to two-thirds end up heavier than when they started1. Their own conclusion: most would have been better off never starting.
The gym
You need it — for your heart, your muscles, your mood. It just doesn’t decide your weight: when energy expenditure was measured with precise instruments, very active people burned about as much as moderately active ones — the body adapts2. You can’t work off what you ate.
GLP-1 shots
While you take the shots, appetite drops and the weight goes down. The habits don’t move: you want the same food, you just fit less of it. Stop, and two-thirds of it is back within a year3. And here’s what nobody sells you: regular food — protein and vegetables — raises your own satiety hormones, including glucagon-like peptide-1 — GLP-14, the very hormone the shot imitates. Your natural appetite brake is already built in. Free, and without the nausea.
This is not advice to stop treatment your doctor prescribed: decisions about medication belong with your doctor.
All three are a war on your own body. You don’t need a war with it. You need to be on good terms with it again.
Nothing is forbidden
What you do instead: a nutrition strategy
Three meals a day. Regular food at home, freedom outside
Breakfast, lunch, dinner — enough to be full. At home: simple food, twenty minutes at the stove. At a restaurant, at a friend’s place, at a party — pretty much whatever you want. Nothing is forbidden, and that’s the whole difference from a diet: there’s nothing to fall off.
The store and the fridge
First you scan the barcode. Soon you read the ingredients yourself. A few months in, what’s inside your fridge will change beyond recognition.
And repetition
Your brain picks your food before you get the chance to say no — instruments catch the choice before the person is aware of it5, 6. Holding on comes too late: the choice is already made. The brain is retrained by calm repetition, one step at a time — the way loving parents get a child to eat vegetables: not by pressure, but by putting it on the table again and again and eating it themselves7. Become that parent to yourself.
The brain picks your food before you get to decide
One step a day
The Path: 240 days, one step at a time
The chapters open as you walk the Path. Building it into your life takes two hundred and forty days. One step a day, and the old steps are never cancelled — they stack up like slabs in a road:
Fresh Start
Days 1–7Quality Protein
Days 8–56Steady Rhythm
Days 57–70Smart Carbs
Days 71–84Clean Hydration
Days 85–98Morning Fuel
Days 99–112Balanced Plate
Days 113–126Kitchen Reset
Days 127–140Savvy Shopping
Days 141–154Dining Out
Days 155–168Beyond the Scale
Days 169–182Habits for Life
Days 183–240Fresh Start → Habits for Life
Days 1–240Every day is one card: two or three sentences and one action. Buy this. Cook this. Put that away. Measure. Done — check it off. Missed a day — you keep going, nothing burns down. The last day of a period gives you a title, from “Started Fresh” to “Walking Your Own Road.”
Two hundred and forty days sounds long? Count the years the loop “diet — slip — the weight’s back” has already been running. Two hundred and forty days happen once — and you eat your fill the whole way.
Repetition, not bans
This is how the brain relearns
One thing a day, 240 days. The brain changes by repetition, not by bans.
Retrain the brain and there is nothing to resist
It serves you
What the app does
The app is with you at every step: in the shop, at the stove, at a restaurant, and in the evening when you are about to break. Everything you need to keep eating regular food and to manage your weight — in one place.
None of this has to live in your head. You don’t serve the app — it serves you.
Chapters — for understanding. Fourteen of them, plus an opening and a finale, six to ten minutes each: why diets fail, what to eat at home, how to put dinner together in twenty minutes. Not a lecture — a conversation.
Sonny — an AI assistant I trained on my own experience. Voice or text: what to order at a restaurant, what to cook from what’s in the fridge, what to do after a slip.
Just say it. “Today 172 lb, waist 34” — Sonny logs it. “Chicken and vegetables for three days” — Sonny builds the menu.
A translator for labels. Point the camera at the ingredients or the barcode — additives, hidden sugars, an honest verdict on what’s inside instead of the name on the front.
Path awards. Forty-one of them: a title for each of the twelve periods, streaks and milestones.
Reminders and a weekly report. You choose what to be reminded about: water, measurements, the week’s results.
A habit check. Eight questions about your habits — and an honest number that shows where to move next.
Measurements. Waist, chest and hips on a chart, next to your weight. The scale stays out of it: fat takes up more room than muscle, and the number lies in both directions.
Saved menus and places. Every menu you build is kept, so you can cook it again; places you liked stay with their phone and address.
“My personal meal plan.” Builds a menu from my recipes, using the products and the ways of cooking you picked — for one, three or seven days, with a shopping list.
“Family meal plan.” Builds a menu from my recipes for every member of your family, each with their own preferences in products and ways of cooking — for one, three or seven days.
The app covers most of what it takes to eat well — at home, in the store and out — without stepping off your nutrition strategy. The rest is three plates a day, and those are yours.
In one place
Screens from the app
Strategy · 14 chapters + opening and finale
Why food works the way it does. Eight minutes a day, with a self-check.
Sonny answers
Ask by voice or send a photo: what to eat, how to cook it, whether it fits you.
Just say it
Say it in words — Sonny logs your weight or builds the menu.
Family meal plan
Cooking for everyone: each person’s own products and cooking method, one shared shopping list.
Path awards
41 awards: a title for each of the 12 periods, streaks and milestones.
Reminders and a weekly report
Choose what to be reminded about: water, measurements, the weekly report.
Check any product
Point at the barcode: additives, processing level and a straight yes or no.
Snap the ingredients
Take a photo of the label: sugar, oils and additives are highlighted, with a straight yes or no.
Everything you’ll read, I lived
Who’s telling you this
I got to 267 pounds in Moscow — eating nothing fatty and training three times a week. I did the math back then: a couple of pounds a year is a problem in ten years and a catastrophe in twenty. Then came everything that promises a result: diets, fasting, raw food, calorie counting, a food scale on the counter. Slips, the weight back, guilt. At some point I said it to myself straight: enough. A diet is abuse of yourself.
So I went another way. I’m lazy — hours at the stove are not my life, so the cooking came out simple: twenty minutes, a few dishes in rotation, containers. Like an artist, I took away what didn’t belong, one thing at a time, calmly, keeping whatever made my body feel good. In my own experience it came off at 20–30 pounds a year. I won’t promise you that number — every body is its own — but the swing stopped for good and my weight has held at one level for years — about that part I’m certain.
About money, honestly: I don’t cut corners on food. In five years in San Diego I spent about eight thousand dollars on burritos — I’ve been to just about every burrito place in the city. I’ve put money into stocks and into other people’s companies. Nothing paid off like food did. Better than the S&P 500 — that’s not a joke, that’s my bookkeeping.
Closer to forty I looked at myself: no belly, energy to spare. And I understood that all those years I’d been following one strategy without knowing it. All that was left was to write it down. There’s no institute behind it, no school of dietetics, no one else’s book — everything you’ll read, I lived, over years, not in a three-month trial. And I still eat this way today.
What the studies found
Diets and workouts vs. this strategy
| Approach | First two weeks | Dinner out | One slip | A year later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This strategy | Slower: two weeks, two first steps — and no hunger | Nothing knocks you out. Sonny tells you what to order | You pick up at the next meal | Not a diet anymore — it’s how you eat |
| Diets | ||||
| Keto | −4–9 lbs, mostly water8 | One dinner knocks you out of ketosis | Start over | Almost nobody is still on it1 |
| Calorie counting | −2–4 lbs, if you honestly count every gram | Counting a restaurant dish is hopeless: people are off by nearly half9 | The day is ruined, guilt, “starting Monday” | Most people put it all back, a third with interest |
| Intermittent 16:8 | The window by itself doesn’t cut weight10 | After eight at night the window is broken | Window broken — the day doesn’t count | No calorie cut, no result11 |
| GLP-1 shots | Appetite drops — while you keep taking the shots | Fine, if the nausea lets you | Missed a shot, and the appetite is right back | Two-thirds of the weight returns3 |
| Movement | ||||
| Tai chi | Fewer than half of 24 trials found a change12 | Doesn’t touch what’s on the plate | Skip a class — the scale won’t notice | Waist 0.7 in slimmer at nine months13 |
| Walking | Twelve weeks of 45-minute walks: under 2 lbs14 | The walk home doesn’t cancel dessert | A day off costs nothing | The body adapts and burns about the same2 |
| Yoga | Thirty trials, 2,173 people: no effect on weight15 | Doesn’t change what you order | Missed a class — nothing to start over | Works better when a diet comes with it16 |
| Hand mudras | No trial has tested them on their own17 | Nothing changes on the plate | Nothing to break — and nothing to hold on to | Still untested |
- Keto and water loss — PubMed 1615908.
- Restaurant portions are misjudged — PubMed 1454084.
- TREAT trial, 2020 — JAMA Internal Medicine, doi 10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.4153.
- Intermittent fasting without calorie restriction, 2022 — doi 10.1056/NEJMoa2114833.
- Tai chi and qigong, 24 trials, 2018 — Arizona State University, PubMed 29856007.
- Tai chi and belly fat, 543 people, 2021 — Annals of Internal Medicine, PubMed 34058100.
- Tai chi and walking, 12 weeks, 2015 — PubMed 26543489.
- Yoga and weight, 30 trials, 2016 — PubMed 27058944.
- Yoga programs for weight, 2013 — University of Arizona, PubMed 23709458.
- PubMed search, 19 October 2026: no trial of mudras alone.
Notes 1, 2 and 3 are listed above.
The eight rows below ours are what the studies found; the footnotes lead to the sources. The first row describes how this strategy works. It is not a study result and not a promise of one.
Pricing
Less than one visit to a dietitian
Add up what the last year of trying cost you
- The membership you barely used.
- The delivery orders on the bad evenings.
- The “healthy” groceries that went in the trash a week later.
Now the going rate for the same problem
$100 to $200
One visit to a dietitian.
$199 to $499 a month
The shots — only for as long as you keep taking them.
$5,000 to $10,000
Liposuction for one area — and it won’t live through a single evening at the fridge for you.
Personal
For one person.
$19.99 a month
- The chapters
- The Path 240
- Sonny AI assistant
- “Nearby” and “Delivery”
- The label scanner
- Measurements
Family
For a family that eats together.
$24.99 a month
- Everything in Personal
- Cooking for the family
- Everyone with their own products and menu
- One fridge, one shopping list
It stays with you every day, including the evening your hand reaches for the fridge door.
No hunger, nothing forbidden, no counting
Your first step
A path, not a diet.
Tomorrow morning — a pint of water. That’s step one. After it, one small step a day — each new one opens when you’re ready. No hunger, nothing forbidden, no counting.
Create an account with your email — and the app is open.
Open the appSee you on step one.
This material is based on the author’s personal experience and open research; it is not medical advice. If you have a medical condition, consult your doctor.