Your guide to a Whole Food Plant based diet

It’s important to start out by saying this is a journey.  Most people do not go all in WFPB overnight.  Those who have serious health concerns do when they see the science.  Others test the waters to see if they can do this.  They try new recipes, look at alternatives to their favorite animal protein and migrate over time.  Wherever you are in your journey I am here for you. 

If you are brand new to this lifestyle there are a few things you will want to do:

·                      Start educating yourself:

·         Watch “Forks over Knives” to understand the health benefits and why to shield yourself from animal protein as best you can.  This documentary can be found on Netflix or you can buy it off Amazon for less than $20 (including shipping).  Also "What the Health" so you can understand why you don't hear enough about this lifestyle and "Eating you Alive" (Brenda Cobb appears in this one)

·         Watch “PlantPure Nation” to see how Nelson Campbell took this lifestyle to a small town in NC putting groups on a 21 day jumpstart where the participants saw dramatic results. This may be available on Hulu by now.

·         Watch “Cowspiracy” also found on Netflix to see how the animal agriculture is crippling our natural resources and how migrating to a WFPB lifestyle can make a difference
-    Watch "Game Changers".  EXCELLENT!!

·         If you like listening to Podcasts a great one is the Rich Roll Podcast.  He has an app for the podcast on the iphone or you can download the podcast app and subscribe to his podcast.  Both apps are free.  They are packed full of great information as he interviews the best of the best in this area.  Start with the podcasts with Dr Garth Davis (there are 2 - start with #1).  It will answer all the questions you have about your health on a WFPB lifestyle.

·         Great books to read:

o   Proteinaholic by Dr Garth Davis
    Finding Ultra by Rich Roll

o   Eat to Live by Dr Joel Fuhrman

o   How Not to Die by Dr Michael Gregor

·         www.nutritionfacts.org is a website by Dr Michael Gregor as he uncovers the studies no one is talking about because they are not funded by the meat, dairy and egg industry.  He strives to get to the truth of the studies and explain complicated studies very simply.

·                       Start feeding yourself the right foods:

1.       A Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle consists of:  vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, nuts and whole grains.  Limiting oil, sugar and salt.  A raw living food lifestyle would exclude the whole grains and use only seeds and nuts to make crackers, etc as well as sprouting the beans and peas to increase their nutritional value.

2.       Here are some great websites and cookbooks to get great recipes:

o   www.happyherbivore.com, www.ohsheglows.com, www.plantpurenation.com, www.minimalistbaker.com, www.chocolatecoveredkatie.com

o   Any Happy Herbivore cookbook you can find

o   PlantPure Nation cookbook

o   The Plant Power Way by Rick Roll and Julie Piatt

o   No Meat Athlete (the latest one)

3.       There are some good alternatives to your animal protein:

o   “Beyond Beef” brand of both chicken and beef – best option we have tried for ground beef

o   Morningstar farms has some great things to try.  Our faves – Riblets, buffalo bites, sausage patties, spicy chickn patty, black bean burgers and other burgers
-  Gardein and Quorn make good beef and chicken options

4.       Options for eating out fast food:

o   Wendys – baked potato (grab some salsa at nearby gas station to load on), veggie burger (in some locations)

o   Panera – Edamame blend bowl, black bean soup or garden vegetable soup with classic salad, oatmeal

o   Starbucks – Decaf soy latte and oatmeal.  Some locations have coconut milk to add to coffee as creamer

o   Taco Bell – bean burrito fresco style, spicy potato tacos fresco style (fresco style will eliminate the sour cream and cheese and add salsa)

o   Bojangles – Pinto beans, dirty rice (pick out chunks of meat), green beans

o   Burger King – Impossible whopper 😍, veggie burger and side of apple slices

o   Chicfila – kale salad, market salad (hold the chicken and cheese) and fruit cup
o   McDonalds – oatmeal (that's it!)
- Subway - some have veggie burgers.  If not load up the veggies on a sub and add vinagrette

       

Get support

o   Head to www.plantpurepods.com and get your free login to access their site for meetings in your area promoting the WFPB lifestyle through health education, screenings of documentaries, veg fests, potlucks and lots of networking for the best resources out there to encourage and motivate!  

Journey to Incredible Health facebook group - I run this to provide tips and tricks to people wanting to eat better.  Feel free to join us!

Looking back and moving forward

It's really hard to write the first blog when you know it has been months since the last one.  I guess that's why the procrastination.  I need to have some kind of explanation about where I've been right?  Then I decided - no, all the people who read this are pulling it from Facebook and I still post stuff on Facebook so it's not like I've been hiding out.

Food = Medicine conference
Anyway, I was hoping my husband would write a blog about the Food=Medicine conference we went to and he might just yet.  He's a Physician Assistant and I know that people look at that as if they should know more than the lay person about food for health.  Sad thing is, they are not taught Nutrition AT ALL in school which is ludicrous.  Does anyone really grasp the seriousness of this issue?  The food we eat directly affects our health either good or bad.  It is the fuel for our engine and they learn nothing about how to use it for better health.  The top 15 diseases that we die of in the US can be helped, avoided and even reversed by the foods we eat!  And that's not my opinion.  That is the science that we saw over and over again at the Food=Medicine conference by world renown doctors like Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. Michael Gregor of nutritionfacts.org.  You can see Dr Esselstyn on the Forks over Knives documentary, available on Netflix, as he shows the results from his patients switching to a Whole Food Plant Based diet:  heart disease reversed, cancer gone.  At the conference he showed us slide after slide of arteries restricted with the standard american diet, people who had no chance of a stint because it would cause other arteries to block completely.  He put them on a WFPB diet and within months their arteries are clear and larger than before.  All in changing what they fed their body and taking out animal protein, dairy, oil and sugar.

Looking back
I took a second to go over my blogs from the beginning of this journey.  I was unsure about what incredible health looked like and I realize that I have come a long way.  Searching for the truth led me to this point where I am convinced that the WFPB diet is the path to incredible health.  I have seen athletes running faster on plants than those who fuel from animal products.  I have seen body builders build massive muscle without animal protein.  I have seen evidence of how milk from animals cause an acid imbalance so our body has to pull calcium from our bones to neutralize it.  Even the slogan "milk does a body good" had to be pulled after evidence came out that it actually didn't.  I have seen where the casein in dairy turns on our cancer cells if intake is over 5% daily.  I have seen doctors blown away by the results that such a simple change can make.

The evidence is there.  But how do you live it?  How do you co-exist in today's society when you are the minority?  I don't like being the odd man out, contrary to what people might think.  I actually DO care about what people think of me but I care more about your health so I'm putting myself out there and taking you along in my quest for the truth.  Everyone is at their own phase of the journey.  You may not care at all.  You may be playing around with it but lack the belief that you can make it work in your life.  You may be struggling because you see it and desperately want to follow but internally you have always lost the battle when it came to food.  I hear you.  I have been in every phase (only I can't remember when the first phase was - maybe elementary school?)

Moving Forward
So here is what I'm going to do.  I'm going to post a guide to the WFPB diet with as many resources as I can remember today (and will add more as I get them).  Then I'm going to do a separate post on the mental side to this journey.  It's critical to realize that very few people go all in from day one and never miss a beat.  There will be times when the temptation is too great, there's no food choices where you are going, you are still battling with food addiction, your self esteem pulls you down.  Progress not perfection!  Feedback not failure!  I will give you the feedback from all my failures and hopefully it will help you to arm yourself as you go.  If you keep moving you will be much better off than if you quit entirely.  "There is no try.  There is DO and DO NOT."