16-week Nutrition & Lifestyle Remodel

WITH ME coaching is evidence-based nutrition coaching for healthy adults. Alexandra specialises in sports and performance nutrition, body composition, gut health, recovery and sleep. We help you build a healthier physiology, and better body composition, energy and performance follow.

Eat smarter, not just less

We fuel your body rather than starve it. Moderate deficits and planned diet breaks, never crash diets that raise cortisol.

Muscle, not just weight

Fat loss goes hand in hand with building muscle, and we measure it by body composition, not the scale alone.

Measure, then adjust

Every change is led by your data: weight trend, measurements, your doctor’s blood-test findings and Whoop recovery.

Food before supplements

Supplements support a strong base of food, sleep and training. They never replace it.

Live with your clock

Train hard early, in step with your natural cortisol peak. Eat your biggest meals first and lighter ones towards bedtime.

Progress over perfection

No foods are banned. Small, steady wins, and a plan that evolves as your life changes.

Your starting numbers come from what you actually eat, not from a formula alone. In week one you log seven days of normal eating, and we add measurements and your medical history. From there, your targets adapt every week.

Baseline week

Log seven days of normal eating in MyFitnessPal. We add measurements and your medical history; your doctor reviews your blood tests.

Your real maintenance

Your average intake is checked against your weight trend and a standard estimate. Maintenance is a range of about 500 kcal, and we aim for its upper end: more nutrients, more training fuel, a higher daily energy burn.

Calorie target

Fat loss: losing 0.5 to 1 percent of bodyweight a week (0.7 percent by default, 0.5 percent if you are already lean), with the deficit never more than 25 percent below maintenance. Muscle gain: a small surplus of about 0.25 to 0.5 percent of bodyweight a week, set by your training experience, to limit fat gain.

Protein first

Protein is set per kg of lean mass by your age and goal. In a deficit or during recomposition: up to 30 years 2.2–2.4 g/kg, 31–40 2.4–2.8, 41–50 2.8–3.1, 51–60 3.1–3.5, 61 and over 3.5–3.8. At maintenance or in a surplus: 1.8–2.0, 2.0–2.3, 2.3–2.6, 2.6–2.9 and 2.9–3.2 g/kg. The more you strength-train, the higher in your range; needs rise with age to protect against age-related muscle loss.

Fat floor

About 25 percent of calories, and never under 20 percent of calories or 0.6 g per kg of bodyweight, to protect your hormones.

Carbs and fibre

Carbs make up the rest, timed before and after training. Fibre: about 14 g per 1,000 kcal.

Each calculator has its own page now

Maintenance calories, body fat, muscle potential and recomposition macros, with the reasoning behind every number, plus a daily food tracker and a vitamin D sunlight calculator. You only need to enter your email once.

Each day has two non-negotiables: hit your protein and land within 100 kcal of your target. Carbs and fat can flex as long as the week adds up. Coaching is a 16-week programme: weeks 1 to 4 build the baseline, weeks 5 to 12 measure and adjust, weeks 13 to 16 consolidate.

Morning

Weigh yourself after using the toilet and before eating. Then daylight, water and a large, protein-rich breakfast.

Training

Hard sessions in the morning or early afternoon, with a complex-carb meal before and after.

Afternoon

A medium meal and 8,000 to 10,000 steps across the day.

Evening

The smallest, lightest meal, finished 2 to 3 hours before bed. Gentle movement only.

Night

A steady sleep window of 7 to 9 hours. Whoop tracks sleep, strain and recovery. SLEEP supports the wind-down. Read the Sleeping Beauty guide for the full sleep and recovery protocol.

Support

Message your coach any day with questions, swaps and eating out. Low-recovery days get adjusted training, not guilt.

At least 10 percent better, every week.

You don’t need to be perfect from day one. Build up to your targets gradually: more days hitting your protein, more sessions done, more steps. Body composition changes through four levers you control: macros, micros, strength training and steps.

Fat loss rarely shows on the scale straight away. In weeks one and two the scale may barely move; water, glycogen and your cycle can hide 1 to 2 kg of progress. From weeks three to six, waist and hip measurements move first. From weeks seven to twelve, the trend becomes clear in photos, body composition and your weekly average weight.

We analyse. You apply.

We analyse your habits and show you exactly what you haven’t done yet. The know-how only transforms your body if you put in the work, and we make sure your hormones stay healthy and your nutrient intake stays high along the way. No crash diets, and no slashing calories because progress feels slow.

Your weight naturally moves across your menstrual cycle, mostly through water, not fat. Water retention peaks around the first day of your period, is lowest in the week after, and builds again before the next one. The scale can swing 1 to 2 kg with no change in fat, so we always read your numbers by cycle day.

When we re-measure

Measurements and photos every 2 to 3 weeks, always noting your cycle day. We compare each one with the same phase of your last cycle, so we compare like with like.

Blood tests at the start and at the end of the 16-week programme

Your doctor interprets your results and tells you whether markers like iron or vitamin D have improved. We adjust your nutrition from their findings and agree with your doctor which supplements to continue. Stores like iron take weeks to months to rebuild, which is why we retest at the end of the programme.

Three things decide how well your body uses the food you eat: your gut, how you train and how much you eat. Tap a card to turn it over.

Rebuilding your gut?

A step-by-step food guide: golden rules, a week-by-week fibre build-up, the four stages of digestion, a colour tracker and a constipation toolkit.

This coaching is for healthy adults who want to improve body composition with an evidence-based approach, and who are ready to apply weekly targets. It is not for crash diets, overnight results or anyone who needs medical treatment.

Not the right fit if

• You want a crash diet or extreme restriction
• You want results overnight
• You want a generic meal plan
• You are looking for a miracle supplement
• You need a disease diagnosed or medically treated
• You want a programme that needs no input from you
• You are not ready to apply your targets and improve on them every week
• You are pregnant, breastfeeding or under 18
• You have a current or past eating disorder, or a medical condition, without your doctor’s approval

Every part of this method is grounded in published research. Each study below shows what it found and links to the source. Studies are cited for information; their authors do not endorse WITH ME.

• Protein Morton et al., 2018. Meta-analysis of protein supplementation and resistance training in healthy adults. What it shows: extra protein increased muscle and strength gains up to about 1.6 g per kg a day. Our protein targets start there in a surplus and rise to 2.2 to 2.6 g per kg in a deficit. PubMed 28698222
• Fat loss rate Helms et al., 2014. Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation. What it shows: losing about 0.5 to 1 percent of bodyweight a week with high protein (2.3 to 3.1 g per kg of lean mass) best protects muscle while dieting. PubMed 24864135
• Fat loss rate Garthe et al., 2011. Effect of two different weight-loss rates on body composition and strength in elite athletes. What it shows: athletes who lost weight more slowly gained lean mass and strength; the faster group did not. The case for moderate deficits. PubMed 21558571
• Training Cava et al., 2017. Preserving healthy muscle during weight loss. What it shows: resistance training and enough protein are the two main ways to limit muscle loss while losing weight. PubMed 28507015
• Training American College of Sports Medicine, 2026. ACSM position stand. Resistance training prescription for muscle function, hypertrophy, and physical performance in healthy adults: an overview of reviews. What it shows: an overview of 137 systematic reviews found resistance training twice a week or more improves strength, muscle size and physical function. Full text
• Training Henselmans et al., 2022. The effect of carbohydrate intake on strength and resistance training performance: a systematic review. What it shows: most strength training does not need very high carbs, so once protein is covered, carbs can flex, ideally around hard sessions. PubMed 35215506
• Protein Norton and Layman, 2006. Leucine regulates translation initiation of protein synthesis in skeletal muscle after exercise. What it shows: in an animal study, the amino acid leucine switched on muscle building after exercise. Why we favour complete, leucine-rich protein at meals. PubMed 16424142
• Hormones Tomiyama et al., 2010. Low calorie dieting increases cortisol. What it shows: restricting calories raised cortisol and perceived stress. One reason we avoid crash diets. PubMed 20368473
• Calories and metabolism Trexler, Smith-Ryan and Norton, 2014. Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete. What it shows: the body burns less energy the longer you diet. Diet breaks and a gradual reverse diet help manage this. Full text
• Diet breaks Byrne et al., 2018. Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study. What it shows: alternating two weeks of dieting with two weeks at maintenance led to more fat loss and better-maintained results than continuous dieting. PubMed 28925405
• Flexible dieting Conlin et al., 2021. Flexible vs. rigid dieting in resistance-trained individuals seeking to optimize their physiques. What it shows: flexible and rigid diets gave the same fat loss, and the flexible group gained more lean mass afterwards. Why no foods are banned. PubMed 34187492
• Flexible dieting Stewart et al., 2002. Rigid vs. flexible dieting: association with eating disorder symptoms in nonobese women. What it shows: rigid, all-or-nothing dieting was linked to more disordered eating symptoms; flexible dieting was not. PubMed 11883916
• Tracking Burke et al., 2011. Self-monitoring in weight loss: a systematic review of the literature. What it shows: consistently tracking food, activity and weight was linked to greater weight loss. The basis of our weekly check-ins. PubMed 21185970
• Steps Paluch et al., 2022. Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts. What it shows: more daily steps meant a lower risk of death, with the benefit levelling off around 8,000 to 10,000 steps for adults under 60. PubMed 35247352
• Training Garaulet et al., 2013. Timing of food intake predicts weight loss effectiveness. What it shows: people who ate their main meal earlier lost more weight than late eaters on similar diets. Why we front-load the day’s food. PubMed 23357955
• Gut and fibre Weickert and Pfeiffer, 2018. Impact of dietary fiber consumption on insulin resistance and the prevention of type 2 diabetes. What it shows: higher fibre intake, especially cereal fibre, was linked to better insulin sensitivity and a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. This finding, together with Reynolds et al., 2019, is why we aim for at least 25 to 30 g of fibre a day. PubMed 29378044
• Protein Longland et al., 2016. Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss. What it shows: in a large deficit with hard training, 2.4 g per kg of protein built lean mass and lost more fat than 1.2 g per kg. PubMed 26817506
• Protein Iraki et al., 2019. Nutrition recommendations for bodybuilders in the off-season: a narrative review. What it shows: when building muscle in a small surplus, 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg is enough, because extra energy spares protein. PubMed 31247944
• Calories and metabolism Levine et al., 1999. Role of nonexercise activity thermogenesis in resistance to fat gain in humans. What it shows: when adults overate by 1,000 kcal a day, extra everyday movement burned up to about 700 kcal of it. Maintenance is a range, not one number. Full text
• Calories and metabolism Slater et al., 2019. Is an energy surplus required to maximize skeletal muscle hypertrophy associated with resistance training. What it shows: a modest energy surplus best supports muscle growth; large surpluses mostly add fat. Why we aim for the top of maintenance or just above. Full text
• Calories and metabolism Hall et al., 2015. Calorie for calorie, dietary fat restriction results in more body fat loss than carbohydrate restriction in people with obesity. What it shows: cutting carbs gave no fat-loss advantage over cutting fat at the same calories. Total energy drives fat loss. PubMed 26278052
• Calories and metabolism Gardner et al., 2018. Effect of low-fat vs low-carbohydrate diet on 12-month weight loss in overweight adults: the DIETFITS randomized clinical trial. What it shows: low-fat and low-carb diets gave the same weight loss over a year. Adherence and food quality matter more than the macro split. PubMed
• Hormones Whittaker and Wu, 2021. Low-fat diets and testosterone in men: systematic review and meta-analysis of intervention studies. What it shows: low-fat diets lowered testosterone compared with higher-fat diets. Why we keep a fat floor. Full text
• Hormones Loucks and Thuma, 2003. Luteinizing hormone pulsatility is disrupted at a threshold of energy availability in regularly menstruating women. What it shows: when available energy dropped below about 30 kcal per kg of fat-free mass a day, a key cycle hormone was disrupted. PubMed 12519869
• Hormones Mountjoy et al., 2018. IOC consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S): 2018 update. What it shows: eating too little for your training harms metabolism, hormones, bone health, immunity and performance, in women and men. IOC full text
• Gut and fibre Reynolds et al., 2019. Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. What it shows: 25 to 29 g of fibre a day was linked to 15 to 30 percent lower risk of death, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. PubMed 30638909
• Gut and fibre McDonald et al., 2018. American Gut: an open platform for citizen science microbiome research. What it shows: people eating more than 30 different plants a week had more diverse gut bacteria than those eating 10 or fewer. PubMed Central
• Gut and fibre Sonnenburg et al., 2016. Diet-induced extinctions in the gut microbiota compound over generations. What it shows: in mice, a low-fibre diet wiped out gut bacteria species. Fibre-rich carbohydrates are food for the microbiome. Nature
• Gut and fibre Wastyk et al., 2021. Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status. What it shows: over 10 weeks, fermented foods raised gut bacteria diversity and lowered inflammation markers. PubMed 34256014
• Micronutrients Thomas, Erdman and Burke, 2016. American College of Sports Medicine position statement: nutrition and athletic performance. What it shows: carbs of 3 to 12 g per kg depending on training load, protein of 1.2 to 2.0 g per kg; iron, vitamin D and calcium are most often low. PubMed 26891166
• Micronutrients Maughan et al., 2018. IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete. What it shows: food comes first; supplements such as iron or vitamin D are for a confirmed deficiency. Why we work from your doctor’s blood-test findings. PubMed 29540367
• Sleep Watson et al., 2015. Recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult: a consensus statement. What it shows: adults need 7 or more hours a night; less is linked to weight gain, diabetes and poorer performance. PubMed Central
• Sleep Nedeltcheva et al., 2010. Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity. What it shows: dieters sleeping 5.5 instead of 8.5 hours lost 55 percent less fat and 60 percent more lean mass. PubMed 20921542
• Sleep Spiegel et al., 1999. Impact of sleep debt on metabolic and endocrine function. What it shows: six nights of 4-hour sleep worsened blood sugar control and raised evening cortisol. PubMed 10543671
• Sleep National Sleep Foundation, 2023. The importance of sleep regularity: a consensus statement. What it shows: regular sleep and wake times matter for health alongside sleep length. Why we track a steady sleep window. Sleep Health
• Sleep Mah et al., 2011. The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. What it shows: sleeping more for several weeks improved sprint times, shooting accuracy and reaction time. PubMed 21731144
• Sleep Fullagar et al., 2015. Sleep and athletic performance: the effects of sleep loss on exercise performance. What it shows: sleep loss impairs performance, recovery, metabolism and mood. Sleep is part of the training plan. PubMed 25315456
• Cycle and measuring White et al., 2011. Fluid retention over the menstrual cycle: 1-year data from the prospective ovulation cohort. What it shows: fluid retention was highest on the first day of the period and lowest mid-cycle. Why we read weight by cycle day. PubMed 21845193
• Cycle and measuring Ross et al., 2020. Waist circumference as a vital sign in clinical practice: a consensus statement. What it shows: waist size tracks health risk beyond weight alone. Why we measure, not just weigh. Nature Reviews
• Micronutrients Sim et al., 2019. Iron considerations for the athlete: a narrative review. What it shows: active women are at higher risk of low iron, and supplementation should be guided and followed up with blood tests. Full text
• Tracking Lally et al., 2010. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. What it shows: new habits took a median of 66 days to become automatic. Why we ask for 16 weeks and build change step by step. Full text
• Gut and fibre Ridaura et al., 2013. Gut microbiota from twins discordant for obesity modulate metabolism in mice. What it shows: mice given gut bacteria from the heavier twin gained more fat than mice given the leaner twin’s. Your microbiome affects body composition. PubMed 24009397
• Gut and fibre Desai et al., 2016. A dietary fiber-deprived gut microbiota degrades the colonic mucus barrier and enhances pathogen susceptibility. What it shows: in mice, without fibre, gut bacteria fed on the protective mucus lining instead. Fibre protects the gut barrier. PubMed 27863247
• Gut and fibre Camilleri, 2019. Leaky gut: mechanisms, measurement and clinical implications in humans. What it shows: increased gut permeability is measurable in humans, and diet, including fibre, is one of the factors that supports the barrier. PubMed 31076401
• Training American College of Sports Medicine, 2009. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. What it shows: continued progress needs a gradual increase in training load, balanced with planned recovery. PubMed 19204579
• Training Meeusen et al., 2013. Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: joint consensus statement (ECSS and ACSM). What it shows: too much training stress without enough recovery, food and sleep leads to falling performance and poor recovery. PubMed 23247672
• Calories and metabolism Helms et al., 2023. Effect of small and large energy surpluses on strength, muscle, and skinfold thickness in resistance-trained individuals. What it shows: a small surplus built muscle and strength about as well as a large one, with less fat gain. Why we aim for the top of maintenance, not far above it. PubMed 37914977
• Calories and metabolism Martin et al., 2007. Effect of calorie restriction on resting metabolic rate and spontaneous physical activity. What it shows: under calorie restriction, resting energy burn fell more than expected and people moved less on their own. PubMed 18198305
• Calories and metabolism Rosenbaum and Leibel, 2010. Adaptive thermogenesis in humans. What it shows: after weight loss the body burns less energy than expected, much of it through less movement. Why we keep steps high and calories as high as possible. PubMed 20935667

Will I get a meal plan?

You get targets, recipes built around your tastes and personal guides, not a rigid generic meal plan. No foods are banned.

Do I need supplements?

Food comes first. Supplement suggestions are agreed with your doctor, usually for a confirmed deficiency.

Is this for men too?

Yes. The method is the same; only the cycle section is specific to women.

Why doesn’t the scale move in the first weeks?

Water, glycogen and your cycle mask early fat loss; measurements move first.