I remember when I was in elementary school–yes I can remember that far back thank you–the nutritionists drilled the food pyramid into us: milk, meat, eggs, veggies and fruit.

Over time a wonderfully confusing thing happened, the pyramid items changed. Then a few years ago it became inverted and now it tends to be a source of confusion for health conscious eaters.

Well, boy are we in luck. The wonderful nutrionists at the Biggest Loser have put a new spin on a old thing. The call it the 4-3-2-1 plan. Here’s how it works…

• 4 ~ this is the minimum number of cups of fruits and veggies you should consume each day! Apples, oranges, mangos, tomatoes, spinach and carrots. It doesn’t matter which fruits or veggies you choose, so long as you make the choice and then eat it.
• 3 ~ this is the number of servings of healthy protein you should have in a day. The operative word here is healthy. Fish, poultry breast, egg whites and lean red meat. The idea when eating meat is to go as lean as possible.
• 2 ~ you want to get up to 2 cups or servings of whole grains every day. And no, getting that in a cookie doesn’t count–trust me I asked. Oatmeal, unprocessed granola, nuts and whole grain breads are ideal sources.
• 1 ~ make sure you get only 1 of these each day: a sweet treat. Dark chocolate, yogurt parfait or one of Panera Bread’s oat/grain raisin cookies–only buy one at a time, otherwise you’ll fail this step or so I’ve heard.

So there you have it; the food pyramid made easy as 1-2-3 or in this case, 4-3-2-1.