Three Essential Elements of the OneNumber Health System
™
The OneNumber Health System unites these three elements in two convenient apps. OneNumber Health — our “starter” version — helps you manage your diet by rating each food you enter for its level of nourishment and its match, or mismatch, to your weight objective and dietary restrictions. The more comprehensive OneNumber Pro helps you manage your energy balance, nutrient consumption and fitness level while providing a myriad of other essential functions. Both are easy to use and extremely effective.
1. Nutrition
You need two major things from food: energy (Calories), the fuel on which your body runs, and nutrients that your body uses to build, maintain, and repair itself. Fad dieting tends to focus on Calorie restriction, but that’s only half the equation. Good nutrition is the other half and is often neglected in fad dieting. OneNumber is not a diet, it’s an approach designed to shift your eating habits away from unhealthy high-Calorie/low-nutrient foods and toward foods with high nutrient-to-Calorie ratios. No need to study food labels or restaurant menu nutrient lists; it’s all summarized right there on your smart phone.
OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro direct you toward the macronutrients you need, like fiber and protein, and away from the macronutrients most of us need to avoid, like sugar and fat. All of this is expressed in a single number that’s tailored to your personal weight objective — lose, maintain or gain — and can take into account certain dietary restrictions your doctor may place on you. For a more detailed look into how the OneNumber food-rating method works, check out our Overview.
2. Weight Management
Your body is a thermodynamic engine very like a car: You put energy (Calories) in and your body burns those Calories to do work and make heat. Like a car, your body cannot create energy; it can only use or store what you take in. It’s pretty efficient as thermodynamic engines go, though not 100%, so it expels a small part of the energy you ingest as waste. If you take in more energy than you burn and waste, you’ll store the excess for the future, mostly as fat. During periods when you burn and waste more than you put in, your body automatically summons energy from storage to keep you going. So, to gain fat, take in more energy than you burn and waste. To lose, do the opposite. To maintain, balance the two.
Energy consumption that’s right for one person is rarely right for another. The number of Calories one needs depends on many factors that are unique to the individual, including activity level, resting Calorie burn rate and, very important, that person’s weight objective. Both OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro adjust your food ratings to help you achieve your weight objective in the healthiest way. If you select “Lose,” both will recommend nutritious and energy-poor foods, but if you select “Gain,” they will direct you to nutritious, energy-rich foods. Both apps guide everyone away from non-nutritious foods.
Both apps point you to the right foods for your weight objective and dietary restrictions, but Pro goes much further. It tracks and stores your nutrition over days, weeks, and years. It continuously reports your energy intake and monitors your energy burn, then compares the two and reports how much you’re gaining or losing. It monitors and reports the overall quality of your diet, especially that all-important component for gut health and weight control: fiber. It tracks your dietary balance and (subject to data availability) your micronutrient intake, comparing them to National Institute of Health (NIH) guidelines. It tracks your water consumption. If you choose, Pro can interface with your fitness tracker to report your activity and energy burn. It does all this and much more — in real-time.
3. Fitness
Our fitness module is designed for the average person who primarily uses exercise to feel better and help control weight, not as a comprehensive fitness app intended for the true fitness enthusiast. But because physical activity and resulting general fitness are essential keys to everyone’s health, OneNumber Pro enables all users, enthusiasts or not, to fully coordinate their exercise programs with their nutrition and weight management efforts, thus giving a complete, one-stop summary of the three factors that are so important to good health.
The three circles below illustrate the three elements that comprise the OneNumber™ approach to optimal health. While the three elements are different from one another, they are intimately connected. It is possible, even common, to be the correct weight but be unfit and poorly nourished. It’s also possible to be the right weight and well-nourished, yet still be unfit. The optimum operating point is shown by the dark region in the center where all three elements overlap — a well-nourished, fit body that’s the right weight.
(Calories)
The three circles below illustrate the three elements that comprise the OneNumber™ approach to optimal health. While the three elements are different from one anoth-er, they are intimately connected. It is possible,
even common, to be the correct weight but
be unfit and poorly nourished. It’s also pos-
sible to be the right weight and well nour-
ished, yet still be unfit. The optimum oper-
ating point is shown by the dark region
in the center where all three elements
overlap — a well-nourished, fit body
that’s the right weight.
The OneNumber Health System un-
ites these three elements in two con-
venient apps. OneNumber Health — our
“starter” version — helps you manage your
diet by rating each food you enter for its
level of nourishment and its match, or mis-
match, to your weight objective and dietary restrictions. The more comprehensive OneNumber Pro helps you manage your energy balance, nutrient consumption and fitness level while providing a myriad of other essential functions. Both are easy to use and extremely effective.
1. Nutrition
You need two major things from food: energy
(Calories), the fuel on which your body runs, and nutrients that your body uses to build, maintain,
and repair itself. Fad dieting tends to focus on
Calorie restriction, but that’s only half the equa-
tion. Good nutrition is the other half and is often
neglected in fad dieting. OneNumber is not a
diet, it’s an approach designed to shift
your eating habits away from un-
healthy high-Calorie/low-nutrient
foods and toward foods with high
nutrient-to-Calorie ratios. No need to
study food labels or restaurant menu
nutrient lists; it’s all summarized right
there on your smart phone.
OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro
direct you toward the macronutrients
you need, like fiber and protein, and away
from the macronutrients most of us need to avoid, like sugar and fat. All of this is expressed in a single number that’s tailored to your personal weight objective — lose, maintain or gain — and can take into account certain dietary restrictions your doctor may place on you. For a more detailed look into how the OneNumber food-rating method works, check out our Overview.
2. Weight Management
Your body is a thermodynamic engine very like a car: You put energy (Calories) in and your body burns those Calories to do work and make heat. Like a car, your body cannot create energy; it can only use or store what you take in. It’s pretty efficient as thermodynamic engines go, though not 100%, so it expels a small part of the energy you ingest as waste. If you take in more energy than you burn and waste, you’ll store the excess for the future, mostly as fat. During periods when you burn and waste more than you put in, your body automatically summons energy from storage to keep you going. So, to gain fat, take in more energy than you burn and waste. To lose, do the opposite. To maintain, balance the two.
Energy consumption that’s right for one person is rarely right for another. The number of Calories one needs depends on many factors that are unique to the individual, including activity level, resting Calorie burn rate and, very important, that person’s weight objective. Both OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro adjust your food ratings to help you achieve your weight objective in the healthiest way. If you select “Lose,” both will recommend nutritious and energy-poor foods, but if you select “Gain,” they will direct you to nutritious, energy-rich foods. Both apps guide everyone away from non-nutritious foods.
Both apps point you to the right foods for your weight objective and dietary restrictions, but Pro goes much further. It tracks and stores your nutrition over days, weeks, and years. It continuously reports your energy intake and monitors your energy burn, then compares the two and reports how much you’re gaining or losing. It monitors and reports the overall quality of your diet, especially that all-important component for gut health and weight control: fiber. It tracks your dietary balance and (subject to data availability) your micronutrient intake, comparing them to National Institute of Health (NIH) guidelines. It tracks your water consumption. If you choose, Pro can interface with your fitness tracker to report your activity and energy burn. It does all this and much more — in real time.
3. Fitness
Our fitness module is designed for the average person who primarily uses exercise to feel better and help control weight, not as a comprehensive fitness app intended for the true fitness enthusiast. But because physical activity and resulting general fitness are essential keys to everyone’s health, OneNumber Pro enables all users, enthusiasts or not, to fully coordinate their exercise programs with their nutrition and weight management efforts, thus giving a complete, one-stop summary of the three factors that are so important to good health.
Note to Doctors
Check with your Doctor
If you are a fitness enthusiast, you already know how important physical activity is. Even if you’re not a fitness buff, you still probably know that increasing activity accelerates your body’s energy burn rate and that’s good for weight loss. As important as exercise is as a weight-loss tool though, it’s easier to affect your energy balance on the dietary side. Consider a piece of pecan pie with 600 Calories of energy. From an energy balance (weight loss) standpoint, it doesn’t matter whether you refrain from eating the pie or go ahead and eat it then burn it off. But it’s a lot easier not to eat the pie than to walk the five miles or so it might take to burn it off.
Best choice? Don’t eat the pie and walk the five miles anyway. You are now three-eights of a cup of fat smaller than you were. You are also five miles fitter than you were because exercise provides huge benefits above its effect on weight loss. Your muscle tone improves. Your resting heart rate decreases. Your cardiovascular health improves. You feel better and act younger. You stand taller and walk with more spring in your step. You look better. You’re stronger. Your stamina improves. You are less vulnerable to injury, anxiety, depression, and even colon cancer. You’re less susceptible to a plethora of other negative things you may not notice until your annual physical, like high blood pressure.
One final benefit of increasing your level of activity is that it mitigates one of the most concerning side effects of losing weight: muscle loss. The more exercise you get — especially resistance training — the less muscle mass you’ll lose. Less muscle loss means your decrease in metabolic rate will be less and your continuing weight loss program will be more effective. If your need is to gain weight, you want most of your weight gain to be muscle, not fat. So whether you need to lose or gain, exercise and a healthy diet will both play major roles in getting you where you want to be.
In summary, OneNumber Health guides you to the right foods to help you reprogram your eating habits for better health. OneNumber Pro helps you manage all three important components of optimal health — weight, fitness, and nutrition — which, as shown in the diagram, are interrelated. Where the three overlap is where you want to be operating most of the time. The objective is a slimmer, fitter, and healthier you.
Check with your Doctor
Everyone should talk to their doctor before beginning an eating or fitness program, especially if any of the following applies:
• You are severely overweight or obese.
• You suffer from kidney disease, diabetes or another chronic health problem.
• You have a health problem that restricts your activity level.
• Your doctor has placed you on any dietary restrictions or medications.
Note to Doctors
The OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro apps provide a combined approach consisting of: 1) mild energy restriction/increase for gradual weight loss/gain (determined by user’s weight objective), 2) increased activity levels for improved fitness, 3) improved eating habits that focus on high protein and fiber and low energy density (or high energy density, depending on user’s weight objective), and 4) increasing the ratio of plant-sourced food to total food. Both OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro allow the user to impose dietary restrictions on sodium, cholesterol and fat, but the decision to do so significantly restricts the user’s food choices. For this reason, we recommend that the user add these restrictions only under a doctor’s direction. For more information, including an in-depth look at OneNumber food rating technology, please visit For Professionals.
The OneNumber concept is designed to encourage healthy eating and discourage the opposite. It is built on the precept that every person who is endeavoring to lose weight has a restricted energy-intake window, the dimensions of which are fixed by that person’s total Calorie burn and the daily energy deficit required to meet his fat-reduction target. The challenge is to extract as much nutrition through that limited energy window as possible, which is why for the overweight individual, we focus on nutrient-rich and Calorie-poor foods and counsel against overly aggressive fat-reduction rates. OneNumber ratings direct the person who desires to gain weight toward foods that are nutrient rich and energy rich.
If you have any questions about the OneNumber Health System and how it can benefit your personal health situation, please visit our comprehensive FAQ section.
If you are a fitness enthusiast, you already know how important physical activity is. Even if you’re not a fitness buff, you still probably know that increasing activity accelerates your body’s energy burn rate and that’s good for weight loss. As important as exercise is as a weight-loss tool though, it’s easier to affect your energy balance on the dietary side. Consider a piece of pecan pie with 600 Calories of energy. From an energy balance (weight loss) stand- point, it doesn’t matter whether you refrain from eating the pie or go ahead and eat it then burn it off. But it’s a lot easier not to eat the pie than to walk the five miles or so it might take to burn it off.
Best choice? Don’t eat the pie and walk the five miles anyway. You are now three- eights of a cup of fat smaller than you were. You are also five miles fitter than you were because exercise provides huge benefits above its effect on weight loss. Your muscle tone improves. Your resting heart rate decreases. Your cardiovascular health improves. You feel better and act younger. You stand taller and walk with more spring in your step. You look better. You’re stronger. Your stamina improves. You are less vulnerable to injury, anxiety, depression, and even colon cancer. You’re less susceptible to a plethora of other negative things you may not notice until your annual physical, like high blood pressure.
One final benefit of increasing your level of activity is that it mitigates one of the most concerning side effects of losing weight: muscle loss. The more exercise you get — especially resistance training — the less muscle mass you’ll lose. Less muscle loss means your decrease in met- abolic rate will be less and your con- tinuing weight-loss program will be more effective. If your need is to gain weight, you want most of your weight gain to be muscle, not fat. So whether you need to lose or gain, exercise and a healthy diet will both play major roles in getting you where you want to be.
In summary, OneNumber Health guides you to the right foods to help you reprogram your eating habits for better health. OneNumber Pro helps you manage all three important components of optimal health — weight, fitness, and nutrition — which, as shown in the diagram, are inter-related. Where the three overlap is where you want to be operating most of the time. The objective is a slimmer, fitter, and healthier you.
Check with your Doctor
Everyone should talk to their doctor before beginning an eating or fitness program, especially if any of the following applies:
• You are severely overweight or obese.
• You suffer from kidney disease, diabetes or another chronic health problem.
• You have a health problem that restricts your activity level.
• Your doctor has placed you on any dietary restrictions or medications.
Note to Doctors
The OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro apps provide a combined approach consisting of: 1) mild energy restriction/increase for gradual weight loss/gain (determined by user’s weight objective), 2) increased activity levels for improved fitness, 3) improved eating habits that focus on high protein and fiber and low energy density (or high energy density, depending on user’s weight objective), and 4) increasing the ratio of plant-sourced food to total food. Both OneNumber Health and OneNumber Pro allow the user to impose dietary restrictions on sodium, cholesterol and fat, but the decision to do so significantly restricts the user’s food choices. For this reason, we recommend that the user add these restrictions only under a doctor’s direction. For more information, including an in-depth look at OneNumber food rating technology, please visit For Professionals.
The OneNumber concept is designed to encourage healthy eating and discourage the opposite. It is built on the precept that every person who is endeavoring to lose weight has a restricted energy-intake window, the dimensions of which are fixed by that person’s total Calorie burn and the daily energy deficit required to meet his fat-reduction target. The challenge is to extract as much nutrition through that limited energy window as possible, which is why for the overweight individual, we focus on nutrient rich and Calorie-poor foods and counsel against overly aggressive fat-reduction rates. OneNumber ratings direct the person who desires to gain weight toward foods that are nutrient rich and energy rich.
If you have any questions about the OneNumber Health System and how it can benefit your personal health situation, please visit our comprehensive FAQ section.
The three elements of the
OneNumber™ health approach
OneNumber Pro’s dashboard gives
a continuous real-time readout
of your summary nutrition and
weight change since midnight.