"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."
--Paul McCartney
A friend with diabetes recently reached out to me for help. She said she needed to lose about 50 pounds. We met in her home, outside on the pool deck while the sun set in paradise. She told me she wanted to lose about 5 pounds a week and go on a 1300 calorie diet.
A friend with diabetes recently reached out to me for help. She said she needed to lose about 50 pounds. We met in her home, outside on the pool deck while the sun set in paradise. She told me she wanted to lose about 5 pounds a week and go on a 1300 calorie diet.
I gently
suggested that 5 pounds a week weight loss was unrealistic (a 2-4 pound weight
loss/week is the recommended amount for people who want to lose weight and keep
it off) and introduced the idea that if she chose plant-based foods and
decreased or eliminated her consumption of foods from animals, she would not
need to count calories.
Changing one's attitudes about dieting can be threatening.
It can also be the beginning of a very healthy life, free of the
shackles that come with dieting. One
thing I know for sure: when you adopt a whole-food plant-based way of eating,
your body gets what it needs AND you lose weight.
Dieting
and counting calories are outdated ways to get to a healthy weight. The evidence is overwhelming that eating
primarily plant-based foods can get you on the path to a healthy weight in as
little as 2 weeks, but also can reverse type 2 diabetes, gout, arthritis,
gastro-intestinal reflux disease, and many other
diseases.
This
country is facing catastrophic expenditures for diseases such as diabetes,
heart disease, and cancer. We should
instead be spending money on improving education about and access to healthy
foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Preventing diseases is paramount. The evidence is clear that processed foods and
foods from animals are making us sick and killing us.
Take a
disease like diabetes, a preventable disease in most cases.
The cost of diabetes can bankrupt our country, if we stand by and do
nothing. With obesity as a major risk
factor for diabetes, we must create simple solutions to obesity that are
affordable and achievable.
All kids
deserve access to healthy foods. When
they do, they become captains of their own health – and their lives.
Please
pass the sunflower microgreens.
With
love and gratitude,
Nancy L.
Heinrich, MPH
Founder,
Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.
