Are You New to Plant Based Eating? Learn How to Thrive on a Plant Based Diet
Do You Need Help Understanding Plant Based Eating?
Today you are going to stop being so confused about eating a plant based diet. I know you have questions because I did too. I have found the answers, and it has led me to living a much healthier life. The first step towards living healthy is to get some basic questions answered, and then build on your knowledge.
Plant Based Diet Questions Everyone Has:
What Will I Eat?
There are so many plant-based foods that you will find to eat you won’t believe it. It is easy to get into the mindset that you are giving up everything you’ve ever loved only to replace it with green boring salads. Once you come to realize that 95% of the food at your local grocery store is unhealthy it makes you feel even more scared.
I promise you that as you learn more about what your body needs, you will find more and more food that you love.
I remember not even having a single crunchy snack to eat during the day! My wife and I were still very new to this way of eating and I just wanted a snack. I like a chip, or a crunchy thing or something that I can grab and eat really fast, and a salad isn’t going to work for that.
The very first snack I found tasted like bird seed shaped into a cracker. But I kept looking and kept learning, and now I have tons of treats that I eat on a regular basis that are so good I have a hard time believing they are good for me. And I’m not just saying that so that I don’t get kicked out of the club, there really are some amazing things to eat that aren’t animals and processed food.
Will I Get Enough Protein?
One of the worst things I have to deal with is people assuming that I must be protein deficient. In all those years that I was a meat eater I never once had a conversation with any other meat eater regarding protein deficiency. A lot of people who eat meat, don’t eat that much of it and probably are not getting a ton of protein from any other source.
You do not need to spend any time worrying about where you will get your protein from. There are many plant foods that have plenty of protein. There are also these other great sources of protein:
Nuts
Beans
Veggie Burgers
Tofu
Peanut Butter
Spinach
This isn’t all. There are protein powders you can make shakes with that are made from vegetable protein (it’s not gross at all) and many other foods that are a wonderful source of protein. You will be fine if you never spend any time worrying about your protein, because you will get enough.
What About Calcium?
44 million American men and women age 50 and above suffer from osteoporosis and low bone mass. If drinking milk from a cow is the answer to this problem, then I am going to need somebody to explain these numbers to me. Aren’t we told every 5 minutes that cow’s milk is fortified with all of the calcium our body needs in a day?
Why on Earth a person looked at a cow and decided that humans should drink their milk must have been very thirsty. Think about that for a minute. Would you drink Giraffe milk? Do Giraffes even have milk? I don’t know, but that’s not the point.
Cow’s Milk is Not Safe For Humans!
Researchers have found 20 chemicals present in ordinary pasteurized dairy milk, including many medications that would come from the pharmacy with a warning label that would frighten most. Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs and even anti-fungal medications have been found in that precious milk we are being told to drink all day long.
As the National Dairy Council is telling us how great dairy milk is and how healthy it will make us, they are forgetting to mention a few things about it. The fact is, if you took all of the chemicals and antibiotics out of cow milk, most people would never feed it to any member of their family, let alone worship its healthy properties.
Sources of calcium for plant based diets:
Soybeans
Soy Milk
Collard greens
Cabbage
Beans
Are All Carbs Bad?
I wonder if you are sick to death of hearing about carbs? So what is the answer here, are carbs good for us or bad? Well, that really depends on the type of carbohydrate you are eating. Much of the carbs being eaten today is the wrong kind of carb. The reason carbs are so bad for us is because they turn directly into sugar the instant they are eaten.
Other than turning into sugar, they serve no other purpose. There is no nutritional value in a piece of white bread, I don’t care if it is “enriched” or not. A donut is not made to give your cells vital energy to get through the day, it is pure sugar and carbohydrates that will turn into sugar the minute you are finished eating it.
I’m sure you know by now that Americans are eating over 150 POUNDS of sugar per year. In case you don’t feel like doing any math, that is 42.5 teaspoons of sugar per day. I think it’s pretty clear to look at obesity and disease rates in America and around the world and see that sugar is not meant to be eaten in bulk like this. Unnecessary carbohydrates are the reason for this.
Are There Good Carbs?
I’m glad you asked. Yes, there are carbs that are perfectly safe to eat. Many of these low carb diets will have you avoid every kind of carbohydrate known to man. I remember one very famous low-carb-high-protein diet even warning against the eating of vegetables, because of carbs.
Nonsense!
There are perfectly safe carbohydrates to eat that are healthy and will not cause huge spikes in blood sugar levels. You don’t have to live in constant fear of counting carbohydrate grams in your food, as long as you know where those carbs are coming from. Here is a short list of carbs that are good and bad as a general rule.
List Of Good Carbohydrate Sources:
Vegetables
Fruit
Brown Rice
Nuts
Quinoa
Yams
Lentils
Beans
Carbs to Avoid:
Donuts
Candy Bars
Processed Sugar Cereals
Won’t Eating Only Plant Foods Make Me Weak?
I think the toughest thing that America and the world are going to face in dealing with a crippling obesity epidemic is the wealth of terrible information out there. We live in a society where the guy or gal eating a plant based diet is a “weak, hippy tree hugger” and the meat eater is “strong as an ox, and healthy as a horse”.
Don’t believe the hype! Horses don’t eat the same diet that Americans do.
Not only are you going to have a ton more energy from eating a plant-based diet, but you are going to feel better than you ever did eating meat and processed foods. I have not eaten a piece of meat in months, and I am perfectly fine and not feeling weak, light-headed or tired in any way.
How Long Do I Have to Eat This Way to See Results?
This is the biggest hurdle that will hurt your success. Looking at a plant-based diet as a diet that you eat to lose weight, and not as a diet that will give you a much healthier life is going to sabotage your efforts a ton.
I understand that our society wants everything to be a quick fix so we can get back to our lives, but in this case this thinking is harmful to your success. This is not a diet that you go on to lose 10 pounds before that special wedding.
This is not a diet that you go on to fit into that summer dress, so that you can be comfortable as you shovel a triple cheeseburger in your face. If you eat a plant-based diet every single day of your life, you will never again need to think about losing weight.
Never!
Every single day of your life you will be the weight you want. You won’t be hungry, miserable and you definitely won’t be missing that huge steak that gave you heartburn, clogged arteries, weight gain and an increased risk of deadly, preventable disease!
I can’t promise you that switching the way you look at food is easy. I can’t promise you that you can wake up tomorrow, switch to a plant-based diet and everything is going to be simple and effortless. What I can promise you is that if you have an open mind and try eating this way for 30-days, you will feel better, look better and will wonder how your government ever allowed you to eat the old way again.
