ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARCO BORGES is an exercise physiologist, the founder of 22 Days Nutrition, a New York Times–bestselling author, and a plant-based living advocate. Passionate about guiding people to develop healthier lifestyles, he has spent more than twenty years as a lifestyle coach, touring the world to empower others with tools for ultimate wellness. Author of The 22-Day Revolution, The 22-Day Revolution Cookbook, and Power Moves, he lives in Miami with his wife and their three sons and daughter.

The material in this book is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice and care of your doctor. As with all new diet and nutrition regimes, the programme described in this book should be followed only after first consulting with your doctor to make sure it is appropriate to your individual circumstances. The author and publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the information contained in this book.

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Text Copyright © Marco Borges 2019

Marco Borges asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN 978-0-00-833934-0

eBook ISBN: 978-0-00-833935-7

Cover and book design by Laura Palese Design

Photographs by Lauren Volo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

TO MY AMAZING FAMILY AND THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD THEY WILL INHERIT. WITHOUT YOU, NOTHING IS POSSIBLE.

CONTENTS

Cover

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION: By Jay-Z & Beyoncé

GETTING STARTED: Welcome to the Greenprint!

PART 1: THE GREENPRINT LAWS

LAW 1: EAT MORE PLANTS AND EAT LESS OF EVERYTHING ELSE

LAW 2: NOBODY EVER PLANS TO FAIL – PEOPLE JUST FAIL TO PLAN

LAW 3: EAT MORE, WEIGH LESS

LAW 4: WATER IS LIFE FUEL

LAW 5: PROTECT YOUR HEART

LAW 6: TAKE CARE OF YOUR MIND

LAW 7: FAST FOR HEALTH AND LONGEVITY

LAW 8: THINK ABOUT THE EARTH BEFORE YOU EAT

LAW 9: LOVE FOOD THAT LOVES YOU BACK

LAW 10: MOVEMENT BEGETS MOVEMENT

LAW 11: TRASH MUST BE TAKEN OUT

LAW 12: THE WORLD DOESN’T NEED US TO SURVIVE – WE NEED THE WORLD TO SURVIVE

LAW 13: CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU

LAW 14: THE BEST STARTING POINT IS TODAY

LAW 15: PERFECTION CAN BE THE ENEMY OF PROGRESS

LAW 16: LISTEN TO YOUR BODY

LAW 17: FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN EAT, NOT WHAT YOU CAN’T

LAW 18: PLANTS HAVE ALL THE POWER WE NEED

LAW 19: A BEHAVIOUR THAT IS REWARDED WILL BE REPEATED

LAW 20: YOU CANNOT GIVE WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE

LAW 21: BRING MINDFULNESS TO EATING

LAW 22: PRACTISE KAIZEN

PART 2: LIVING THE GREENPRINT LAWS

THE THREE TRANSITIONAL TIERS

TIER 1: THE GRADUAL SHIFT

TIER 2: THE RAMP-UP

TIER 3: THE FULL-ON

THE 44-DAY FULL-ON GREENPRINT DIET

THE GREENPRINT RECIPES

TIER 1: RECIPES

ALMOND BUTTER AND BANANA GREEN SMOOTHIE

PUMPKIN PIE SMOOTHIE

APPLE PIE SMOOTHIE

BANANA-WALNUT OVERNIGHT OATS

HERBED WHITE BEAN AND PEA SALAD

RAW BROCCOLI SALAD

RAW VEGGIE SALAD

RAW RAINBOW SALAD

VEGAN MINESTRONE SOUP

MAGGIE’S SPICY AUBERGINE STIR-FRY

AVOCADO AND BROCCOLI LETTUCE CUPS

BLACK BEAN AND KALE WRAP

TIER 2: RECIPES

PEANUT BUTTER SMOOTHIE BOWL

HOMEMADE GRANOLA

CHIA OAT PEANUT BUTTER PARFAIT

BLUEBERRY BLISS BOWL

HEARTS OF PALM AND PEA PASTA SALAD

AVOCADO TOAST WITH SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND SPROUTS

SHREDDED BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD

SWEET POTATO TOAST WITH HUMMUS AND BROCCOLI SPROUTS

MEXICAN-INSPIRED BEAN SALAD

SPLIT PEA SOUP

SPINACH AND MUSHROOM GNOCCHI WITH WALNUT MEAT

LOADED SWEET POTATO

MUSHROOM ‘CHORIZO’ LETTUCE TACOS

CHICKPEA NO-TUNA SALAD SANDWICH

CHICKPEA AND AVOCADO BURGERS

TIER 3: RECIPES

BANANA-NUT QUINOA BOWL

ALMOND GRANOLA OAT CUP

HOMEMADE OAT MILK

DRIED FRUIT BROWN RICE PORRIDGE

KALE BREAKFAST SALAD

SPINACH TORTILLA

ALMOND BUTTER AND BLUEBERRY SWEET POTATO TOAST

BLT BREAKFAST SANDWICH

SWEET POTATO AND BLACK BEAN SALAD BOWL

BLACK BEAN AND SQUASH QUINOA BOWL

TERIYAKI SUSHI BOWL

COURGETTE AND SQUASH POTATO BOWL

RAINBOW QUINOA BOWL

GRILLED ARTICHOKE AND BLACK BEAN BOWL

SUGAR SNAP PEA AND CARROT NOODLES

SPINACH AND KALE PASTA WITH CRISPY BRUSSELS SPROUTS

CASHEW CHEESE PASTA

SPINACH CREAM PASTA

MAINS: MAIN DISH SALADS

QUINOA VEGGIE SALAD WITH SUNFLOWER SEED ‘PARMESAN’

THAI PEANUT AND QUINOA SALAD

ROASTED SWEDE AND KALE SALAD

MAINS: OTHER

LENTIL AND BEAN CHILLI SOUP

RED LENTIL DAL

SAUTÉED BELUGA LENTILS AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH

BRAISED BELUGA LENTILS WITH KALE

SPICY BBQ GRILLED AUBERGINE STEAKS

BLACK BEANS AND YUCA WITH JASMINE RICE AND AVOCADO

VEGGIE FRIED RICE

HUMMUS

CUBAN BLACK BEANS

DESSERTS AND TREATS: ALL TIERS

CINNAMON BREAD

HEMP HEART FRUIT SALAD

BERRY CHIA PUDDING

PEANUT BUTTER AND JAM CHIA PUDDING

PINEAPPLE NICE CREAM

BANANA NICE CREAM BOWL WITH PECANS

WATERMELON ICE LOLLIES

SORBET

CONCLUSION: Be the Greenprint

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

RESOURCES

SELECTED REFERENCES

LIST OF SEARCHABLE TERMS

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

BY

JAY-Z & BEYONCÉ

Having children has changed our lives more than anything else. We realise now, more than ever, that most of the things we want for ourselves we also want for the world – peace, happiness, love, prosperity and, above all, health. We used to think of health as a diet – some worked for us, some didn’t. Once we looked at health as the truth, instead of as a diet, it became a mission for us to share that truth and lifestyle with as many people as possible.

We are not about promoting any one way of living your life. You decide what’s best for you. What we are encouraging is for everyone to incorporate more plant-based meals into their everyday lives. As our dear friend and plant-based guru Marco always says, ‘The more you lean towards plants, the more you benefit.’

The facts about plant-based eating are hard to ignore. The benefits of a single plant-based meal per day can have a profound impact on our health and the environment. Chronic diseases seem more prevalent than ever before – especially among those with lower-income levels and less access to real food. It’s not a poverty issue. It’s not a minority issue. It’s an all-of-us issue. The world won’t change itself. We need to change it. A single decision by one person can affect change not only within themselves but also within their family, their community and the planet.

We want to challenge you, as we challenge ourselves, to move towards plant-based foods. We all have a responsibility to stand up for our health and the health of the planet. Let’s take this stand together. Let’s spread the truth. Let’s make this mission a movement. Let’s become ‘the Greenprint’.

GETTING STARTED

WELCOME TO THE GREENPRINT! You are about to embark on the single greatest action you can take to prevent and reverse disease, a supreme programme for rapid, sustainable weight loss and improved health. It will change your life, your body and the planet, in a revolutionary way. And it all starts with plants.

AT ITS CORE, the Greenprint is a revolutionary set of laws that have been created using clinical data and years of expertise that will allow you to take control of your health once and for all. As the world becomes more aware of the benefits of plant-based eating than ever before in history, The Greenprint is more than a book – it is a movement, and you’re about to join.

As an exercise physiologist and the CEO and founder of 22 Days Nutrition, I’ve dedicated my life to helping people live their best lives. This means encouraging people to transition to plant-based eating so they can lose weight, prevent (and in some cases reverse) chronic disease, boost their energy and transform their health.

Why do I do this? Because I care about you, I care about my children and I care about their children. I want to see you live your best and healthiest life. You see, in the last hundred years, our diets have radically changed – for the worse. We’ve gone from eating whole foods that nourish and heal the body to eating processed junk that is high in fat, sugar, additives, toxins and fillers yet lacks vital nutrients. We’ve gone from eating around 45 kilos of meat (which was raised on farms, grass fed and free from chemicals) each year to, on average, more than 90 kilos, nearly all of it grown on factory farms and pumped full of antibiotics and h ormones to satisfy the need for cheap, readily available meat. It’s no wonder that, as a whole, we are the fattest and unhealthiest generation thus far.

The way we’re living just isn’t sustainable.

Not for us.

Not for the planet.

And that’s where the Greenprint movement comes in. It offers an extraordinary plan for how to eat to get fit and healthy with foods that are greener for the Earth and better for you. What is unique about the Greenprint is that it gives you the essential steps you need to start thriving on plant-based eating and take it as far as you want to go to achieve all your health and weight-loss goals. You will discover the most effective way to transform your body and your life through plant-based eating, one meal at a time. The twenty-two Greenprint laws provide plenty of advice and inspiration, and you can begin to apply them one law at a time.

Along the way, you’ll find a better way of eating and living – and one that significantly contributes to the health and sustainability of the Earth. You’ll even be able to see tangible proof that your choices work: I’ll give you a fun and easy tool to calculate your personal impact on the planet. So rest assured, you’re about to go on an amazing journey with me, one that will help you live a longer, better life and make the world more liveable for future generations.

Before I elaborate, I bet you’re wondering, What’s a ‘greenprint’?

A greenprint is a measure of the impact of our food choices on our weight and overall health and on our planet. For example, let’s say you switch to a 100 per cent plant-based diet (I hope you do). The impact – the greenprint – of this change on your health can be measured in years: studies show that plant-based people, particularly if they don’t smoke and drink only a little, if any, alcohol, live four to seven years longer than people whose diets include animal products. It can also be measured in positive changes in health parameters: lower blood pressure, lower blood lipids, lower blood sugar and lower weight. With regard to weight, on average, those who consume a plant-based diet are naturally 9 kilos lighter than their meat-eating counterparts.

As for your personal greenprint on the planet, it can be colossal. You can save animals, for example. Those that are raised for human consumption do not have great lives. Even if they are raised organically and are free range, they have short lives with not much freedom. If you and your family ditch meat, dairy and eggs, you can save two hundred animals a year, according to PETA.

From an environmental standpoint, expanding your greenprint through plant-based living saves an amazing amount of energy. We’re all guilty of taking our sources of energy for granted. Just 1 calorie of animal protein requires 8.5 times more energy to raise than 1 calorie of protein from grains – incredible! That’s not even counting how much rain forest is cut down to create grazing land for animals each year.

HERE’S ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT IT: The Greenprint is the dietary version of a ‘carbon footprint’ – the impact people and companies have on the environment, in terms of the greenhouse gases they have directly or indirectly caused, measured in units of carbon dioxide. CO2 is a major polluter and dramatically harms our environment by adding to the greenhouse effect and causing global warming. The Greenprint measures how your food choices impact your health as well as clears away your carbon footprint.

By following a plant-based diet, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 1,560 kilos of carbon dioxide equivalents annually. This is a bigger reduction than if you switched from driving a gas-guzzling SUV to a hybrid-electric Prius.

You can even make a huge impact with the most incremental changes in your diet. Even if you ate one less hamburger a week for one year, this would be the equivalent of driving 320 fewer miles.

So just think of the impact on the environment if everyone in the country cut their meat intake by half and made up the difference with wholesome plant foods, such as whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. That’s why embracing meatless menus can mean a lot to our Earth – even if it’s not every meal or every day.

Healthwise, your greenprint has an extraordinary impact on your health. Let me give a rundown of just some of the health-building benefits of plant foods. Research has shown that plant-based eating, and this plan in particular:

Takes off kilos rapidly and consistently, plus prevents overweight and obesity because plant foods make you feel fuller with fewer calories

Fights diabetes. One in three adults now has diabetes or prediabetes, and it’s one of the leading causes of death.

Keeps your heart healthy by lowering cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, clogged arteries and abnormal clot formation

Naturally detoxifies your body against cancer-causing agents

Eases arthritis and joint pain

Strengthens your immune system so that you rarely become ill

Boosts your memory and wards off dementia

Preserves your vision and protects your eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration

Makes your skin, hair and nails glow

That’s the power of plants!

BIRTH OF A PLANT-BASED REVOLUTION

My greenprint is about what I eat, the choices I make and how I conduct my life. As a father of four, I know that my choices now will affect my children’s health and the Earth they will inherit in the future.

The development of the Greenprint programme is something that evolved from deep within my family history. I grew up in the 70s and have so many amazing memories of my youth. My mum raised my brother, sister and me as a single parent, and we’d see our father every other week or so.

We spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house. Mima, as we called her, was so funny, and it wasn’t even deliberate. She would say or do something on a daily basis that would immediately cause us to crack up. Then she’d look at us and ask why we were laughing (‘De que se ríen?’), which would make us laugh even more.

My brother, Alfredo, whom I called Tito from an early age because I couldn’t pronounce Alfredito (it’s quite common in Spanish culture to add –ito to the end of a kid’s name to make it more youthful), would love going over to Mima’s house because he knew it would always be an adventure. I can still hear the ice cream truck driving by with its jingle playing over a loudspeaker. An almost orchestrated scream coming from the neighbourhood kids would follow – ‘El heladero!!!! El heladero!!!!’ (‘The ice cream man!!! The ice cream man!!!’) – and everyone would run outside with loose change, chasing the truck. Often, the driver would act like he didn’t see us all running behind the truck. He would drive what felt like a few extra blocks (actually just a few extra feet), then he’d laugh along with us as we caught our breath and placed our orders. What amazing times.

Mima didn’t drive, but she loved to get out. I can remember walking for hours every day as we visited all the shops, bodegas and houses she would take us to.

It was nonstop at Mima’s house. She’d make us a homemade lunch (usually something with chicken), and it was always delicious. Around lunchtime, she’d also always take all these tiny little pills. Mima suffered from heart problems. She used to tell me they were hereditary and that everyone in her family had them. Well, I assumed it was normal because she was old. I can remember that on occasion she’d get winded and would put a tiny little pill under her tongue, and a few minutes later she was much better. I later found out that those tiny little pills were nitroglycerin, which was for her angina, a chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart.

Mima wasn’t the only member of my family with health problems. Others were either sick or on some type of medication for hypertension, diabetes or anxiety. Watching all this as a kid triggered my desire to study medicine. I can remember telling Mima, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to become a doctor and take care of you.’

Fast-forward many years, and despite the medications, not much improved. It actually all worsened. My grandfather on my dad’s side went blind due to his diabetes. My great-grandmother on my mum’s side died of cancer. So did my maternal grandfather. My father died of heart failure. Mima suffered a stroke and was paralysed as a result; she eventually passed away but lived in bed, immobile, for years.

Each one of these family members lived well into their eighties – my grandfather actually made it to ninety-six – but their quality of life was poor. And that was the tragedy to me – living in poor health is not really living.

I thought about this deep and hard. My father was on blood pressure medication from the time I was born, when he was in his thirties. Mima was only in her forties when I was born and was already taking medication she would continue to take for the rest of her life.

Why didn’t someone tell them that changing the way they were eating could help? Why didn’t they do anything to improve their lifestyle? Why? Didn’t they care? Yes, they did – they just didn’t have the right information to help them change.

I so desperately wanted to help Mima and my other family members regain their health. This desire stayed with me throughout high school. It was the number one reason I wanted to become a doctor. Ultimately, I chose not to attend medical school because I felt I could help more people through a preventative lifestyle rather than a reactive medical system. I wanted to touch lives and make sure people did not have to suffer a declining quality of life because of their poor choices and inherited habits.

As I studied nutrition, I learned about the power of plants, but I wanted to know even more. I kept reading, studying, researching and talking to other plant-based advocates wherever I went. The more I learned, the more I leaned towards plant-based eating. Eventually I realised plant-based living was something I had to experience for myself. And that’s exactly what I did. First, I gave up dairy. That felt so good that I stopped eating red meat and pork, then chicken and eggs. So far, so good. The last animal product to go was fish.

I did it gradually, but as time went on, I grew bolder. I became a vocal advocate of the plant-based lifestyle. ‘Eat plants’ became my mantra.

What made me stick to this new lifestyle was knowing that I was, for the first time ever, truly in control of my health and impacting the planet in a positive way, while influencing others to do the same. This became the concept I eventually dubbed the Greenprint.

Many of my relatives lived long lives. But the Greenprint isn’t just about living a longer life – it’s about living a better life. A fuller life. A life where you can continue to enjoy yourself into your sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond. Your best life. The life that my Mima deserved. The life we all deserve. The life our planet deserves.

But where do we start? What do we have to do to make a difference? How do we transform our lives and the planet with our personal greenprint?

INTRODUCING THE GREENPRINT

At its heart, the Greenprint is a programme for a health transformation. It is also a blueprint for plant-based eating. And yes, it is vegan, but with a difference. A vegan diet is not necessarily plant-based. You can be a vegan and live on potato chips, pretzels and vegan hot dogs served on gluten-free bread. But these processed foods can make you just as sick and unhealthy as a meat-inclusive diet, and they are not part of a plant-based diet. When I say ‘plant-based’, I mean plants, not foods made in a plant. I’m talking about a diet that consists of 100 per cent delicious foods that come from the earth. I’m talking about a diet that your body loves.

Ultimate success at plant-based living comes from a couple of factors that impact each other. If you want to flourish, if you want to enjoy your happiest life, there are two key components of the Greenprint: twenty-two laws of plant-based living, and the application of those laws in your life.

THE TWENTY-TWO GREENPRINT LAWS

Whether we think so or not, it is part of human nature to search out a set of rules by which to live. And if you have never eaten 100 per cent plant-based before, you will want to learn the most effective and most powerful rules to live by. In the case of the Greenprint, there are twenty-two. You can choose to ignore these laws, and possibly flirt with weight gain and health disasters, or you can learn them, adopt them and mould your food choices and habits around them, and live an amazingly healthy life.

I developed these laws through clinically proven science and data, by living a completely plant-based lifestyle myself, and by helping others transition to plant-based eating. If I have learned anything over the past twenty-plus years, it is that what works in a clinical setting doesn’t always work in the real world, which is why these laws are as practical as they are scientific.

A lot of people think they’re doing ‘okay’ with their nutrition choices. Others are flailing and failing. Still others are confused about what to eat or what diet to follow, because there are too many ‘flavour of the month’ diets thrown at them. These diets are hyped, but there’s little credibility behind the hype. Some people may want that secret potion, that magical weight-loss elixir, but it honestly doesn’t exist. If you believe it does, you’ll spend your life in a rabbit hole of diets, filled with empty promises that will most likely leave you weak, overweight and sick.

The truth is, diets don’t work simply because they are unrealistic and do not offer people the opportunity to develop a lifetime of healthful eating habits – ‘lifetime’ being the operative word here. Diets are a quick fix for a long-term problem, which is often poor eating habits. A diet might work for a month or two, but most people drop the diet within a relatively short period.

Because of this mess, there’s no clear standard, no boundaries, no real finish line on what to eat and what to avoid. People have forgotten how to make sound nutrition choices. This is why we need these twenty-two laws. In terms of nutrition, we live in a confusing world – how you emerge from that confusion will be determined by whether you implement the twenty-two distinct laws that I reveal to you in this book.

Learning the Greenprint laws gives you the essential knowledge you need to maintain your and your family’s health. The laws crystallise your thinking and serve as a road map to success. In part 1 of this book, I lay out the twenty-two Greenprint laws. They are a prelude to action – a real master plan for a health-altering, energy-boosting, body-strengthening and planet-saving lifestyle. Whether you are already eating a lot of plants or are more the ‘steak 24/7’ type, implementing the Greenprint laws will be life-changing. Knowing and understanding them is the first step in my Greenprint programme. If you choose to apply them, they can take you wherever you want to go.

“THE GREENPRINT ISN’T JUST ABOUT LIVING A LONGER LIFE – IT’S ABOUT LIVING A BETTER LIFE.

THE GREENPRINT DIET

In part 2, I’ll show you how to put these laws into action, with a nutrition programme that will help you start your journey in an achievable way that will yield powerful results: sustainable weight loss, more energy and protection against life-shortening diseases.

The programme is structured in three transitional tiers that allow you to progress at your own pace, experiment and learn. I ask you to approach plant-based eating one meal at a time – just like I did in the beginning – until you eventually go 100 per cent plant-based. I won’t overwhelm you on the first day. I won’t ask you for instant change. I won’t tell you to throw out the way you eat overnight and go all or nothing with me – unless you want to! You have that option. Over the years, I have worked with thousands of people to successfully change their diets and their health, but what I realised on my own journey is that no single plan will work for everyone. An all-or-nothing proposition can be a recipe for failure, depending on your personality. That’s where the Greenprint is different.

The Greenprint programme shows you how to make small changes – the twenty-two most effective ones – to make a difference in your body, your health and the planet. The programme meets you where you are on your journey, and helps you improve your personal greenprint for the better, whittle your waistline, achieve superior health and drain your carbon stream.

In Tier 1, you’ll eat one plant-based meal a day for eleven days. In Tier 2, you’ll enjoy two plant-based meals each day for eleven days. And in Tier 3 – voilà! – you’ll be ready to fully transition to 100 per cent plant-based eating. Tier 3 includes a forty-four-day plan with specific, easy and delicious meal suggestions, recipes and tips for stocking your pantry.

This stepwise approach makes it easy to experiment with delicious meals, allowing you to incorporate the foods you love. By initially focusing on just one or two meals at a time, you’ll gain the confidence to fully embrace plant-based eating for a lifetime. With the Greenprint, you’ll take the time to get it right.

THE HOLY NAME STUDY AND THE GREENPRINT

To put the Greenprint to the test, my team and I worked with Holy Name Medical Center, ranked one of the top hospitals in New Jersey by US News & World Report, to study the benefits of plant-based eating on the body.

The study was born from a conversation between Holy Name Medical Center’s Director of Cardiac Catheterization Dr. Angel Mulkay and President and CEO Michael Maron. Mr Maron wanted to compare a vegan versus vegetarian lifestyle and the impact it could have on overall well-being and clinical markers. From there a study was developed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

This trailblazing clinical trial measured the effects of three different diets over twenty-two days. More than 200 participants were recruited and randomised into one of three cohorts: 1. Western diet (animal-based); 2. vegetarian diet (dairy and plant-based); and 3. plant-based diet (no dairy or animal products). Each participant signed a consent form and kept a food diary.

In addition, the plant-based group received, at their homes, prepackaged vegan meals from my company for twenty-two days. The vegetarian group received meals prepared in-house for them by their food and nutrition department. The Western diet group simply followed a typical Western-type diet that included animal foods.

All participants had the following tests prior to and after the twenty-two-day test period:

STYKU body scanning

This is a very high-tech scanning system that extracts waist, hip, bust and hundreds of other body measurements and calculates them with less than 1 per cent error. You simply stand on a turntable and hold still for 30 seconds while the platform spins. With its sharp high-resolution infrared images, this technology captures millions of data points in a matter of seconds in a fast, noninvasive process.

Blood work

• Complete blood count (CBC)

• Lipid profile (including total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides)

• B₁₂ (for the vegan cohort)

• HgA1C (a blood sugar measurement that determines risk of diabetes)

After twenty-two days, the blood work results were astonishing when vegans versus vegetarians were compared:

5% decrease in BMI (a decrease greater than five times more than the vegetarians)

19% decrease in LDL (a decrease of 85% more than the vegetarians)

13% decrease in cholesterol (a decrease of over 400% more than the vegetarians)

A decrease in body fat of over 400% more than vegetarians (as measured by STYKU)

An average decrease in weight of 3.5 kilograms lost (almost five times more weight loss than the vegetarians)

The participants in the vegan cohort reported:

Feeling more energetic

Improved skin and hair

Better digestion

Improved sleep quality, including needing less sleep

Two participants who suffered from migraines reported not having headaches while on the diet, and they no longer needed to take their preventive medication. Others reported decreased use or elimination of cholesterol and blood pressure medication.

The same can happen to you! Throughout this book, you’ll meet several people who benefited from 100 per cent plant-based eating. They did it easily, with amazing results, and they’ll inspire you to do the same. In fact, after doing the Greenprint programme, expect to:

LOSE WEIGHT – up to a pound a day – as you focus entirely on plant-based foods and rid your body of preservatives and additives. Week by week, you will undoubtedly have more energy and feel lighter on the scale, while stamping your own greenprint on the global warming crisis. If you’ve tried to lose weight in the past, you may think it’s as simple as taking in fewer calories than you burn. Yet not all calories are the same; the Greenprint proves this. When you eliminate meat, dairy and processed foods from your diet, you also eliminate the primary sources of unhealthy fat and slash your caloric intake as well – without suffering from hunger pangs or sugar cravings.

ACCELERATE WEIGHT LOSS. You will harness a strategy known as intermittent fasting, or going without food for specific amounts of time, typically overnight. Research has shown that intermittent fasting not only speeds weight loss but boosts metabolism, reduces inflammation and improves cellular function while promoting longevity.

EXPERIENCE AMAZING, SATISFYING TASTES – which is what makes this programme so remarkable. You’ll learn how to enjoy an astonishing array of vegetables, fruits, grains and plant-based proteins. People have said to me, ‘I can’t eat plant-based . . . I’m too much of a foodie.’ Well, guess what? I am a huge foodie. Trust me, food never tasted as good as the dishes you will discover here. Even a die-hard meat-and-potatoes person can make the switch without too much adjustment.

SAVE YOUR HEART. You no longer have to worry that you’re eating a lot of artery-clogging saturated fat as you do when eating animal-based foods. Instead, by selecting healthy unsaturated fats – mainly from nuts, seeds, avocados and other whole foods – you can lower your cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

DETOXIFY YOUR BODY NATURALLY. You will be consuming fewer pesticides, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics, and eating more plant detoxifiers that help your body naturally cleanse itself around the clock.

REVERSE AGING AND REV UP YOUR HEALTH. You’ll learn how embracing this lifestyle can help boost your energy; reduce inflammation; improve your overall health; help reduce the risk of, and even prevent, diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the leading killers; and even extend your life expectancy. It doesn’t hurt that top health experts are coming forward with scientific proof of the benefits of diets based on plants versus those based on animals. You’ll discover that knowledge through this book.

And that’s just scratching the surface!

While applying the twenty-two laws, you will significantly expand your greenprint. In fact, what makes this programme unique is that you can use it not only as a guide to plant-based eating for optimal health and weight loss, but also as a road map to actively curbing carbon, reducing greenhouse gases, saving animals and reducing global warming with your food choices. And you’ll have the tools to figure out your personal greenprint.

The first step on the journey to successful plant-based living is a shift in your mind-set: Decide what’s important to you, and what you want to accomplish. Do you want better health? A lower number on the scale? Sounder sleep? The knowledge that you’ve made a positive impact on the planet? Or maybe it’s some combination of these. Whatever your reason, the kind of person you are begins and ends in your own mind. This isn’t a new idea – it’s been around since ancient times. You become what you think about most, so if you want to be healthier or lose weight or reduce your carbon footprint, you have to change the way you think.

Focus not on what you have to give up, but instead on all the good things you will gain – which can be summed up in one word: life. A happy one. A healthy one. One in which joy is spilling over.

The choice is yours.

—MARCO BORGES

PART ONE

THE GREENPRINT LAWS

THE TWENTY-TWO GREENPRINT LAWS break down what it takes to become successful in your transition to plant-based living. They give you standards to aspire to, while providing practical suggestions for developing a lifetime of healthier eating habits. I start with laws that address food choices that can create the state of health you want for yourself. Keep reading from there, and you’ll discover more about how these laws can also help you become part of the solution to our global warming crisis.

THE LAWS ARE VITAL because they contain details that even the most health-conscious eaters have been missing – details that can save your health and are designed for long-term sustainable weight loss.

Every single law reveals critical steps to create lasting health success. My suggestion is to read the laws sequentially as they are presented, then reflect on each one. What resonates with you? What inspires you? What moves you to action?

The laws are also geared towards helping you form better habits. When I was growing up, I was curious about the behaviours that led to success in all realms of life. One question nagged at me: why can some people completely turn their lives around while others struggle with the same problems again and again?

As I continued to observe people’s behaviours, the answer became obvious: Making positive choices led to positive results. I saw the force of positive habits more and more through my work in the fitness industry. Most high achievers take care of themselves with exercise and good eating habits. Without good health, they can’t achieve.

When it comes to habits, too often we put on emotional blinders. We refuse to look at ourselves objectively because we might not like what we see. But in order to change what you do, you must observe your habits objectively, without emotion. Why do you do the things you do? Why do you feel the way you feel? Why do you think what you think? The laws will help you become more self-aware so that you can figure out who you want to be, how you want to feel and where you want to go with your health.

If you spend your energy worrying that shifting to a plant-based lifestyle will be hard, you’ll stay stuck in your old ways. Our food is changing, and not for the better, and your health depends on your ability to adapt. The more you take this new lifestyle one step at a time, the more confident you’ll become in your ability to adapt and create positive habits in your life.

The truth is that no matter who you are, how much money you have, whether you have five children or none, whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are young or old, you have habits – those little things you do every day, all the time, whether you are thinking about doing them or not. They are the actions that got you where you are and will keep you there in the future.

The laws are meant to help you forge positive habits – and make daily positive choices that will really affect you in the long run. So please, take the laws to heart. Follow the guidelines they propose to create the health you want. They can really make a difference if you follow them consistently.

In the end, following the laws will ensure that your future is better than your past.

LAW 1

EAT MORE PLANTS

AND LESS OF EVERYTHING ELSE

People need to eat whole-food plant foods, primarily . . . whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. That diet supports our lives. We ought to live to be ninety or one hundred without getting any diseases.

—JOHN MACKEY, cofounder of Whole Foods Market and American business leader

YOU’VE HEARD IT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE: ‘Eat your vegetables’. Whoever said it may not have known exactly why, but that didn’t make them wrong. You know why? Plants are life! That’s why this is Law #1. Allow me to remind you: eat more vegetables, and eat more vegetables while you’re at it.

Add fruits, beans, legumes, seeds, nuts and whole grains, and the wide-ranging plant world, can easily make up your entire diet. Plants offer us such an amazing array of foods that there’s bound to be something even the biggest vegetable sceptic can love.

A plant-based diet can revitalise your body and your health in ways you may not think are possible. The results of the Holy Name study prove this: your LDL cholesterol can drop, perhaps by as much as 19 per cent, as it did in the study. You’ll lose inches from all over your body. Remember, the plant-based eaters in the study lost on average 3.5 kilos in just twenty-two days. They also reduced their blood pressure and improved their digestion, among other amazing improvements.

One of those plant-based eaters was Bridget, director of medical records at Holy Name Medical Center. She was happy that she had been randomly selected to be in the plant-based group of our study. She was not a vegan, though she’s an avowed animal lover and concerned about the ethics of animal agriculture – so much so that she and her husband take in all sorts of animals, from rabbits to goats to sheep and any animal that has been abandoned. ‘Our goal is to give animals a good life,’ she explained, and Bridget and her husband accomplish this mission on their farm.

Bridget’s results from participating in the twenty-two-day study were surprising. Patchy skin problems cleared up. Her hair began to shine. She dropped 3 kilos. She felt better and had more zip. ‘I never, ever felt hungry. I was always satisfied,’ she said. ‘Anything that pushes that shift to eat less animal products rather than more is good.’

The proof is in the change in her vital measurements, which astonished Bridget. Prior to the study, her vitals were:

Triglycerides: 125

Cholesterol: 230

LDL: 136

Weight: 156

Body Mass Index (BMI): 30.4

After twenty-two days, take a look at what happened to Bridget:

Triglycerides: 104

Cholesterol: 219

LDL: 122

Weight: 149

BMI: 29.1

‘I’ve thought more about the food I eat than I ever have before, and I care about what I’m putting in my body,’ Bridget concluded.

To me, ‘Eat more plants’ is a pretty simple law to follow. My family and I enjoy a 100 per cent plant-based diet, which studies have found to be the only diet in the world that can prevent, arrest and, in many cases, reverse heart disease. We also know that it’s a cruelty-free way to live that is as good for the planet as it is for us. I have one simple guideline: I don’t eat anything produced from or by something that has a face. This means no chicken, turkey, cows, pigs, sheep or fish of any kind. This also means I don’t eat dairy foods, including milk, cheese or butter, and I don’t eat eggs. I don’t use mayonnaise or honey, either.

One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is, ‘What do you eat?’ The answer is that I eat anything, as long as it doesn’t originate from an animal. I eat vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, grains, seeds and nuts, and no, I never feel sluggish or weak, and I always get enough protein.

Of course, that’s the big question you get when you stop eating meat: ‘How do you get enough protein?’ Honestly, we are all eating more protein than we could ever need. We are not protein-deficient, and don’t let anyone or any source tell you otherwise. There are plenty of studies that prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt. In fact, studies have shown that the more animal protein we eat, the sicker we will get.

I HAVE ONE SIMPLE GUIDELINE:

“I DON’T EAT ANYTHING PRODUCED FROM OR BY SOMETHING THAT HAS A FACE.

THIS MEANS NO CHICKEN, TURKEY, COWS, PIGS, SHEEP OR FISH OF ANY KIND.

The average daily requirement of protein is 46 grams for women and 56 grams for men. Scientists at Loma Linda University in California conducted the largest study in history of nutrient profiles of vegetarians, vegans and non-vegetarians. It put to rest once and for all the perennial question, ‘Do vegetarians and vegans get enough protein?’ The study followed more than seventy thousand adults for close to six years and calculated their intake of protein, along with other major nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.

According to this landmark study, non-vegetarians get way more protein than they need, and so does everyone else. On average, vegans and vegetarians get 70 per cent more protein than they even require, and 97 per cent of all Americans get enough protein.

So no one is really lacking protein. But there is another nutrient that 97 per cent of Americans are deficient in: fibre. A fibre deficiency contributes to all sorts of life-threatening illnesses, from obesity to heart disease to diabetes to cancer. This nutrient is something we should be concerned about, not protein! (More on fibre in Law #3.)

We typically think of protein as coming from animal products. But the best sources of proteins are plant-based: beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds. Even vegetables like spinach have protein. When you eat a well-rounded, varied, plant-based diet, you get all the protein you need.

So – let’s stop obsessing over protein as the ‘cure’ for obesity, overweight, diabetes and other diseases. Let’s start obsessing instead – in a positive way – about eating enough food that grows from the ground or in trees.

Plants top the diets that protect against heart disease, stroke, cancer, high blood pressure, cataracts and macular degeneration. Cancer is often chalked up to bad genes. But according to Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, ‘This is not about genes. Cancer is a function of nutrition.’ In fact, he has called the component of cow’s milk known as casein ‘the most relevant chemical carcinogen ever identified.’ Another plant-based advocate, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, makes equally unequivocal statements about heart disease: ‘Heart disease need never exist. It is a food-borne illness’.

Clearly, science and growing numbers of scientists support plant-based eating. Research shows that both high blood pressure and high blood sugar – risk factors for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke – begin to fall and normalise within just a week of starting a plant-based diet.

You don’t need to eat animals to get nutrients besides protein, either. You can obtain all the carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals you need from plants, too.

Think about it: where did the nutrition in the animals you have been eating come from? Plants! Plants are the original source of all nutrients. Nutrient-rich plant-based meals will make you leaner and, in the long run, healthier. You will feel great, with your body buzzing with energy and nutrition. Life will become so much easier. Developing the habit of eating plants gives you the energy, strength and health to deal with life successfully – the energy to live your life in a positive, kind and compassionate way, and to make the right choices for yourself, so you can be the healthiest version of yourself, inside and out. What are those choices? Take a look.

BEANS AND LEGUMES When it comes to plant-based sources of protein, you can’t go wrong with a few beans. Or lentils – 75 grams of cooked lentils can provide a whopping 18 grams of protein. Other great sources include black beans, kidney beans and chickpeas, but truly, the options are endless when it comes to beans and legumes. Look for unique beans at your speciality foods store or the farmers’ market. Eating beans or legumes in combination with grains is the easiest way to get all the essential amino acids – the vital tissue-building blocks in protein – in one sitting.

GREEN VEGGIES I am very pro green vegetables. I eat a lot of them, because they are a source of all sorts of healthy vitamins and minerals, as well as fibre. If it’s hard to find a place on your plate for plants, I say put them in your glass. Make a green smoothie every day. It takes five minutes and tastes good, too. Even my children request them. Use whatever fresh fruit and veggies inspire you: spinach, kale or chard, banana, berries or pear. Add the liquid of your choice – I use water (no calories and non-dairy), but you could try almond milk. The possibilities are endless – your smoothie will taste different every time but will always be nutritious.

COLOURFUL VEGGIES Vibrantly coloured vegetables are more than just beautiful; they contain life-enriching phytochemicals. These chemicals provide flavour, colour, scent and valuable nutrients such as antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, which guard against many diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease. The more colours, the better.

FRUIT Eating just a small amount of fruit daily can reduce heart disease risk and improve health. According to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016, researchers in China followed more than half a million people for seven years. They found that about 100 grams of fresh fruit daily was enough to lower risk of heart attack and stroke. Apples, peaches, pears, berries and other fruits all contain valuable heart-protective nutrients.

NUTS AND SEEDS Both are terrific protein sources. Just 35 grams of almonds contains 8 grams of protein, while 2 tablespoons of almond butter contains 7 grams. Pecans, walnuts, pistachios and cashews are also great choices. When it comes to seeds, look for sunflower, pumpkin, hemp, chia seeds and flaxseeds. Full of healthy fats and protein, these make great snacks, as well as additions to salads and side dishes. Be sure to keep an eye on your serving size of nuts and seeds, however, as they do pack a lot of calories.

WHOLE GRAINS The latest USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans noted that most people eat enough grains, but not enough whole grains. The whole grain has the most bang for the bite, including higher nutritional value and more flavour. Nutrients vary by grain type, but generally whole grains are rich in fibre, iron, potassium, magnesium, calcium and B and E vitamins. A 2016 study in the journal Circulation reported that at least three servings of whole grains daily was associated with a 20 per cent lower risk of death from all causes, and a 25 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease. My favourites are whole-grain brown rice, quinoa and porridge oats.

Quinoa (often classified and thought of as a grain, but actually a seed), in particular, is a great option and also lets you bump up your protein intake. There are 8 grams of complete protein (containing all the essential amino acids) in 185 grams of cooked quinoa, and if you combine it with other protein-rich foods, you’ll quickly reach your recommended daily protein intake while also providing your body with lots of essential nutrients.

VEGAN PROTEIN POWDER For a quick protein pick-me-up, you can’t go wrong with a good plant-based protein powder. Have it in a smoothie as a quick and healthy breakfast or afternoon boost. You can even combine protein powder with some of your favourite recipes like brownies, muffins and pancakes to ensure your meals are protein-packed. Look for USDA-certified organic protein powders with clean and simple ingredient profiles.

PLANT FATS Be sure to eat delicious plant-based fats such as nut butters and avocados. Good fats slow the absorption of carbohydrates, help prevent disease and provide important nutrients. Fats also help you feel full longer. They’re great for energy, and you can add a tablespoon or two of them to your green smoothies.

EAT LESS JUNK

Let’s pause here to consider the second part of this law: eat less of everything else.

‘And what is “everything else”?’ I hear you asking. Well, for one thing, it’s junk food, and I’m sure you know exactly what that is: it’s foods with questionable nutritional value laced with sugar and salt. It’s soft drinks and other sugary beverages. It’s highly processed, packaged food engineered with lab-produced flavours designed to be irresistible. It’s the fast food sold on every corner of every town. You know it when you see it. When you do, don’t eat it.

A lot of junk is filled with additives and artificial flavours, too. They trick your taste buds so much that they get confused when you eat real food because you’re so used to chemicals. But when you remove artificially flavoured foods from your diet, something magical happens. After a few days, your taste buds begin to function as they should. Suddenly you experience what an orange or carrot really tastes like. Or an apple, or a mango. You rediscover what sweet is really supposed to taste like.

Also under the heading of ‘everything else’ are animal-based foods, such as meat and cheese. That massive study I mentioned on see here also compared the diets of those in the study who eventually died and those who did not. Vegetarians and vegans had a lower risk of death than non-vegetarians. The point is that eating too much animal-based food just might cut your life short. Why risk that? When you follow this law, you will enjoy powerful results. As your new eating habits start to settle in, you will feel better and better – and learn that you actually love eating more fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. In fact, you will feel amazing, and you will begin to crave fresh, delicious plant foods.

You will notice this difference almost immediately. You will feel better and be healthier, and this will make you happier. Your amazing energy will come from those plants. When plants grow, the sun shines, energy is absorbed from the air and through the soil, and nature’s chemistry turns light into food that gives you energy – pure, natural, healing energy that will change the way you live in the world.

YOUR GREENPRINT

by Following Law #1

You will become thinner, live longer, and be healthier – a point established by our Holy Name study, as well as the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines, which state that vegetarian eating patterns, including vegan diets, may boost health by preventing obesity, slashing the risk of cardiovascular disease and lowering total mortality.

THE PLANT-BASED DISTINCTION

Many people don’t understand the differences between a vegetarian diet, a vegan diet and a 100 per cent plant-based diet.

VEGETARIAN

Eats milk and eggs, grains and vegetables, but doesn’t eat meat, poultry or fish. There are variants of the vegetarian diet: ovo-lacto vegetarians eat eggs, dairy and honey while excluding meat, fish and poultry. Lacto-vegetarians exclude eggs, meat, fish and poultry, but eat dairy and honey. Pesco-vegetarians eat fish, but not the flesh of other animals. And ovo-vegetarians eat eggs but exclude dairy from their diets.

VEGAN

Doesn’t eat meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs or honey. Eats grains, vegetables, fruit and, often, overprocessed vegan foods.

PLANT-BASED

Eats 100 per cent plants – grains, vegetables and fruits. Doesn’t eat meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, honey or processed vegan foods.

LAW 2

NOBODY EVER PLANS TO FAIL

PEOPLE JUST FAIL TO PLAN

Success depends upon previous preparation.

– CONFUCIUS

WHEN YOU’RE SWITCHING TO PLANT-BASED EATING, planning is the key for success – and enjoyment! Set yourself up for success by anticipating your nutritional needs and making healthy, plant-based food accessible and convenient. Selecting healthy, life-giving foods for each of your three meals a day is possible – but just like any lasting change to your diet, it requires planning. It requires effort. Cucumbers don’t buy themselves!

Some people bounce around from diet to diet, shedding weight but then gaining it all back. It’s frustrating. It’s disheartening. If you want to stop failing, step out of the cycle of weight gain and disease and create a new cycle of vitality, planning and following through are the only way to get there. If you are looking for a get-thin-quick plan, you’re in the wrong place. If you’re looking for sustainable habits that will result in weight loss and great health, you’re in the right place, because you are beginning an incredible journey towards optimum health and wellness. You’re going to see what it feels like to take care of yourself and move towards being the best version of you.

The first step to changing the trajectory of your diet, weight and health is to be completely accountable for where you are today – good or bad. Your parents aren’t to blame, and neither is the economy or your favourite fast-food restaurant – you are. You are 100 per cent responsible for everything you do; you will never fix your problems by blaming someone or something else. You choose what to eat, how to act, where to go, when to exercise (or not) and what foods to avoid. Once you get all that straight, then you can get to the heart of how to plan for plant-based eating. When you plan, you win; when you don’t, you fail.

PLANNING TO MEET YOUR NUTRIENT NEEDS

Reminder: Plant foods provide everything you need nutritionally. But ensuring that you receive all that ‘everything’ requires thoughtful planning. Plan your meals around a variety of high-quality, nutrient-rich foods, such as whole grains, beans, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.

Plant-based eaters have to be a little more vigilant than most to get sufficient amounts of certain vitamins, minerals and fats in their diets. The important nutrient targets to hit include:

IRON One of the most common yet erroneous arguments against a plant-based diet is that it doesn’t provide enough iron. In fact, those eating a meat-free, plant-based diet not only tend to get more iron, but also get more fibre, vitamins and minerals. Plant-based iron, also known as non-heme iron, isn’t absorbed as well as heme iron (which is found in animal blood and muscle) in the body, but studies show that avoiding heme iron has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and other chronic diseases.

A plant-based diet should include foods that are rich in iron, like kidney beans, black beans, soya beans, spinach, raisins (which are slightly higher in iron than grapes), cashews, oats, cabbage and tomato juice (which has more iron than tomatoes).

Women require 18 milligrams of iron daily; men require 8 milligrams. For postmenopausal women, that drops to the same amount as for men, 8 milligrams. Pregnant women require 27 milligrams. Getting enough iron daily isn’t difficult when you combine plant-based iron sources: a meal consisting of 225 grams of cooked spinach, 185 grams of quinoa, and 100 grams of chickpeas contains about 12 milligrams of iron. A simple salad of spinach, dried currants, almonds, pumpkin seeds and a few sun-dried tomatoes can easily deliver 10 milligrams of iron.

VITAMIN B12 Vitamin B₁₂ is abundant in meat, eggs and dairy foods, and vegan diets get criticised because they don’t supply enough of this nutrient. But one thing most people don’t realise is that there’s not even that much B₁₂ in beef anymore, because cows don’t eat that much natural grass (the original source of this vitamin from bacteria that live in the soil). They are being injected with B₁₂!

The recommended daily amount of vitamin B₁₂ for adults is 2.4 micrograms, and you can get ample amounts from certain plant-based foods. Tempeh and miso, for example, contain high levels of this nutrient because it is produced by bacteria during fermentation. You can also obtain B₁₂ from nutritional yeast (a great condiment that tastes like Parmesan cheese), and some plant-based foods and cereals are fortified with it. Be careful that you get ample amounts of this nutrient, as a B₁₂ deficiency can be serious and even lead to irreversible nerve damage. I personally like to take a daily B₁₂ supplement, which ensures that I’m getting exactly what I need. In our Holy Name study, the researchers had everyone in the vegan group take a B₁₂ supplement. The participants’ levels of this important nutrient stayed normal, and, in some cases, even increased.

OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS Although there is no official recommended daily allowance of omega-3 fatty acids, these fats play an important role in preventing chronic inflammation. They help form prostaglandins, a class of lipids that increase and decrease various functions relating to the inflammatory response, normal blood clotting and the relaxation of blood vessels. Dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids include flaxseeds and flax oil, soya beans and soya bean oil, pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed oil, tofu, walnuts and walnut oil, seaweed and edible marine algae.

VITAMIN D Vitamin D has been shown to reduce the risk of certain cancers and depression. It builds healthy bones and teeth, regulates insulin and supports lung function and cardiovascular health.

Vitamin D intake is recommended at 400 to 800 IUs a day, or 10 to 20 micrograms. If you get fifteen minutes of sunlight each day, your body can produce ample vitamin D. Eating mushrooms is another way to obtain this vital nutrient.

CALCIUM Dairy isn’t the only source of this bone-building mineral, so don’t fall for the rhetoric that vegans don’t get enough calcium. All it takes is some planning and knowledge about the plant sources of calcium and you can easily reach the recommended daily amount.

The recommended daily amount for calcium is 1,000 milligrams for adults and children aged four years and older. A salad of about 200 grams of kale, almonds, sunflower seeds and white beans topped with a tahini dressing can total up to 500 milligrams of calcium. A smoothie made with a cup of non-dairy milk (almond or other fortified nut milk), almond butter and spinach will net you another 500 milligrams – more than meeting your daily requirements. Mustard and turnip greens, broccoli, spring greens, bok choy and kale are also great calcium-rich foods. Consider, too, that while 250 millilitres of whole milk contains 288 milligrams of calcium, 35 grams of sesame seeds provides 580 milligrams of calcium – nearly double that of milk. Sesame seed butter (known as tahini) is high in calcium and can be a delicious, rich-tasting addition to salads, hummus, vegetable dishes and sandwiches.

PROTEIN All plant foods contain protein. As I mentioned earlier, beans and legumes (including peas and lentils) are very popular plant-based sources of protein; 175 grams of cooked beans has the same amount of protein as 50 grams of meat. Nuts and seeds are also full of protein.

ZINC This four-letter trace element protects against infections and helps the body repair wounds. It’s essential for growth and brain development in infants and children. The recommended daily amount for zinc is 15 milligrams for adults and children aged four and older. You can meet this daily requirement easily by eating plenty of whole grains, legumes and nuts.

PLANNING YOUR MEALS

How hard would it be to obtain all these nutrients? Well, the easiest way to find out (besides giving it a try) is to check out a typical day in the life of a plant-based eater. You’ll see just how easy it is to cut out animal products and still get the nutrients your body needs.

BREAKFAST:

A HEALTHY SMOOTHIE

While on the weekends you might want to whip up something a bit fancier, for busy mornings, there’s nothing better than a healthy, protein-packed, plant-based smoothie. Make your own with 250 millitres water (or non-dairy milk), a banana, frozen berries, greens, flax/chia/hemp seeds and a scoop of vegan protein powder. You’ll start the day with lots of nutrients and be ready to hit the ground running. Alternatively, you can move your smoothie to the afternoon to head off the munchies and have a healthy bowl of oatmeal with fruit for breakfast instead.

LUNCH:

SUPER SOUPS AND SALADS

You can switch between soups and salads at lunch, or do both! Remember to include hearty fillings in your salad – black beans, quinoa, nuts, seeds, and so forth – in addition to any greens to keep your stomach full. Alternatively, throw the same salad ingredients in a gluten-free tortilla, and you have a wrap! The options for soups are endless, but you’ll find that the best recipes have a good base, such as pureed sweet potato, cauliflower or broccoli.

SNACKS AND SIDES

What works for you as a snack depends on whether you like sweet or salty. If you try to stick to healthy options, you’ll notice you have more energy throughout the day. Snacks like fruits and veggies combined with nut or seed butters or hummus are terrific options.

DINNER:

THE MAIN EVENT

A plant-based lifestyle doesn’t mean giving up good food! Soups, stews, casseroles, pizzas, burgers – it’s all on the menu! A typical plant-based dinner would include a good source of protein, such as beans, legumes or lentils, but could also use quinoa, artichokes, nuts or seeds, spinach, and so forth. It’s easy to throw together a quick, healthy, plant-based meal of red kidney beans, quinoa and broccoli, and top it with a cashew cream sauce. Delicious!

YOUR GREENPRINT

by Following Law #2

A well-planned plant-based diet supplies your body with more fibre, folic acid, vitamins C and E, potassium, magnesium and many phytochemicals and contains less saturated fat than diets that contain animal products, as reported by a 2009 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

LAW 3

EAT MORE, WEIGH LESS

I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 358 kilos. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

– ERMA BOMBECK

FIGHTING FAT HAS BECOME A NATIONAL OBSESSION, but winning is often a lifelong battle, with major and minor victories along the way. Just ask rapper and songwriter Todd Gaither, who goes by the name Sauce Money. He is a veteran of the hip-hop industry, and for most of his life and career he was in a losing battle with his weight. At one point, he shot up to 227 kilos, which gave him painful and near-crippling stage 3 osteoporosis in his knees. He couldn’t stand for longer than three minutes at a time. He had self-image problems in a business that can often be cruel if someone is overweight or obese.

‘I sank into a dark place – something I wouldn’t wish on anyone – because I was so obese. It was certainly no secret how big I was!’ Sauce said. ‘People in my industry were dying all around me, and I knew I had to address my weight. I reached out to Jay-Z, a good friend of mine – we grew up together – for help. Jay-Z had gone vegan, and he put me in touch with Marco.’

“PLANT-BASED EATING IS THE MOST POWERFUL, MOST EFFECTIVE AND EASIEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT – AND KEEP IT OFF.

I worked very closely with Sauce, teaching him how to eat clean, plant-based foods. I knew he could do it because of his rise to prominence in the music world. I began seeing him as a lean, energetic guy and musician – someone proud of how he looked. I immediately put him on my eating plan. As with any lifestyle change, it was tough at first, but Sauce persevered – a mental discipline he learned in his college fraternity.

Sauce kept his diet simple: lots of beans, quinoa and salads. Sure, there were a few bumps in the road, but he stuck to it like a champ. Over about two-and-a-half years, Sauce lost 90 kilos, and kept it off through his vegan lifestyle and working out five to six times a week with swimming, high-intensity cardio and weight training. He no longer has any pain in his knees. He can now stand and continue to work very long hours. Let me add that the very first change he noticed – and it happened in a matter of days – was that his complexion cleared up dramatically and he was super energetic for the first time in a long time.

Sauce told me that going plant-based was ‘the best thing I have ever done’.

Sauce made his health a main priority. And now he believes if he can drop kilos, you can, too. In my most recent conversation with him, the rap star offered these words of encouragement:

‘Simplify your diet. Begin by eating clean, whole foods: fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans. Do the best you can.

‘Become positively addicted to how great you feel. The longer you stay on a plant-based diet, the better you’ll feel. It’s like a wonder drug. You won’t want to go back to your old ways. You can’t “unknow” what you now know and feel. Keep going forward; the future is full of possibilities.

‘Get support from people who will never give up on you. For me, that was Jay-Z and Marco. They took the time to educate me. I owe them my life.

‘Change your mind-set: You have to want to live longer and better than eat bad.’

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Sauce! As he discovered, by following a plant-based diet you will control your weight, satisfy your hunger and feel comfortably full after every meal. In fact, you can eat more to lose weight!

I know this law sounds like a dream come true if you’ve been shackled to restrictive diets that leave you feeling ravenous. Even though ‘eat less’ is the mantra of the weight-loss industry, slimming down does not have to be about deprivation and hunger.

Plant-based eating is the most powerful, most effective and easiest way to lose weight – and keep it off. And there’s plenty of proof.

Following a plant-based diet fights fat around the waistline, for example. After tracking nearly eighty thousand healthy adults for ten years, American Cancer Society researchers found that men and women who ate nineteen or more servings of vegetables a week did not develop abdominal obesity – that is, they didn’t get muffin tops or love handles – while those who ate meat more than seven times a week did! Gaining fat around the waist, or developing what’s known as an ‘apple’ shape, has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

This isn’t the only study showing the power of plants as fat fighters. In a study conducted at the University of South Carolina and reported on the website of the Vegetarian Resource Group, fifty overweight adults were randomly assigned to one of five diets: a non-vegetarian diet, a semi-vegetarian diet (red meat once a week, poultry no more than five times a week), a pesco-vegetarian diet, a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet or a vegan diet. They followed their assigned diet for two months and were not required to limit their caloric intake. After the initial trial, researchers encouraged the dieters to stick to their assigned diet for another four months.

All the dieters lost weight, but the vegan group lost the most – exactly what we found in our Holy Name study. After six months, the vegan eaters had shed an average of 7.5 per cent of their starting weight. The way I see it, the exciting results of this study and others like it offer proof that a plant-based diet is an effective way to lose weight. I love all this great scientific evidence, but I’m not surprised. When clients come to me, most of them want to get slimmer and fitter. The first thing I do is show them how to incorporate more plants into their diets – and hopefully get them to go plant-based for life. At the same time, I encourage them to cut out the overprocessed foods that are slowly poisoning their bodies. Once they get on a true plant-based diet, I see them drop anywhere from 4.5 to 45 kilos (or more), as their excess fat melts away and they catapult themselves into a world of energy and vitality. All along, they are eating more food than ever before. They are not hungry, and they are shedding excess weight. Many people can lose up to a pound a day eating plants! Of course, as they’re knocking off the pounds, they are simultaneously reversing and preventing lifestyle diseases.

A few years ago, I bumped into a friend at my kids’ school. He casually mentioned that he had some friends who had switched to a plant-based diet following my dietary protocols, and that the results were amazing. I interpreted his remarks to be code for ‘I want to try it’. At the time, he was tipping the scales at 136 kilos, on a six-feet-five frame.

I thanked him for his kind words and said that I’d be happy to guide him along the way if he was willing to give it a try. That very day, he was ready to jump in. He had one reservation, however: ‘I’m Cuban, like you are, and I love Cuban foods.’ I reminded him that a lot of Cuban food is plant-based: black beans, rice, corn, yuca, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and plantains. In fact, the original Cuban diet was mostly vegetarian until the Spaniards, who ruled Cuba until the turn of the century, imported beef and pork and put meat into the cuisine. My friend was sold.

After a full day of eating plant-based, he called me.

‘Bro, you do know that I’m trying to lose weight, right?’

‘Yes, I know, why?’

‘Dude, if I eat all the food you recommended, I’m definitely going to gain weight.’ I started to laugh, then explained to him that plant foods are much denser in nutrients but lighter in calories – the essence of Law #2. For example, a 450-gram bag of spinach may be around 100 calories, while 450 grams of animal protein might be ten times that (around 1,000 calories) with zero fibre! You’ll wind up eating more but taking in fewer calories and getting a lot more fibre.

My friend sighed loudly. ‘I get to eat, I won’t be hungry, and I’m going to lose weight? I’m all in.’

Only a few months later, he had dropped more than 36 kilos, without feeling hungry at all.

Plain and simple: Plant-based eating gets results for every person I have ever worked with.

Why? What’s the secret?

Well, one of the big secrets is fibre.

Fibre is funny stuff. We eat it, but we can’t digest it, so it passes through the digestive tract, doing a bunch of amazing things for weight control and overall health along the way. As I mentioned earlier, 97 per cent of Americans are deficient in fibre. In fact, we are so deficient in fibre that it has been listed as a nutrient of concern in the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines. That’s a problem we really need to work on!

THE MORE YOU KNOW:

FIBRE AND YOUR HEALTH

Fibre is a health saver! It appears to reduce the risk of many illnesses:

ACNE AND RASHES. Fibre may help usher yeasts and fungi from your body, preventing them from being eliminated through your skin, where they could trigger acne or rashes.

BOWEL DISEASES. Fibre may ease irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other inflammatory conditions in the bowel.

BRAIN HEALTH. Fibre improves mood, cognition and alertness.

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE. There is evidence that fibre helps prevent heart attacks, and research shows that people who eat a high-fibre diet have a 40 per cent lower risk of heart disease.

CHRONIC INFLAMMATION. Dietary fibre appears to be anti-inflammatory, decreasing inflammation-associated markers, including C-reactive protein (CRP).

COLON CANCER. Fibre whisks toxins and cancer-causing agents from your digestive tract, which helps prevent cancer.

DIVERTICULAR DISEASE. Fibre (especially insoluble fibre) may reduce your risk of diverticulitis – an inflammation of the colon – by 40 per cent.

GALLSTONES. A high-fibre diet may reduce the risk of gallstones because of fibre’s ability to help regulate blood sugar.

HAEMORRHOIDS. A high-fibre diet may lower your risk of haemorrhoids, which can be painful and cause blockages and bleeding.

INFECTIONS. Fibre improves the population of healthy bacteria in your gut – which means it can help prevent infections, including colds and flu.

INSULIN RESISTANCE. Fibre makes your cells more receptive to insulin. Insulin can thus do a better job of getting glucose into cells for energy.

KIDNEY STONES. A high-fibre diet may reduce the risk of kidney stones, likely because of its ability to help regulate blood sugar.

OBESITY AND OVERWEIGHT. Fibre has been shown to enhance weight loss among obese and overweight people, likely because it increases feelings of fullness.

STROKE. Researchers have found that for every 7 grams more fibre you consume on a daily basis, your risk of stroke decreases by 7 per cent.

TYPE 2 DIABETES. Soluble fibre may help to slow the breakdown of carbohydrates and the absorption of sugar in the body, helping to control blood sugar.

HERE’S THE IMPORTANT POINT FOR ALL OF US: Eat more fibre from plant foods to enjoy all of its amazing health benefits.

WHERE’S THE FIBRE?

By definition, fibre is found only in plant foods, and nowhere else. But one of the problems behind our collective fibre deficiency is that most people have no idea what is in their food. In fact, more than half of Americans think steak is a source of fibre.

There are two categories of fibre: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibre acts like a sponge; it soaks up excess cholesterol, fats and toxins. Insoluble fibre is like a scrub brush; it ‘scours’ the digestive tract as it passes through. We need both the sponge and the scrub brush to keep our systems clean.

Foods high in soluble fibre include oats and oat bran, barley, beans and legumes, apples, pears and citrus fruits (but not fruit juices). Insoluble fibre is found mostly in the skins and husks of plant foods, whereas soluble fibre dwells in the fleshy part inside the fruit. For instance, apple peels are largely insoluble fibre, while the flesh of an apple is mostly soluble fibre.

Both categories of fibre do four powerful things to promote weight loss: NUMBER 1: Fibre tames your appetite so you don’t overeat. There’s a powerful hormone in your body called cholecystokinin (CCK) that helps control satiety, the feeling of fullness that stops hunger. Fibre increases the production and prolongs the activity of CCK. As a result, you’ll feel fuller for longer, and your cravings for fattening stuff will diminish. NUMBER 2: Fibre helps prevent the absorption of excess calories from the fat you eat. Because the body can’t break down fibre, fibre exits the body in the same form it entered. As it moves through your body, it snatches up fat and whisks it all the way through to your colon, where the fat and fibre are packaged together into stool and eliminated from the body.

In a study by the USDA, researchers set a certain limit on calories for volunteers and altered the fibre content in their diets. They found that fewer calories were absorbed with increased fibre intake. People who took in up to 36 grams of fibre a day absorbed 130 fewer calories daily – automatically. Over a year, that adds up to around 47,000 calories. Because every 900 grams of body fat is equal to 3,500 calories, you could lose nearly 6 kilos in a year – effortlessly – by increasing your daily fibre intake. NUMBER 3: Fibre slows down the conversion of carbohydrates to glucose (blood sugar) in your body. This helps prevent weight gain, because excess glucose not used for energy converts to triglycerides that are either stored as unwanted body fat or accumulate in the blood, where they cause artery-clogging plaque. Fibre also increases insulin sensitivity, which means that cells respond well to insulin when it brings glucose to their doors (receptors) as fuel. Over time, eating more fibre will help your body use glucose more efficiently; in other words, your body will become more of a natural ‘fat-burning’ machine. NUMBER 4: Fibre helps populate the levels of beneficial bugs (probiotics) in your gut – a factor that can improve your shape. Your body hosts trillions of these tiny critters, most of whom hang out in your intestines. They break down food, help you absorb certain nutrients, and keep your immune system running at peak efficiency.

But here’s the hitch: there’s now surprising evidence that the wrong gut bugs may make you prone to put on weight. In one study, researchers discovered that a virus called adenovirus-36 (Ad-36) – a bug known to make chickens fatter – was three times more prevalent in the guts of obese people than in the guts of lean people. Also, some gut bacteria trigger cravings and a tendency to store more calories as fat.

Happily, the trick is to make sure the good bugs outnumber the bad. One important way to do this is to feed the good bugs their favourite food: special prebiotic fibres found in a variety of plant foods, like asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, garlic and leeks, as well as chia seeds, flaxseeds and hemp seeds. Nurturing the beneficial creatures in your digestive tract may be a helpful route to a healthy weight.

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Of course, there’s almost no end to the number of trendy diets you can participate in. But thanks to these four factors, the safest and most natural way to shed kilos is simply to eat a fibre-rich plant-based diet. They make fibre a fantastic secret weapon in the fight against fat! I’ll show you how to apply this wellness law to your life in part 2, but let’s talk about how to start incorporating it now. For starters, how much fibre do you need each day to shed kilos, keep your weight under control and stay healthy? The current medical recommendation is up to 35 grams, but no fewer than 25 grams, of fibre daily. Sadly, most adults get only 15 grams or less!

You could hit (and exceed) that target by eating these foods over the course of a day: 40 grams of oatmeal (3 grams fibre), 125 grams of raspberries (8 grams), 30 grams of cooked red or black beans (7 grams), a small apple (5 grams), 35 gramsp of cooked lentils (8 grams), and 75 grams of cooked peas (8 grams). That’s 39 grams of fibre.

There are other simple actions you can take to automatically get into the high-fibre habit:

Have 40 to 80 grams of oats or whole-grain cereal for breakfast.

Sprinkle your cereal with chia seeds or flaxseeds.

Toss a couple of handfuls of greens such as spinach into your smoothies.

Snack on fresh fruit or nuts and seeds.

Use avocado on toast and sandwiches, and in salads and smoothies (½ avocado contains 5 grams of fibre).

Bake with high-fibre flours. For example, 25 grams of coconut flour has 11 grams of fibre, and the same amount of soya flour has 5 grams of fibre.

Chow down on plenty of beans and legumes, an important part of many traditional diets. Just 60 grams of cooked beans can deliver up to 75 per cent of your daily fibre needs. Incorporate these fibre-rich foods into your diet by enjoying hummus and other bean dips or by topping salads with cooked beans or lentils.

Eat plenty of green leafy vegetables, as well as vegetables with high water content such as cucumbers and tomatoes. You end up with a larger portion of fibre and water, which will fill you up before you get too many calories.

Add a bean soup or salad to your dinner to help you feel more satisfied.

A lot of people have asked me why I eat a high-fibre and plant-based diet, since I am naturally thin and don’t need to lose weight. It’s true – I’ve never had a weight problem. But here’s the beauty of it all: not only will this law help you control your weight, but a high-fibre diet also resolves constipation and other digestive problems. The other advantages are that it can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and some types of cancer. Preventing these illnesses is important to me, because there is a history of heart disease in my family. Eating a plant-based diet high in fibre makes me feel like I am ensuring myself against future problems.

As this law states, a high-fibre, plant-based diet lets you eat more food yet weigh less. It’s satisfying enough to enjoy on an ongoing basis. While most diets are notoriously difficult to stick with, this law sets forth diet principles you can live with for a lifetime.

YOUR GREENPRINT

by Following Law #3

Transitioning to plant-based eating keeps you naturally thinner. Consider the following data: vegetarians are significantly slimmer than meat eaters. On average, vegetarian men weigh nearly 8 kilos less than non-vegetarians, according to an analysis of multiple studies by researchers at Loma Linda University in California. And vegans are the slimmest of all, according to a British study of thirty-eight thousand meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians and vegans, published in June 2003 in the International Journal of Obesity.

TOP 5 HIGH-FIBRE FOODS

IN PLANT-BASED FOOD GROUPS

PLANT PROTEINS | SERVING SIZE | TOTAL FIBRE (GRAMS)
The plant protein food group includes a variety of high-fibre items, which are also good sources of iron, zinc and other vitamins and minerals. Try to have ½ to 1 serving of a plant protein at each meal.
Lentils, cooked | 75 grams | 15.6
Black beans, cooked | 60 grams | 15.0
Butter beans, cooked | 75 grams | 13.2
Almonds | 25 grams (23 nuts) | 3.5
Pistachio nuts | 25 grams (49 nuts) | 2.9

VEGETABLES | SERVING SIZE | TOTAL FIBRE (GRAMS)
The vegetable group includes both raw and cooked vegetables. This group is especially high in disease-fighting antioxidants and life-enriching phytochemicals. Eat liberally from this group.
Artichoke, cooked | 1 medium | 10.3
Green peas, cooked | 150 grams | 8.8
Broccoli, cooked | 175 grams | 5.1
Turnip greens, cooked | 225 grams | 5.0
Brussels sprouts, cooked | 100 grams | 4.1

FRUITS | SERVING SIZE | TOTAL FIBRE (GRAMS)
The fruit group includes raw fresh fruit. Eating just a small amount of fruit daily can reduce heart disease risk and improve your health. Enjoy 1 to 2 servings daily.
Raspberries | 125 grams | 8.0
Pear (with skin) | 1 medium | 5.5
Apple (with skin) | 1 medium | 4.4
Banana | 1 medium | 3.0
Orange | 1 medium | 3.0

GRAINS | SERVING SIZE | TOTAL FIBRE (GRAMS)
The grains group is high in B vitamins and several key minerals, including magnesium, which is involved in more than three hundred health-promoting actions in the body. Try to have 1 or 2 servings daily.
Quinoa, cooked | 125 grams | 17.0
Bulgur wheat, cooked | 250 grams | 8.0
Pearl barley, cooked | 200 grams | 6.0
Porrifeg oats, instant, cooked | 80 grams | 4.0
Brown rice, cooked | 250 grams | 3.0

SEEDS | SERVING SIZE | TOTAL FIBRE (GRAMS)
Seeds pack a fibre punch in a tiny package. Have 1 or 2 servings daily.
Chia seeds | 25 grams (2 tablespoons) | 10.7
Flaxseeds | 25 grams (2 tablespoons) | 8.5
Squash and pumpkin seeds | 25 grams (2 tablespoons) | 5.0
Dessicated coconut (unsweetened) | 25 grams (2 tablespoons) | 4.6
Chestnuts | 25 grams (2 tablespoons) | 2.0

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