How To Eat

Plant-Based
Successfully
(opt im ise your he a lt h,
perf orm ance an d
bod ysha pe )

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 FOREWORD
I’m really thrilled that you’ve made it to this guide. Whether
you want to slash your chances of succumbing to disease,
optimise your body shape, or get an edge over your
sporting competition, it is scientifically-proven that a well-
planned plant-based diet is truly your greatest ally!

So enjoy this guide, reap its important lessons, and most

importantly, take action immediately afterwards! Do
something today that your future self will thank you for.

You will be glad that you did!

Paul

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 The least healthy thing that
vegans consume…
There’s a big misconception in some quarters that by simply
dropping animal products and eating a vegan diet automatically we
are going to have great health. This is often far from the truth. From
a nutritionist’s perspective, it's not very useful to just use the word
‘vegan’ when describing someone's diet. Veganism speaks to their
ethical stance. Yes, it tells me what they don't eat, dairy, meat and
fish, etc. But it doesn't tell me what they do eat!

You can be vegan and eat crisps, doughnuts and ice cream. This will
have a very different health outcome to someone eating kale, quinoa
and berries! This is why it's best to use the distinction whole foods
plant-based or whole foods vegan diet when discussing nutrition.

To optimise health and sports performance we must base our meals

around the following foods: legumes (chickpeas, split peas, lentils
and beans), whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs and
spices. The more of these foods that we eat, the healthier we will be.

All other foods, animal products and processed junk, including

vegetable oils, are best avoided as much as possible. Instead of
cooking with oil, choose a solid (as opposed to coated) non-stick
pan adding a little water at a time as necessary. That way you can
still caramelise foods.

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It may seem strange at first but by about the third time you will be
used to it. Were you then to be served food cooked with oil, likely
you will find it greasy and distasteful and notice that you can't
taste the other ingredients as well. If you have the same
experience as me, you'll be wondering how on earth you used to
eat that way!

If anyone tries to tell you that we need some oil in our diets, ask
them how we managed for the other 99+% of human history
before we invented the processing of foods into oil. To say oil is
healthy because it comes from olives, nuts or seeds is like saying
that table sugar is healthy because sugar is found in fruit! A totally
fallacious statement!

To be fair, olive oil is healthier than what it would displace, butter,

but it comes with a dozen or more negatives which I believe
makes it the least healthy item that a vegan can consume (too
calorically dense, few micronutrients, feeds pathogenic gut
bacteria, higher omega 6-3 ratio, the omega 3 will be destroyed
by heat, heating oil creates oxygen-free radicals, cooking fat/
protein-rich foods with oil creates more advanced glycation end
products that accelerate ageing throughout every tissue of the
body, cooking starches with oil creates acrylamides etc.)

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 The number one mistake that new vegans make!
When switching from a standard western diet to eating whole-foods,
plant-based, many people do not consume enough calories. As
whole plant foods come with a lot of fibre and water, we have to eat
more volume of food for the same amount of calories that we'd get
from animal products and processed junk!

For someone trying to maintain mass or especially if they are trying

to grow muscle, it's important to emphasise the more calorically
dense foods. Legumes, whole grains, tropical and dried fruits,
avocados, nuts and seeds, plus whole nut and seeds butters will be
your friends! Although somewhat processed, tempeh and tofu are
great additions too and smoothies are also an excellent strategy to
get more calories in!

Can you gain muscle or lose fat eating this way?

For someone trying to lose weight, this eating pattern is a godsend!

Again we need to eat the range of whole plant foods but this time we will
learn towards adding more low calorie, water-rich fruits and vegetables.
In this way, it is quite possible to stuff yourself silly at each meal and still
lose weight.

The BROAD study out of New Zealand at the end of 2016 showed that
people eating ad libitum (as much as they cared for) of these foods, on
average LOST 1lb of excess fat per week. At the same time their blood
pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides all came down to within the
healthy ranges.

If you want to be more scientific about it and you don't yet know your
caloric needs, here's what you need to do! Find an online Total Daily
Energy Expenditure (or TDEE) calculator. It will ask for your various stats
such as sex, age, height and weight, etc. If you don't know your body fat
percentage you can look up body fat percentage charts for males or
females and compare yourself with the images on the chart. It only needs
to be a rough idea.

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From there you will be prescribed an amount of calories that if eaten daily
should see you maintain your current weight. In order to lose weight, you will
need to get yourself into a slight caloric deficit or to grow muscle, a slight
surplus. By doing a morning weigh-in once per week after the loo and before
eating or drinking anything we can find what's called our true weight. Repeating
this weekly we can see exactly what this amount of calories is doing for our
bodies and make any adjustments as necessary. A 500 cal deviation either way
from our maintenance calories will generally see us gain or lose 1lb of
bodyweight.

What should you eat?

Protein (can you get enough?)

The more protein-rich foods consist of legumes, tempeh, tofu and whole grains,
particularly amaranth and quinoa. Nuts and seeds have good amounts and
vegetables can be moderately rich. Believe it or not, even fruit is on average 5%
protein. The WHO sets daily protein requirements for the average male at 56g
and for females 46. If you're a gym-goer it may be optimal to shoot for 1.62g
pro/Kg of fairly lean body weight per day (if you carry extra body fat you can
take in less) or for dieting purposes nearer 2g may see you retain the most
muscle mass.

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For a hard training athlete trying to reach their elevated requirements, one
or two scoops of a protein supplement may be beneficial. For its quality,
digestibility and the fact that it's third-party tested for contaminants such as
heavy metals I recommend the Vivo Life brand.

You can get

10% ofF your
first order with code
HeNCH10
And subsequent orders bought
through this link help support
the work that I do so thank you
in advance if you use it.

http://bit.ly/2DGoKZN

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 There is still a lot of nonsense going around about plant-based diets and
the need to protein combine at each meal. While it's true that plant foods
can be lower in certain amino acids, there's no need to worry about
matching them up with other foods at each meal.

Our body's store pools of free amino acids so as long as we eat the range of
different types of whole plant foods we'll be golden! While we're at it, the
idea that plant proteins are incomplete is a myth too! All whole plant foods
contain all essential amino acids. The only incomplete protein in the food
chain is gelatin, which is derived from animal carcasses and lacks the amino
acid tryptophan.

Carbohydrates (should you avoid fruit sugar?)

For starchy carbohydrates think whole grains and tubers including potatoes,
sweet potatoes and yams. Many vegetables and legumes are rich in starch
too. And for sugar-rich sources, there is fruits. Don't make the mistake of
confusing a sugar in whole foods form attached to fibre and all the
wonderful micronutrients with processed refined sugar! Health-wise the
former is GREAT, the latter is TERRIBLE! The one way we can make it
unhealthy is to juice the fruits. Devoid of fibre the sugar becomes harmful in
the body. So while its perfectly healthful to drink smoothies, its best to
swerve fruit juices.

The fats that MUST be eaten!

Healthy fat sources include nuts and seeds, their whole butters and
avocados. It's important to include either ground flax (aka linseeds) or
ground chia seeds daily. These are high in the anti-inflammatory essential
fatty acid known as omega 3. Omega 6, while ALSO being essential, i.e.. we
have to ingest it in order to be healthy, is pro-inflammatory. It's good to
have these fats roughly in balance or no more than about 3 or 4 to 1 in favor
of omega 6.

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 Can vegans obtain adequate
vitamins and minerals?

A lot of people mistakenly worry that by going on a vegan diet you will miss out
on many nutrients. The truth is though that vegetables contain, on average, 16x
more micro-nutrients than animal products. So if anyone was to worry, it should
be omnivorous eaters.

To ensure adequate micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) you simply need to

include the range of different whole plant foods. Fruits and especially
vegetables are particularly good! Try to eat the range of differently coloured
produce each day as the colours are the antioxidants. It's good to emphasise
dark green leafy vegetables such as kale and bok choi too. In terms of fruits,
berries are the real superstars so I include those daily.

Some worry that they will need to take tons of supplements daily, but in reality,
as long as we are eating adequate calories from the range of whole plant foods
then there is only 4 nutrients that you should be mindful of.

As we live in a sanitised world now it's important

to supplement with vitamin B12. Previously we
would have gotten B12 (a substance made by
bacteria) in our drinking water and potentially dirt
on our food. 39% of Americans are reckoned to
have sub-optimal B12 levels, so it's wise for
people of all eating modalities to consider this.
Younger adults need at least 50mcg/day of
vitamin B12, or you can take one dose of
2500mcg/week. However, those over age 65
should take 1000mcg daily.

If you’re not getting a decent amount of sun exposure then vitamin D needs
to be supplemented too. The vegan version of this is made from lichen, as
opposed to the standard version which is made from lanolin, as secretion
produced by sheep to coat their wool. According to the best available
evidence 2000iu/day is likely optimal for most adults (dose by blood-work
ideally, to be sure).

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If we're eating adequately of the plant form of omega 3 and we don't have a
massive amount of omega 6 coming in (more than 3-4 x the amount of omega
3) then we should be able to manufacture enough DHA (the long-chain animal
form of omega 3) for ourselves.

However, some rare individuals have genetic defects where this is not
possible. For this reason many plant-based Doctors and Dieticians
recommend supplementing with 250mg DHA or combined EPA/DHA daily,
just to be safe. The vegan version of this product is made from algae oil, rather
than fish oil, which is contaminated with toxins that bio-magnify up the food
chain.

Any vegan version of B12, D3 or DHA will do the job but if you want my
recommendation for the best brand, then for their quality and environmental/
ethical practices, again I would recommend Vivo Life. The discount code and
link above apply for any of their products.

The last nutrient I will caution about is iodine. Adults need at least 150mcg
daily. It is very depleted in soils now and seaweed is one of the few plant foods
with good amounts. 1 1/2 sheets of Nori, 1 tsp Dulse or Arame flakes, 1/16 tsp
kelp powder or 1 1/8 tsp of wakame would do the job. If seaweed is not to
your taste then an iodine supplement is recommended. Insufficient levels of
iodine negatively impacts the thyroid, which regulates your metabolism,
energy levels and many other systems of the body, making it vital.

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 Planning for success
IWhen first changing your diet we recommend using the free
cronometer app a few times. By plugging your foods in, you will see
calories, total macronutrients and vitamins and minerals. If you're low
on something its easy to do a quick search to find the foods most rich
in that particular nutrient. Or if you hover over the nutrient on the
screen it'll tell you which foods you are already including that are the
highest so you could emphasise those more. If, by the end of the day
you end up a little low on something, don't panic. You can simply eat a
bit more the next day to make it up! You don’t have to religiously
obsess over each nutrient each day, its more useful as an over all
picture, but do be on the look out for areas you fall short on
consistently.

It's worth noting that two nutrients likely don't need to be

at 100% when you consult Cronometer. The true requirements
for choline and omega 6 have not been established.

Excess choline is turned into trimethylamine by pathogenic gut

bacteria. According to some plant-based Doctors, once oxidised in
the liver, the resultant TMAO causes havoc throughout the body. It
expedites the deposition of atherosclerosis in the blood vessels and
slows the clearing of cholesterol from the bloodstream. It also raises
the risk for certain cancers and increases the risk of developing
diabetes. One caveat to this is that during pregnancy and lactation,
requirements are elevated and so at this time do aim for the RDA/
RDI.

As I alluded to earlier omega 6 is pro-inflammatory. Excess can cause

pain throughout the body and sets us up for chronic disease. So long
as you are eating a calorically adequate and diverse whole foods
plant-based diet then you should get adequate quantities of both of
these nutrients.

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 My 'body' doesn’t like healthy foods!

Some people may struggle to go from their current unhealthy diet straight
to eating completely whole foods, plant-based. The number one problem
is the types of bacteria that they have invited to live in the colon with their
former unhealthy diet. In order to process the extra fibre, we need more
of the health-promoting prevotella strains of gut bacteria. These microbes
are actually on the foods, but it takes a little time for them to build up in
the gut.

In the interim, it is possible that we can experience bloating, gas,

constipation, diarrhoea and potentially even pain. If you experience
these problems and it is too uncomfortable, it is recommended to
spend a few short weeks slowly transitioning over. Add more of the new
foods and take out some of the old foods week by week until fully
transitioned. Soon enough your gut bacteria will shift and all will be well!

It’s also been postulated that as we have been eating exogenous pre-
made animal nutrients such as carnitine and carnosine, our genes may
have switched off our own production of these. So we could feel a little
bad for a while until the body recognises what's happened and turns
their production on, so again, switching over slower could potentially be
helpful.

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So there you have it, all the basics
that you need to know in order to
go plant-based successfully!

so whats NEXT?

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 For those that would like more in-depth training and help with
implementing a healthy vegan diet to optimse their health and physique,
myself and Chef Gemma Nichols have created our online course, the...

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PLANT

BASED NUTRITION
Learn from our combined 20 years of experience, in one succinct, practical
course, that we wish had existed when we first went vegan.
Heres everything you'll get when you sign up today
14 in-depth video lessons
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(full colour pictures and macros included)
Downloadable daily checklist, shopping list and appliance guide
Nutrition requirements charts for all ages and stages of life
Private Facebook community that can keep you accountable to
your goals and encourage you along your transformation journey!

Student testimonial Mark Henderson (YouTuber Vegan Mooncat)

It was early on in my health/weight loss journey

that I discovered Paul & Gemma’s YouTube
channel and I instantly felt at ease with their
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balanced perfectly with their knowledge,
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After following a whole food plant-based diet as laid out in the course I
have lost 196lbs and have reversed many of my health conditions. I have
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What would your life look like if you had

the health and body of your dreams?
Don’t wait, invest in yourself today, and make that a reality!

Checkitouthere: www.plantbasedpower.co.uk

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