The
Truth About the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
This is
another diet that is designed with the goal of allowing the dieter to
reach a healthy weight as well as take measures to improve their odds
of living a long, happy, and healthy life. This diet plan was
designed by the presiding member of the Physicians' Committee for
Responsible Medicine, Doctor Neil Barnard. The diet purports to
accomplish this goal by releasing the power of the foods that you
choose to eat so that you enhance your health and slow down the
process of aging.
Unlike the
Zone Diet, this diet is completely vegetarian, and involves a very
limited consumption of fat. Barnard believes that this diet can
powerfully impact longevity, because it balances hormones, enhances
the immune system, filters the blood, and limits the impact of
disease on the cells.
Eat
Right, Live Longer Diet Overview
The Eat
Right, Live Longer Diet is designed to keep the body healthy at the
cellular level, improve hormone balance and strengthen the immune
system with the help of a vegetarian diet low in fat.
The diet
revolves around the consumption of organic foods with the goal of
avoiding pesticides and other contaminants.
Barnard's
diet also involves raw vegetables and fruits, because they provide
antioxidants and nutrients more effectively than cooked alternatives.
Who
Should Try the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet?
This diet
could be effective for individuals that are vegetarian or would be
interested in adopting a vegetarian lifestyle. This diet is also for
people that enjoy cooking and preparing foods, and have the time to
do so, because there is little room for convenience foods within the
specifications of this diet.
Who
Should Avoid the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet?
If you
aren't interested in vegetarianism, this diet is not right for you.
If you like meat and dairy products and can't imagine a life without
them, go ahead and stop reading here. Also, because this diet
requires a lot of prep and home cooking, people that require meal
flexibility will have a lot of trouble making this diet work.
The
Idea Behind the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
This diet
does not emphasize weight loss, but with considerate adaptations and
considerations, this diet could easily be an effective weight loss
plan. In the book devoted to the diet, there is only a single chapter
discussing how the diet can potentially pertain to weight loss.
In spite
of the fact that the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet is not designed
exclusively as a diet for losing weight, the author explains that a
vegetarian lifestyle can be an incredibly effective means to lose
weight, with only a few important precautions. He believes that if
you simply follow the recommendations of his diet, you'll never
really have to “diet” because you will be eating
responsible meals every day.
The
Specifics of the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
Barnard's
diet plan is not explicitly about losing weight, but making efforts
to preserve optimal health. His primary argument for avoiding diary
products and meats is that they are packed with drugs, hormones, and
chemicals which can negatively impact our immune systems and even
make us ill.
Unlike the
Zone Diet, this diet involves high consumption of carbohydrates as a
means to lose weight, citing research that contends that carbohydrate
calories are inefficiently turned into fat by the digestive system,
and that they actually take more energy to burn than fat calories.
Another
reason he supports a high-carbohydrate diet is because there is
evidence that shows that after a person eats a high-carb meal, they
emit higher levels of body heat, which supports the hypothesis that
these sorts of carbs burn calories more quickly. He goes so far as to
say that high-carb foods can actually burn more calories than they
produce under some circumstances.
He claims
that following this diet can have a strong influence on hormone
balance, and can help overweight people lose weight and improve their
health overall. This diet claims to improve hormone balance by
preventing hormone levels from spiking. Barnard explains that eating
excessive fat causes hormone levels to increase, while consuming
fiber has the ability to balance hormones.
Nutrition
Plan of the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
The book
associated with this diet plan includes one hundred pages of
individual recipes, as well as fourteen days of unique meal menus
made up of those recipes. Barnard also includes tips on how to shop
in order to achieve success with this diet, and also explains how to
get your kitchen ready for vegetarian cooking that involves very
little fat.
The
typical Eat Right, Live Longer Daily Menu looks a lot different than
the Zone Diet. An Example of an Eat Right Breakfast would be fruit
preserves, applesauce muffins, and an apricot smoothie. Lunch would
be something like fruit salad, spinach salad, potatoes, and lentil
soup. Dinner would be the meal that looked most different: Dinner may
include garlic bread, tomato and broccoli pasta, salad with no-fat
dressing, and fresh apricot crisps. Barnard emphasizes constantly
that in order for this diet to be most successful, it is vitally
important that no dairy or meat products ever be consumed.
There are
many reasons why Dr. Barnard recommends raw vegetables and fruits,
but one big reason is that these sorts of raw foods drastically
increase the synthesis of a compound known as Gluthathione.
Gluthathione is a powerful antioxidant which has the ability to take
damaging free radicals and other potentially toxic compounds and ship
them out of the body. While the Eat Right diet does caution against
the intake of excess sugars, it does not emphasize the potential
importance of glycemic index as a lot of other diets do.
Expert
Opinion of the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
Most
nutrition experts believe that the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet is
indeed a healthy diet, if you have the power to maintain it. It's not
necessarily a problem inherent with the diet, but most people would
probably find the diet hard to follow because they are not willing to
commit to a purely vegetarian diet.
With
regard to health concerns, there are two primary issues for people
over the age of fifty that are interested in the diet. The first
issue is that the diet lacks both Vitamin D and B12, as well as
calcium. The diet plan does explain how to add Vitamin B12 in the
diet, but does not do a good job of explaining how to get the Vitamin
D and Calcium needed for a healthy and balanced diet. Of course, one
could add multivitamins and other supplements to take care of these
dietary needs.
Barnard
contends that if you follow his diet appropriately, you can get by
with less calcium in the diet because you are eating less protein.
Protein consumption has a negative impact on calcium retention, which
necessitates an enhanced need for Calcium. He also explains that if
you get enough sunlight every day, you won't need Vitamin D from the
diet. The problem with this is that after the age of fifty or so,
your body will start to produce its own Vitamin D less effectively.
If you are
interested in losing weight and balancing your hormones, this is a
very strong vegetarian diet. If you do exactly as the diet says, you
will likely lose weight. The diet will also produce a number of
health benefits which should greatly decrease your mortality risk as
well. This diet will likely reduce your risk of hypertension, heart
disease, diabetes, and even probably some types of cancer. The issue
is simply a matter of your own personal commitment to the diet and
your ability to spend the extra money necessary to live by an organic
diet.
The main
way that we would suggest that you supplement the diet would to make
sure that you take a multivitamin that has a full daily value of both
Vitamin D and B12, as well as one gram of calcium.
Calorie
Requirements of this Diet
Although
this diet does not go into explicit detail regarding how to lose
weight,their rule of thumb for your calorie consumption is that you
should aim for ten calories for every pound that you want to weigh.
So if you weigh 200 pounds and want to weigh 165, you shouldn't eat
fewer than 1,650 calories per day. This is the only suggestion that
the author makes with regard to your caloric consumption.
Final
Thoughts on the Eat Right, Live Longer Diet
Since this
diet does not include high levels of protein and is very low in fat,
you will easily be able to lose weight if you want to. Most of the
foods suggested, outside of carbohydrates, are very nutrient dense
while not adding too many calories. Remember, however, that
vegetarianism is not a sure-fire way to lose weight, because many
people find that as they adapt to their new lifestyle, they find
other ways to tack on unnecessary calories.
Also, if
you aren't overly interested or do not have the budget for a purely
organic diet, the benefits of an organic diet are not fully vetted,
and you will likely experience most of the same benefits if you
choose your foods conscientiously, even if they aren't certified
organic. Finally, recommendations such as avoiding tap water because
of chlorine are not well-founded, but may produce some small, if only
modestly significant benefit.
Eat
Right, Live Longer Diet Recommendations
Eat lots
of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits; source produce organically,
drink bottled water
Eat
Right, Live Longer Things to Avoid
No dairy
products, no meats, no produce that isn't organic, no tap water
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