Common Diet Denominator

There are several brand name diets I’ve tried: Atkins, South Beach, Ultimate Weight Loss Solution, Weight Watchers, Pink…also low calorie, low-fat, vegan. With the exception of the Atkins Diet which I think should be more aptly called the “Fast Track to Coronary Disease” diet, all of the diets I’ve tried have some things in common that are really very logical. If you throw them all into a concentric circle chart, you’ll see that they all focus on this: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and water. If you’ve had a chance to watch “Forks Over Knives”, you know the shocking statistics on how eating a plant-based diet can help to reverse cancer, type two diabetes and hypertension.

In this documentary, the thing I found most interesting is a chart that shows three diagrams of the stomach. In three different scenarios, you can see what eating 500 calories of plant-based foods does to fill the stomach and to trigger receptors to let your brain know you’re full, compared to eating animal and dairy products that are calorie-rich but nutrition dense. That’s really what it’s all about. The reason that fruits and veggies are the superheros of the nutrition world is that they are jam-packed with vitamins, minerals, plant proteins, complex carbs, good fats, antioxidants…all with relatively low-calorie counts. Just for fun, I decided to see what a person could eat in one day for 1200 calories — the same number of calories as a McDonald’s Big Mac, fries and a coke. (Did you catch that? ONE lunch at McDonald’s is the equivalent of a full day’s worth of calories). Here is what you could do with 1200 calories instead:

  • breakfast:  1 C rice milk, 1 C strawberries, 1 banana
  • lunch:  4 oz. chicken, 1 C long grain brown rice, 1/2 C black beans, 4 T salsa
  • snacks:  1 C apple, 1/2 oz. almonds, 4 oz. yogurt
  • dinner:  4 oz. salmon, 1/2 sweet potato, 12 romaine leaves, 2 T salad dressing

 

 
 

Posted on by Angela in Body, Call to action, Diet, Green Living, Guest Blog, Nutrition, Organic, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

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