Healthfest 2017 – Sharing the Goods

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:

1.  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.
2. In the US, 1000 teenagers a year suffer from stroke.
3. 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.
4.  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:

1. Starches are your friend.
2. 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!