It would be impossible to share everything I learned and
felt over the last weekend because it was packed full! Doctors, athletes, animal activates, plant
based chefs, normal people getting together in a small town in Texas sharing
the science, experiences and their passion for saving lives from the standard
American diet. Every person who has
followed a plant based diet has come away a different person. There’s a reason for that.
Starting with
Dr.McDougall. Top 4 things I learned
about him:
- He was raised on a heavy animal protein, heavy
dairy diet and had a massive stroke at the age of 18. Because of that, he walks with a shuffle
still to this day. He had a cholesterol
well over 300 which back then was considered normal.
- In the US, 1000 teenagers a year suffer from
stroke.
- While working on a sugar plantation in Hawaii he
observed the older generation free of disease, working and having kids well
into their 70s. Their diet consisted
mainly of starchy plants and vegetables.
This started his journey to a starch based diet. After following this lifestyle he dropped
weight and his cholesterol went down considerably.
- For 40 years he has been advocating a
starchivore diet, guiding thousands of people to better health through his
program. He has a no nonsense approach
that I now better understand, knowing his history.
Dr. Garth Davis - I posted this picture on facebook with my tribute to his work. In case you missed
it:
Dr Garth Davis is a bariatric surgeon in Texas who has dedicated years of painstaking research to get to the truth of why his patients kept getting sicker on a high protein diet after bariatric surgery. He didn't want to believe it was the animal products but after years of digging deep into studies and understanding the funding of "alternative facts" that are published to confuse the public and make the meat and dairy industry lots of money, he concluded that a whole foods plant based diet is the optimal diet for curing chronic disease and maintaining weight loss and good health. He wrote it all in a book called Proteinaholic. When we watched Forks over Knives 4 years ago we didn't want to believe the facts. It went against everything I thought to be true about nutrition and it wasn't until I listened to Dr Garth on the Rich Roll podcast that I really got my questions answered. I could trust him. He understood the science, the studies and he didn't want it to be true but couldn't deny the results. If you are confused and want your questions answered download the podcast app and subscribe to the Rich Roll podcast and listen to the first then second interview with Dr Garth. Or you can listen online at www.richroll.com. or buy his book.
I love this picture of him pouring over the studies for 4 years. I can't imagine!
Raw Vegan counselor,
Natalie Norman (
www.natalienorman.com)
did a great job showing the journey most people take when trying to convert to
a Plant Based or Vegan diet. I have seen
myself in each stage and I understand why people get so discouraged, as most
people get stuck in stage 2 which doesn’t really make you feel better or
promote weight loss.
·
Stage 1 – Standard American Diet: heavy in fried fast foods, processed meats,
cheese, ice cream, pizzas, etc.
·
Stage 2 – Processed vegan junk food: mostly cookies, crackers, vegan cheeses and
frozen
·
Stage 3 -
Slightly healthier, high processed cooked vegan food: similar to stage 2 but you are trying to do
better.
Stages 2 & 3 although an improvement from the SAD they have common
problems:
low nutrient density, low fiber, low water content, high fat, high oil and salt,
difficulty digesting and CRAVINGS persist.
·
Stage 4 – lowfat cooked whole foods: beans and rice, potatoes, whole grain breads
·
Stage 5 – increasing some raw but mostly
cooked: adding in some salads and fruits
·
Stage 6 – mostly or all raw
Stages 4-6 are considered a Whole Food Plant Based diet and
depending on which doctor you ask you will get their recommendation to any one
of these stages. Why the diversity? I’m not sure.
I think it’s a personal preference.
What made them feel better, what their patients can easily adhere to and
how they view the research?
BOTTOM LINE: Whole plants, whole grains and no oil (which
rules out most processed foods)
Sid Garza-Hillman
– writer, podcaster (Approaching the Natural), speaker, youtuber, health coach (
www.sidgarzahillman.com)
Inspiration and passion from this guy who moved to a Plant
Based primarily for ethical reasons. Now
he says he ethically wants to take better care of himself. He had bad asthma and had a hard time singing
which he loved to do. He dropped dairy
and his asthma cleared up. His outlook goes something like this:
Restriction vs Trade
Was it a restriction to get off cheese? YES, he loved cheese, don’t we all? Was it a restriction to go to parties and not
eat the sour cream dip or cheese pizza?
Sure but what did he trade it for?
He can sing with no problem, he no longer has a problem with
asthma. What are your positive
trade-offs? What kind of life, what
quality of life are you trading for your unhealthy choices?
CHEESE AND MILK
Wait a minute! Cheese
is unhealthy? But I thought “milk does a
body good”! Cheese is supposed to be a
great protein snack! Yea, I thought that
too but then I found out why that slogan can no longer be used for their
campaign. Drinking milk meant for an
animal causes an acid imbalance in our body and to counteract our body pulls
calcium from our bones to offset the imbalance.
Cheese and milk has a large amount of cow pus allowed in their products,
not to mention the bovine leukemia and bovine HIV virus that is found in cow’s
milk that they now know infects humans.
That lecture is available
here.
Adam Chaim –
athlete, podcaster (the plant trainers)
Powerful story of how he went from Illness to Ironman (click on his name for his website). He was given a 3 years to live due to a
genetic disorder that grows tumors along the spinal cord. He also had severe coronary artery disease at
37. His wife was pregnant with their
second child. Their first child suffered
from severe eczema and behavioral problems.
He read The China Study and overnight started practicing a whole foods
plant based diet. Within 8 months he no
longer had coronary artery disease and his tumors started shrinking. Finally his doctor fired him because he had
reversed his genetic disorder. He is now
43 and participating in Ironman triathlons!
Here is a shot of the arteries in his eye ball before and after a
year. This was the first sign of
coronary artery disease for him.
After implementing this lifestyle with his family, their
son’s eczema disappeared.
His wife, Shoshana
Chaim did a talk on helping to convert children to a better diet. I hung onto every word as it pains me weekly
to feed my picky child, Noah. His diet
has improved since there are some things I just won’t bring in the house
anymore but there is still much room for improvement. I will share her secrets next week after I
put some of her methods into practice.
OUR TWO MAIN
TAKEAWAYS:
- Starches are your friend.
- Dairy is SO much worse than we thought
And the final day gave us a chance to race! We trained for a 10k but only had time for a 5k. There was a speaker we really wanted to hear! Too much to do, so little time!
😀
