Portal Setup

1. Register  https://sozo.md-hq.com/registration
2. Log into the portal you just created, fill out any questionnaires and add medications, supplements, allergies and add pharmacy of choice
3. Bookmark the portal website https://sozo.md-hq.com

Spruce Setup

Make Appointments

All Members

• Getting Started Visit This can be a phone call, virtual visit or in-person visit with the Sozo Team – Call or text 480-404-4346 to set up
• Dr. Young 90-minute new patient – schedule in your portal

For Comprehensive Members Included in Membership

• Nutrition Consult with Aly Axelrod 602-677-0188
• Fitness Screen  – schedule in your portal
• Initial Movement Screen with Physical Therapist –  text either Crystal or James to schedule.
  • Crystal Geer 602-888-6095
  • James Babana 602-350-4271

You can find their bios here.

Scheduling and Communication

• Doctor Hours: By appointment
  • Routine appointments – Most routine visits are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30am-3:00pm. You can self-schedule for appointments during those hours on your patient portal. If you do not see a time that works for you, send a message through the portal and we will reach out to find a time that works.
  • Same day or urgent appointments – text or call using the Spruce App
• Gym Hours:
  • Open Gym M-F 6:30-10, 3-6
  • Classes daily – see BAND APP
  • Personal Training – by appointment through portal, phone call or in person scheduling
• Best way to communicate
  • PORTAL: routine appointments, medication requests, communication that can be answered within the next 24 hours
  • SPRUCE: urgent communication and urgent or same day appointments, need to be seen within the next hour or two, “I have been vomiting all day can you get me in?”

Community

1. Download the BAND app, log-in and introduce yourself
2. Look at the Sozo calendar in the BAND app and mark your calendars for events you want to attend
3. Write down your WHY on the Why Wall – Why are you at Sozo?

First Steps

Weighing yourself: Our goal here isn’t weight loss. Our goal is changing your lifestyle to become healthy although a byproduct of that may be weight loss. But weight is one of the easy to track things you can do to see progress. Weigh yourself at the same time every day. For me it is in the morning in my PJs before my first glass of water or coffee. You can choose the frequency with which you weigh yourself, but I recommend at least weekly. When you weigh yourself every day, you will see fluctuations…a lot of fluctuations. Don’t stress! If you weigh yourself daily you get used to seeing those fluctuations and they become less important, but you may start to see helpful trends. If you weigh yourself less than once a week, it is hard to see if you are making progress.

Before and after pictures: https://theprogressapp.com/blog/before-after-photos-weight-loss/

Podcasts: https://www.pcrm.org/podcast

Whole Food Eating Basics

Whole Food Definitions

Michael Pollan is a journalist who has a passion for nutrition. He is chock full of some of my favorite sayings:

“Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” and “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t” are two of my favorites. He gives a 7 rules for eating:

1. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. “When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can’t pronounce, ask yourself, “What are those things doing there?” Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot. “There are exceptions — honey — but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren’t food,” Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. “Always leave the table a little hungry” Pollan says. “Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, ‘Tie off the sack before it’s full.'”
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It’s a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. “Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?” Pollan asks.
7. Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.