THE VEGAN WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM
Struggling to lose weight? Tired of counting calories and eating cardboard with no results?
It's not your fault. The fault lies all the popular starvation diets that magazines and self-proclaimed "gurus" advocate. Without sound nutritional guidance and the addictive nature of fatty foods, sugars, and artificial sweeteners, the average body mass index for the general U.S. population is climbing steadily every year.
Well here's the simple truth: people tend to overeat and gain weight because their diets are very LOW in nutrition and very HIGH in calories. Your body needs regular activity, vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, amino acids, and lots of water to function properly. Show a little appreciation for your amazing body by cutting out the processed garbage, filling your plate with wholesome food, and staying active.
One of the healthiest decisions anyone can make, regardless of their health goals, is to adopt a vegan diet centered around whole plant foods. If you are struggling to lose weight, it is imperative that you cut out all animal products, processed foods, and oil from your diet. With these harmful foods out of the way, you free up space on your plate to maximize the number of micronutrients in your diet by consuming a wide variety vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
Let me explain the Vegan Weight Loss Program:
Here is the only diet advice you'll need ever again: Eat plants and only plants, as close to their natural form as possible with minimal processing and no added oil. It's really that simple! I'm sure you think that sounds like a very limited diet, but please allow me to show you what such a diet looks like.
Here is the Vegan Weight Loss Food Pyramid:
Here's your goal: Maximize the number of micronutrients in your diet and stay full longer by consuming a wide variety of whole food, minimally-processed vegetables (particularly greens), fruits, grains, legumes, beans, and seeds. You should not consume any animal products, processed food, refined sugar, or oil.
You can eat as many vegetables, fruit, and home-cooked whole grains you want. No calorie counting. No point counting. No counting anything, except for all the weight you lose.
It really is that simple.
A whole food, vegan diet is free. Free of shakes, pills, supplements, and gimmicks. You don't even count calories. You're never hungry because you can eat all the fruits and veggies you want. Whole food, plant-based vegans eat until they are full and satisfied and then they stop. It's that simple.
The foods you need to eat to lose fat without losing muscle
It is imperative that you consume adequate protein when dieting to lose fat so you do not lose muscle as well. In fact, a high-protein diet helps when dieting to lose fat in 3 major ways:
- A high-protein diet is most effective at reducing body fat
- A high-protein diet preserves lean muscle mass
- A high-protein diet increases satiety, helping to avoid hunger and cravings
Here are the wholesome, nutrient-rich, high-protein food groups you must focus on to lose fat without losing muscle:
Vegetables and fruits
The healthiness of vegetables and fruits is likely the least controversial nutrition advice in the world. So of course, there's good reason for this.
Fruits are easy to digest and yield a stellar nutritional profile, boasting a wide array of micronutrients. Plus they are delicious, packed with energy, and perfect for on-the-go. Contrary to popular belief, the sugar in fruits, known as fructose, will not make you fat.
The truth is that only fructose from added sugars appears to be associated with declining liver function, high blood pressure, and weight gain.
So how could the fructose in added sugar be bad, but the fructose in fruit be harmless? In nature, fructose comes prepackaged with the fiber, antioxidants, and phytonutrients that appear to nullify adverse fructose effects.
Studies show that if you drink a glass of water with three tablespoons in sugar (similar to what you'd find in a can of soda), you'll have a big spike in your blood sugar levels within the first hour. This causes your body to release so much insulin to mop up the excess sugar that you actually overshoot and become hypo-glycemic by the second hour, meaning that your blood sugar drops even lower than if you were fasting. Your body detects this low blood sugar, thinks you might be in some sort of famine situation, and responds by dumping fat into your bloodstream as an energy source to keep you alive.
But what if you eat a cup of berries in addition to the sugar? Berries have sugars of their own - additional tablespoons of it! That should be even worse than just the sugar, right? Actually, no it isn't!
Study participants who ate berries with their cup of sugar water showed no additional blood sugar spike and hypo-glycemic dip afterward. Their blood sugar levels merely went up, then down and there was no release of fat into the blood. Therefore, consuming sugar in fruit form is not only harmless, but actually helpful. Eating berries can blunt the insulin spike from high-glycemic foods like white bread. This may due to the fiber in fruit that has a gelling effect in your stomach and small intestine that slows the release of sugars or because certain phytonutrients in fruit appear to block the absorption of sugar through the gut wall into the blood stream. So eating fructose the way that nature intended carries benefits rather than risks.
High-protein, whole food carbs
Contrary to popular dieting belief, carbohydrates are healthy and you don't have to give them up when you are trying to lose weight! However, you do need to eat the right carbs.
There are technically 3 types of carbohydrates, but for simplicity, we'll categorize carbs into two general groups: simple and complex. Complex carbs are nutritious and healthy, while simple carbs can be downright harmful.
For optimal health, you should aim to get the majority of your carbohydrates from whole, unprocessed foods like potatoes, rice, and quinoa. Rice and quinoa, along with amaranth, barley, and buckwheat, are more like seed than grains, so we call them "pseudo-grains." Some of these grains are up to 20% protein!
You could fill your stomach on nutrition-poor carbs like white bread, but you will tend to overeat because your body metabolizes them quickly. For this reason, we want to consume sustainable energy that fulfills (or even exceeds!) your body’s minimum nutritional requirements for optimal functionality.
Legumes (beans, peas, and lentils)
Legumes include beans, lentils, split peas, chickpeas, and soy. Though the vast majority of nutritional experts and studies recommend we consume more legumes, a whooping 96% of Americans don’t eat the minimum recommended amount, with only a measly 3% of calories coming from beans and nuts in the standard American diet.
Legumes, especially black beans and sprouted beans, provide antioxidants, fiber, lignans, folate, magnesium, and non-heme iron. Legumes reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, insulin resistance, provide for better blood sugar control, protect against prostate enlargement, improve bone density, protect against skin wrinkling, reduce levels of C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation), reduce high blood pressure, lower cholesterol (particularly LDL cholesterol), help reduce risk factors for and reverse metabolic and cardiovascular disease, and reduce risk for breast and other cancers.
Overall, legume intake may be the most important dietary predictor of a long lifespan. There’s no excuse not to eat legumes every day, as they are a cheap and cost-effective way to improve our diet.
In conclusion, your eating guide is simple: eat nutrient-dense, whole vegan foods. You don’t need to worry about calories if you are eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and pseudo grains, eating a few daily servings of nuts, seeds, and legumes, and avoiding all other foods, especially oil, meat, dairy, eggs, and all processed food.
The 3 Vegan Weight Loss Principles
Principle 1: DO NOT focus on deprivation.
Forget everything you know about dieting. You should always be eating until you are satiated. You should never finish a meal feeling stuffed or hungry.
The whole idea of whole-food, vegan nutrition is that you keep your body constantly nourished and avoid under-eating and overeating. Eating whole vegan foods like vegetables, fruits, and pseudo-grains also helps maintain a productive metabolism. You don't want to go hungry and you want to maintain energy throughout your day so you are feeling energized and fueled, not tired, hungry, or lethargic. I encourage you to eat healthy snacks like raw vegetables, nuts, and fruit whenever you are hungry (just be sure you don't surpass 2 handfuls of nuts per day).
Principle 2: Focus on Totally High In Nutrients (THIN) Foods
Your body needs regular activity, vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, amino acids, and lots of water to function properly. Show a little appreciation for your amazing body by cutting out the processed garbage, filling your plate with wholesome food, and staying active.
You can eat until you are satisfied and effortlessly lose weight. You do this by choosing to eat foods that take LESS energy to digest and assimilate while returning MORE nutrition. A food calorie is a measure of energy. That is fact. BUT, more calories do not necessarily translate to more energy. Think about the last time you had a huge, high calorie meal. Often times, such meals make us feel lethargic; even make us want to take a nap. If more calories translated to more energy, then the people who consistently eat 3,000-calorie McDonald’s meals would be at the top of their games.
Apply the basic principles of monetary investing to eating by asking yourself, “how do I get the highest return (in the form of energy and well being) on my eating investment?” If you are going to spend digestive energy, what is your required rate of return to go ahead and consume a given food? Its not calories, we just disproved that with the examples of Thanksgiving and McDonald’s. It is also not food volume or food mass.
The answer is nutrients! Vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and antioxidants. The most effective way to invest in your diet is by consuming foods that will yield the highest return (in terms of its nutritional profile) for a given amount of digestive energy.
One of the best ways to boost your nutrient intake is by eating giant salads and smoothies. Because eating giant salads requires a lot of time and jaw effort, I usually stick with smoothies. My favorite smoothie is super easy to make! Check out the recipe here.
The problem many beginners on a vegan diet face is that they stick with starchy, refined foods such as breads, pastas, cereals, etc. that offer little nutrition.
To make sure you don't fall into this trap, remember the Vegan Weight Loss Pyramid and your goal: You must MAXIMIZE the number of micronutrients in your diet and stay full longer by consuming a wide variety of whole food, minimally-processed vegetables (particularly greens), fruits, grains, legumes, beans, and seeds. You should not consume any animal products, processed food, refined sugar, or oil.
Principle 3: Do not shy from carbs!
Carbs are you body’s preferred energy source and they will not cause you to gain weight if you eat the right sources of carbs. You should eat carbs from minimally-processed, nutrient-dense plant sources like vegetables, fruits, and pseudo-grains.
In fact, the Fail Proof Vegan Diet is a high carbohydrate diet. Approximately 70% of calories in this diet come from carbs!
High carb, whole food vegan diets promote weight loss by increasing resting energy expenditure, improving metabolism, improving satiety, preventing fat cells from taking up fat, and improving plasma adiponectin levels (a hormone that helps control weight).
To learn more about carbs, click here.
Principle 4: Commit to 30 days
We tend to choose the foods we become accustomed to, and in part because we become addicted to them, dietary fat and processed sugars in particular.
I know you might think you don’t like blueberries, carrots, and quinoa, but focus on how these healthy foods make you feel. Eventually you will grow to like the taste as well. Believe it our not, our taste preferences can acclimate to healthy changes, such as substituting cocoa for chocolate (using healthier sources of fat and sugar). But this process takes some time. That's why you should commit to 30 days, because you might not feel much better after a week or two. In fact you might feel rather poor in the two weeks following the adoption of a healthy vegan diet because your body is purging all the built-up toxins that it finally has a chance to get rid of.
So transitioning to a healthy, vegan diet might be difficult at first, but I promise your taste preferences will change after about a month and you'll feel better than ever. Everyone I know who has adopted a plant-based diet discovered that they really enjoy eating healthy food because it makes them feel amazing. You'll begin to crave vegetables and fruits because they make you feel great and full of energy!
The 3 steps to stick with your weight loss commitment
So I bet you're probably thinking that a Fail Proof Vegan Weight Loss Diet that allows you to eat as much as you want sounds great, but I'm sure you also think it sounds very restrictive, especially if you aren't already eating a vegan diet. So how will you stick with this new lifestyle??
Here are the 3 ways to stick with your Fail Proof Vegan Diet:
Step 1: Find your why (hint: it is bigger than you)
Wherever you are in your health journey, start with gratitude.
Your body is a masterpiece that stands brilliantly unique in a world of 7 billion people. The mere fact that you are alive and your body is functioning in harmony is beyond remarkable. Every minute, your body completes billions of complex chemical reactions that make college chemistry look like kindergarten art class.
Are you really going to thank this loyal, finely-tuned machine that breathes, beats, and fights to keep you alive every second of the day by living a sedentary lifestyle and eating unhealthy, even toxic, food?
Everyone knows the fundamentals behind living a healthy life: getting plenty of physical activity and eating a balanced, wholesome diet full of fruits and vegetables. So why do so few of us fail to put this into practice?
We haven't taken the time to give ourselves a strong enough DRIVING FORCE to overcome our endless list of excuses. Your driving force is the reason, or reasons, that will push you to take action in any area of your life. Your driving force is undeniably the most important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Here are some examples of strong driving forces.
- An overweight parent decides that they no longer want to see their child playing soccer by herself in their backyard.
- A fast food regular learns from his doctor that he is pre-diabetic and at serious risk for heart disease.
- A couch potato decides that she is going to drastically change her diet and begin training for a local 5K so she never again fears fitting in an airplane seat.
- A thin, non-athletic man looks at his frail figure in the mirror every morning and envisions himself becoming a ripped fitness magazine cover model.
The stronger your driving force(s) the stronger your will and the more definite your action. If your desire for an extra side of fries exceeds your desire to live a long, fit, healthy, disease-free life, then forget it. You won't change your ways until a strong enough driving force presents itself. Your driving force all starts with a realization that you are not where you want to be with your health. Once you realize and accept where you are, you need to understand where you want to go and begin taking small steps toward making this destination your reality.
Step 2: Apply the Law of Grocery Carts
I understand you have cravings. We all do. For example, I freaking love Clif Bars, one of my few vices.
If I am in the same area code as a Chunky Peanut Butter Clif bar, it’s only a matter of time before it ends up in my belly. Granted, Clif Bars aren’t as unhealthy as most dietary vices, but still, the first ingredient in Clif Bars is brown rice syrup! Yay sugar!
No thanks.
Just seeing a Clif bar triggers an immediate response of desire in my brain. I often end up with a few dozen Peanut Butter Clif Bars in my cart every time I walk through the energy bar aisle of my local grocery store.
Not good.
After one particularly unhealthy week, I found myself at my desk at 2AM diligently working on building The Vegan Gym website with a half-eaten Peanut Butter Clif bar in my hand and a dozen wrappers littering my desk…a gruesome massacre of the half-eaten bar’s fallen brothers and sisters.
I realized in that moment that my habit of Clif Bar binging was becoming seriously detrimental to my pursuit of optimal health.
“That’s it!” I declared with newfound determination (after consuming the remaining half), "I'm not eating another Clif Bar for the rest of the month!!"
The next time I went to the grocery store, I didn’t walk through the energy bar isle. I didn’t even look down the energy bar isle in staunch defiance of the peanut buttery goodness.
“No way,” I thought. “Not today!”
And then a strange thing happened. I didn’t eat a single Clif Bar that entire week. I avoided the energy bar isle during every time I went grocery shopping for the next month!
How did that happen??
The answer was painfully obvious. I only ate Clif Bars because I put them in my grocery cart. If a Clif Bar didn’t end up in my cart, I wouldn’t eat it. And those organic Fuji apples I picked up instead did get eaten. I know it’s a pretty simple concept, but it is capable of producing incredible results. And not just for your waistline!
I realized there were certain triggers in my life, such as walking through the energy bar isle, that I could completely avoid to stop my bad habits in their tracks!
Morale of the story: don’t feed your bad habits…literally. Focus on feeding your good habits.
So what’s the takeaway here?
The Law of Grocery Carts states, “Whatever goes in your cart gets ‘eaten.’ Whatever doesn’t go in your cart will not get ‘eaten.’” Think about this the next time you head to the grocery store.
Step 3: Celebrate small victories and your new lifestyle will be self-reinforcing
If you stick with the Fail Proof Vegan Diet, you'll see results pretty quickly. However, this isn't one of those "lose-20-pounds-in-a-week" diets that is the dietary equivalent of an equally-deceptive "get rich quick" scheme. With effort and dedication, you'll reach your goals, but you need to ............
Do you feel like you need one-on-one guidance to achieve your weight loss goals?
The Ultimate Vegan Fat Loss Course offers:
- A new nutrition video lesson at the start of each week that educates and helps you build the exact eating habits you need to lose weight efficiently and keep it off.
- An entire library of workout videos with specific workout plans designed to help you firm up your physique.
- Daily accountability check-ins with The Vegan Bros designed to hold you accountable and help you build your habits with each day, so they stay firm for the rest of your life.
- Live weekly Q&A calls with The Vegan Bros where they answer all questions submitted by Ultimate Vegan Fat Loss Course clients.
You’re going to be BLOWN AWAY at how your measurements and body change in just 3 months! Sign up today by clicking this link.