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What's in store for today:

• The "Your Last Reset" Masterclass
• Clearing up the debate on artificial sweetners
• Why satisfaction matters more than fullness

Are You Ready For YOUR Last Reset?

How many times have you "started over"? A new plan, a new Monday, a new resolve...only to end up right back where you began a few weeks later?

If you've lost count, I want you to hear this: you are not broken. You never were.

You're just like Thomas Edison. He famously failed over 1,000 times trying to invent the light bulb before finding the one approach that worked. He wasn't incapable — he just hadn't found the right approach yet. And when he did, he changed the world.

That's exactly what most people are doing with their health: running failed experiment after failed experiment, all alone, hoping the next reset is the one that sticks.

I'm hosting a free masterclass to end that cycle.

It's called Your Last Reset, and I'm going to give you the clarity I've built from 11 years of coaching real moms and dads:

• Exactly what my most successful clients and I do every day and week to get results that last
• Exactly how we look at food to lose and maintain weight without obsessively counting calories
• Exactly how we think — so you keep going even when life gets busy or hard (which it will)

📅 Thursday, July 23rd at 6:30pm EST, live on Zoom

You get two bonuses for showing up live:
🎁 Attend live and I'll give you our Win The Day Habit Tracker — the exact daily habits that transform your body, laid out so you can track them like my clients do.
🎁 Stay to the end and I'll share my personal present-day menu — the meals and snacks my family and I actually eat to stay fit as heck after 40.

One catch: my Zoom account caps the room at 100 attendees, and we're already down to less than 75 spots.

Click here to save your seat

Come with a notebook, a pen, and an open mind. Let's make this reset your last one.

Let's Clear The Air On Artificial Sweeteners

Few topics generate more fear and confusion than artificial sweeteners. Every year or two a scary headline goes viral, everyone panics, and a bunch of people go right back to sugar thinking they're doing themselves a favor.

So let's cut through the noise with what the actual research says.

First, the fear. You may have seen headlines in 2023 that aspartame was labeled "possibly carcinogenic." Here's the part they left out: that same week, the WHO's own food-safety committee reviewed the evidence and reaffirmed the safe daily intake — which comes out to around 9 to 14 cans of diet soda per day for a 150-pound adult before you'd even hit the limit.

The "possibly" label was based on limited evidence, and it lands in the same low-confidence category as things like aloe vera and pickled vegetables. The FDA flat-out disagreed with the classification. In other words: the headline was scary, the science underneath it was not.

Second, the weight-loss edge. This is where it matters for you. You've probably also heard the claim that artificial sweeteners "spike your insulin," cause insulin resistance, and secretly make you gain weight.

Here's the truth: when researchers test this in actual controlled trials, sweeteners have no meaningful effect on blood sugar or insulin — they behave essentially like water. Sugar is what spikes blood sugar and insulin.

And in the gold-standard weight studies, swapping sugar for sweeteners consistently helps people eat fewer calories and lose weight — the opposite of the claim. Here's the coolest tidbit of all: in longer-term trials, artificially sweetened beverages didn't just beat sugar...they even slightly outperformed plain water for weight loss.

Researchers think it's because they satisfy your sweet cravings, making you less likely to seek those sweet calories elsewhere. So that diet soda isn't just "not hurting" your weight loss — it may actually be helping. For someone trying to lose fat sustainably, that's a genuine tool, not a gimmick.

Now, the fair caveat. In 2023 the WHO did put out an advisory against relying on sweeteners for long-term weight control.

Here's why, in plain English: they looked at studies that simply observed large groups of people over time, and noticed that people who drink a lot of diet soda also tend to have more weight problems and diabetes. Sounds damning, right?

But think about it for a second. Who drinks diet soda? Mostly people who are already struggling with their weight or blood sugar and are trying to do something about it. The sweeteners didn't cause the problem — the problem is why they reached for the sweeteners in the first place. It's like noticing that people who own bathroom scales weigh more than people who don't, and concluding that scales cause weight gain.

That's why so many researchers pushed back on that advisory — and why the controlled trials, where you can actually test cause and effect, keep showing the opposite result.

And who should be cautious? A true allergy to sweeteners like sucralose or stevia is rare. The more common issue is some digestive upset — and that's usually from sugar alcohols like erythritol and xylitol, not the sweeteners in your diet soda. If those bother your stomach, just choose products without them.

My take as a coach: I don't obsess over artificial sweeteners, and I don't recommend others do either. They're a helpful tool for cutting calories and taming a sweet tooth while you build the lifestyle. As with anything, don't go chugging a dozen diet sodas a day — but a couple of diet drinks or some sugar-free syrup on your pancakes isn't the villain the internet makes it out to be. Use them as a bridge to help you enjoy the process and stay consistent. That's what actually gets results.

Satisfaction vs. Satiety: Which Wins The Battle Over Your Appetite & Cravings

Here's something surprising I've learned from 14 years on my own health journey and 11 years of coaching hundreds of clients...

When it comes to controlling your appetite, satisfaction from your food is more powerful than fullness.

I discovered this the hard way. When I started my own weight loss journey, I ate nothing but whole foods — basically Whole30. And the sheer volume of food I needed was almost comical.

Massive plates and bowls, mountains of veggies piled next to my proteins just to fill me up. And despite all that fiber and protein, I still often found myself wandering the kitchen after meals, looking for...something.

I was full. But I wasn't satisfied. And my appetite knew the difference.  And I STILL STRUGGLED to control my weight because of this.  

Later in my journey, I started optimizing for enjoyment instead, and this is when I began creating The Healthy & Whole Cookbook.

I traded the baked chicken breast and roasted brussels sprouts for high-protein, low-calorie versions of foods I actually love: French toast, smashburgers, pasta, ice cream, pizza, tacos.

And here's what blew my mind: the more satisfying the meal, the smaller my portions got. More enjoyment = less food needed to feel happy and move on — no post-meal pantry raid required.

I've watched the same pattern in hundreds of clients since. Fullness answers "did I eat enough?" Satisfaction answers "did I get what I actually wanted?" And if the answer is no, your brain keeps looking — no matter how stuffed you are.

So optimize for BOTH. Keep protein and fiber high for physical fullness — but the faster you maximize enjoyment, the faster you'll feel truly in control of your appetite and cravings.

That's the real reason my clients eat smashburgers and ice cream while losing weight. It's not a cheat. It's the strategy. 🙌🏻

Client Of The Week - Lori 

This is what happens AFTER your last reset...

When Lori joined Healthy & Whole, she and her husband Matt agreed: something had to change. She'd get winded after a short walk. She avoided pictures any way she could. She found herself saying no to the life she wanted — the travel, the grandkids, the hiking — because she knew she couldn't keep up.

And a string of past failures had her questioning whether it would ever be different.

That was then. This is Lori now.

She's not just down over 85 pounds — she's maintaining beautifully. She's traveling. She's chasing grandkids. She's LIVING, not hiding.

Here's the thing: Lori is a very special woman, but she isn't uniquely gifted.

She was like every other mom and grandmother who has tried, failed, and reset more times than they can count...until she learned a better way.

So proud of you, Lori. 💪🏻

Want to learn the exact habits Lori lives by? That's exactly what I'm teaching at my free Your Last Reset masterclass — Thursday, July 23rd at 6:30pm EST on Zoom. Only 100 seats, and they're going fast. Save your spot here

Ready to start your journey? 

Here's how I can help...

If you're feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with your body and health, I know how you feel.   Apply for coaching here with Healthy & Whole, I'll work with you to find the perfect support level for you in our program that fits your needs and your budget.  We have options starting as low as $47 per month 💪🏻

Disclaimer: This email is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician.

Sources:

World Health Organization / IARC & JECFA. "Aspartame hazard and risk assessment results released." July 14, 2023. (Group 2B classification + reaffirmed acceptable daily intake of 40 mg/kg body weight) — who.int/news/item/14-07-2023-aspartame-hazard-and-risk-assessment-results-released

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. "Aspartame and Other Sweeteners in Food." (FDA's disagreement with the IARC classification) — fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/aspartame-and-other-sweeteners-food

World Health Organization. "Use of non-sugar sweeteners: WHO guideline." May 2023. (The conditional recommendation based on low-certainty evidence) — who.int/publications/i/item/9789240073616

Khan TA, Lee JJ, Ayoub-Charette S, et al. "WHO guideline on the use of non-sugar sweeteners: a need for reconsideration." European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2023;77:1009–1013. (The researcher pushback on the WHO advisory and reverse-causation critique)

Rogers PJ, Appleton KM. "The effects of low-calorie sweeteners on energy intake and body weight: a systematic review and meta-analyses of sustained intervention studies." International Journal of Obesity. 2021;45(3):464–478. (Sweetened beverages outperforming both sugar and water for weight loss in sustained trials)

McGlynn ND, Khan TA, Wang L, et al. "Association of Low- and No-Calorie Sweetened Beverages as a Replacement for Sugar-Sweetened Beverages With Body Weight and Cardiometabolic Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis." JAMA Network Open. 2022;5(3):e222092. (Benefits of swapping sugar-sweetened drinks for diet versions)

Zhang R, Noronha JC, Khan TA, et al. "The Effect of Non-Nutritive Sweetened Beverages on Postprandial Glycemic and Endocrine Responses: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis." Nutrients. 2023;15(4):1050. (No effect on blood glucose or insulin — behaved like water, while sugar-sweetened drinks raised both)