What is a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet?
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Learn the weight loss and healthy diet top athletes like Tom Brady and tennis superstar Venus Williams are eating for optimal health and vitality. (Venus credits it with helping her recover after being diagnosed a chronic inflammatory disease).
Three months ago, I started a whole food plant-based diet and was surprised to lose 25 pounds in the process. (During the winter months, I tend to gain a few pounds, so this unexpected weight loss is welcomed!)
What exactly is a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet?
This nutrition-rich lifestyle is based on eating foods derived mostly from minimally-processed plants.
You can find these “super foods” in farmers’ markets and the food and produce departments located on the perimeter of your supermarket.
About 60% of the American diet today is ultra-processed, means the nutrition consumed contains chemicals and food derivatives such as emulsifiers, additional sugars, glazers, flavor enhancers and coloring. You can also call this ‘fake food,’ which is no exaggeration.
These are ingredients you would never use in your own kitchen but are added to increase the marketability, profitability, flavor, sweetness and shelf life of the food.
These ‘fake foods’ are scientifically-proven to increase the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity.
Real, ‘whole foods’ are the opposite. They are fresh and untouched by chemical and preservatives (non-GMO). They don’t have artificial coloring, something to make them taste differently nor do they contain preservatives to give them a longer shelf life.
Whole plant-based foods have minimal interference between being harvested and being eaten.
Plant-based whole foods can be identified into four main categories:
Legumes (beans)
Vegetables
Fruits
Whole Grains
Legumes are beans of all sorts, kidney beans, pinto beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas. They provide the protein for the plant-based diet. So let’s bust this myth: Protein does NOT equal MEAT. Beans and other legumes can provide all the protein requirement for a healthy diet.
Vegetables include non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, romaine, spinach, tomatoes, beets, kale and cabbage. Add to this group your peppers and onions. These veggies, onions and peppers provide the bulk of this healthy plan-derived diet. They help fill you up with lots of healthy fiber keeping you regular and at the expense of very few calories.
The other subgroup of vegetables are the starchy vegetables such as sweet potatoes, while baking potatoes, yams, other tubers and squash which are also healthy when minimally-processed and eaten in moderate portions.
Fruits serve as filling snacks and desserts with natural sweetness, fiber, and lots of antioxidants. Remember, eating an orange is far better than drinking chemically-processed orange juice.
Whole grains are brown rice, wild rice, whole wheat, oats, barley, quinoa and so on. In this group, one might say white bread is made from wheat, but it is not made from the whole wheat grain; rather it is a highly processed derivative of wheat with added sugar. Skip it!
I eat Ezekiel bread made from sprouted whole grains.
Oatmeal from rolled oats is one of my favorite breakfast meals, topped with fresh fruits.
These four food groups along with nuts and seeds–flax seed, pecans, Brazil nuts, peanuts, walnuts–in small quantities also gets a thumbs-up.
I’ve outlined below what I eat on a typical day:
* Breakfast features oatmeal or a veggie sandwich with grilled onions, tomatoes and zucchini on Ezekiel bread.
* Lunch includes a plentiful plate piled high with assorted fresh vegetables, such as kale with grilled broccoli, tomatoes, along with chickpeas for protein and a few roasted potatoes.
* Dinner would include sauteed brussel sprouts, onions, peppers and tomatoes with quinoa, peas and grilled plantain.
Many people also think you’ll lose strength and simply fade away on a plant based diet.
But consider that gorillas, rhinos, elephants and horses only eat a plant based diet.
Two take-home points:
1. Plants provide all the macro and micronutrients needed for a healthy, weight normalizing diet.
2. As opposed to an animal-based diet, which generally promotes inflammation, a plant-based diet reduces inflammation, allowing the body to heal and return to a normal state of health and weight.
Remember, what you don’t eat is as important as what you do eat.
You wouldn’t start mopping the floor till you’ve turned off the faucet, right?
So while you are boosting your plant-based foods to decrease inflammation, also decrease animal meat consumption to less than 5% or 1 meal a week.
Give it a try for a week–I expect you’ll quickly see–and feel–how good it is to eat the real thing.
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Lauren Graf, RD discusses ways to make a plant-based diet sustainable. Identifying preferred flavors and their true source are useful to maintaining a whole foods diet.
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