My Thoughts and Research on How to Successfully Navigate a Primarily Plant Based Diet Lifestyle

Preamble

Today I was asked a great question, “Any recommendations on where/how to research supplements and proper plant based eating?”. I have an immense respect and appreciation for the askers of this question. It really made it hit home for me that for many people meat is off the table metaphorically and physically. I get it, it’s a lifestyle choice and should be honored.

I am combining lifestyle and diet into this post for the sake of creating a full 1 stop jump off point for anyone interested. If there are any questions, please feel free to contact me and I’ll do my best to answer them. Spoiler alert, after some research, I found out that in quite a few vegetarian diets that eggs are alright, so I have included them here.  Ok, enough preamble, let’s do this!

Key Concepts

1. You can reprogram your genes for maximum health and vitality. Genes direct cellular function at all times, signaled by your diet, lifestyle, and exercise behaviors.
2. The human body prefers to run on stored body fat.
3. 80% of your body composition is determined by how you eat. Portion control and workouts are ineffective for sustainable and healthy weight management. It’s mostly about minimizing insulin production.
4. Grains are totally unnecessary. Grains, even the “healthy whole grains” have no nutrients or other components that are not already a part of unprocessed natural grown foods.
5. Saturated fat and cholesterol are good things. The real heart disease risk factors are oxidation and inflammation from excess insulin, bad oils, and high-stress living.
6. Maximum fitness gains can be made in minimal time with high-intensity training. Regular brief intense strength training sessions and occasional all-out sprints promote optimal gene expression and broad athletic competency.

Research Summaries (Much of the text for parts 1 and 2 below was pulled from the MarksDailyApple.com post “How to do KETO as a vegetarian” because it stood up to my research. As of the writing of this blog post, the original article can be found at https://www.marksdailyapple.com/keto/vegetarian/)

1. Eliminate Standard American Diet (SAD) foods, eat real whole foods, and supplement properly
   1. Quit processed food. Processing frequently entails nutrient stripping using high heats, high pressures, and less of the plant that contains the good stuff. It also frequently adds chemicals to enhance shelf life or color. None of which have and positive focus on your health.
   2. Ditch the grains. Even whole grains are nothing more than beige glop that quickly turns into insulin resistance creating sugars in your body.
   3. Eat Eggs if you can. Eggs alone can aid in not needing as many of the supplements listed below or possibly none at all.
      1. Eggs provide long chain omega-3 fatty acids. You have to choose the right eggs, of course. Your average factory-farmed corn-and-soy-fed chickens won’t produce omega-3-rich eggs. If you’re lucky, they’ll have some ALA. But for the animal-based omega-3s that we truly need, you must eat pastured eggs or eggs from chickens on a special diet designed to boost levels of long chain omega-3s.
      2. Eggs provide potent animal protein. As a vegetarian, you still need a solid source of protein, and egg protein is one of the most bioavailable ones in existence.
      3. Eggs provide choline. Our livers go through a lot of choline when they metabolize fats, and you’re going to be metabolizing a lot of fat. Without enough choline, we run the risk of developing fatty liver disease and compromising overall liver function.
      4. Eggs provide vitamin B12. Five average grocery store eggs net you over 100% of the RDA.
      5. Eggs provide retinol. Retinol is the animal-based type of vitamin A that our bodies use far more readily than plant-based vitamin A.
      6. Look for “Super Eggs.” Sometimes Whole Foods carries a brand of egg called the Super Egg. Laid by chickens fed a special diet that includes algae, fish, and specific minerals, each egg has 125 mg of DHA (4.3x a normal egg), 250 IU of vitamin D (6x), 4.7 IU of vitamin E (6x), 378 mcg of lutein and zeaxanthin (1.5x), 1.2 mcg of B12 (2.5x), 185 mg of choline, 20 mcg of selenium (1.25x), 0.8 mg of zinc, and 35 mcg of folate. They taste great and make staying nourished on a vegetarian diet much easier.
   4. Find the Dairy That Works For You
      1. Some folks simply can’t eat any type of dairy. Okay. But make sure that’s the case and you’re not just exercising a preference. In populations without traditional access to dairy in whom adult genetic tolerance of dairy never developed, vegetarianism was absent. East Asians, Southeast Asians, most of Africa and the Americas—they were not vegetarians. Then, consider the most successful vegetarian cultures, like in India. Dairy plays a major and constant role in their diet. From yogurts to cheeses to milk to cream, they probably wouldn’t have been successful vegetarians without it.
      2. It’s easy to understand why. Dairy is a reliable, delicious source of healthy fatty acids like conjugated linoleic acid, important minerals like calcium, and bioavailable protein like whey. Ferment your dairy and you introduce probiotics, lower the lactose, and create novel nutrients like vitamin K2.
      3. If you have no issue with dairy, great. Go wild. Make it a significant part of your diet. If you do have legitimate issues with dairy, figure out what kind of dairy you can consume. Most people can get away with fermented dairy, like yogurt and kefir, and hard, aged cheeses, like pecorino romano, aged gouda, and parmigiano reggiano.
   5. Take Creatine, Carnosine, and Taurine. These are micronutrients found only in meat.
      1. Creatine monohydrate: It’s cheap. It works. And it’ll help you perform many of the physiological tasks creatine does in meat eaters, like increasing muscle power and enabling cognitive function.
      2. Carnosine: Vegans and vegetarians tend to have lower levels of carnosine. You may not like meat, but you probably like muscle endurance and brain antioxidants . This is a good one.
      3. Taurine: Another one that only appears in animal foods, taurine appears to play an under-appreciated role in preventing heart disease and death. Worth including.
      4. Take Niacin and Thiamine. These are really hard to obtain without eating starches or animals or a ton of seeds. The top sources of thiamine are trout, pork, sunflower seeds (huge omega-6 hit to get the required amount), and beans. Top niacin sources are pork, poultry, fish, liver, peanuts (but you’d need to eat about a cup), sunflower seeds, and beef. Not exactly vegetarian friendly unless you love omega-6.
   6. Eat Mushrooms
      1. Everyone should be eating mushrooms, perhaps even patients with depression. But they become crucial for vegetarians because they’re the best non-animal, non-starch, non-omega-6-rich seed/nut source of niacin. A couple cups of grilled portobello mushrooms gets you 76% of your daily requirement of the vitamin. Other mushrooms aren’t far behind.
   7. Take algal oil if you’re not getting good eggs high in omega-3s.
      1. Good eggs will provide long chain omega 3 fatty acids. So will algal oil, which offers both EPA and DHA.
   8. Consider eating oysters and other shellfish.
      1. This is a big stretch for most ethical vegetarians, but I don’t think it has to be. First, oysters aren’t motile, meaning they don’t move to escape danger. This indicates that they probably don’t feel pain, since pain is a costly physiological mechanism that only arises or is preserved in organisms who can respond to it by leaving the scene. Second, oyster farming is ethical and has very little impact on the environment. An oyster farm is pretty much identical to an oyster’s natural environment. If you can stomach a few oysters, you’ll get a fantastic source of vitamin B12 and other B vitamins, iron, zinc, copper, selenium, and even omega-3s.
2. Shop, cook, and dine on food your body was designed for
   1. Supplementation strategies can shift the picture, as can including fish in your diet.
   2. A few “off the cuff” recommendations for some staple foods on a vegetarian diet are
      1. Eggs (Eggs are the best way to replace meat on a vegetarian diet. Eggs to give you adequate protein and micronutrients. Choose the best eggs you can find)
      2. Full-fat Greek Yogurt, Pecorino romano cheese, etc. (Eat some dairy that you can tolerate, focusing on fermented stuff (which digests the lactose and provides additional benefits) like yogurt, kefir, and hard cheeses.)
      3. Almonds, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts
      4. Have a large salad every day. Raw spinach and other dark, leafy greens, etc.
      5. Eat non-starchy veggies with plenty of healthy fat in the form of dressings, mayo, avocado/olive oil, nuts/seeds, cheese, avocados Avocado oil
      6. Butter
      7. Olives
      8. You could easily add in a couple TBs of raw potato starch or a fully green (unripe) banana for some more fermentable substrate for your gut bugs. If you’re willing to give it a shot, you could throw in a few small oysters and take care of all your zinc, selenium, copper, and most of your iron requirements. I think you get the idea though.
3. Make the best food choices for your current situation
   1. Choose whole foods over processed foods.
   2. Ditch the bread and grains.
   3. Avoid sugars.
   4. Say no to deep fried industrial seed oil foods such as French Fries. Don’t be afraid to ask what your food is fried in. If your server doesn’t know and can’t find out, chances are you’re about to head into territory that won’t be honoring your body or mind.
4. Exercise intelligently and for effect
   1. A full body workout is essential to safely activate a broad range hormonal response and “kick your genes into gear”.  For a beginner, my suggestions in this area are as follows:
      1. High intensity, short duration (20 minutes or less) workout (1-3 times per week)
         1. Pushups (Up to 50)
         2. Pullups (Up to 15)
         3. Squats (Up to 50)
         4. Planks (Up to 2 minutes)
      2. Sprinting (once every 1-4 weeks when you feel up to it)
         1. 3-6 repetitions of a 15-30 second all out sprint with a rest break in between sprints sufficient to get your breathing and strength levels back to normal . The idea is to be able to give the same speed for effort on your last sprint as your first sprint.
5. BONUS: Slow  your life down
   1. Most of our lifestyles are complex to the point of heavily stressing our bodies. Mine certainly used to be. By reducing the complexity of your diet, exercise, and lifestyle  habits you can find the time and space to have fun and enjoy life. Here are 8 suggestions to help you out:
      1. Enhance your appreciation of food by eating meals with full awareness, at a comfortable pace, and in a calm, relaxing environment.
      2. The ease and prevalence of social networking can easily compromise the quality of authentic interpersonal relationships with our intimate circle of loved ones and close friends.
      3. Optimal sleep entails consistently syncing your sleep and wake cycles to the rising and setting of the sun; creating a calm, quiet, dark, relaxing  sleep environment; napping when you fall short of sufficient evening sleep; and avoiding excessive artificial light and digital simulation after dark.
      4. Play is a widely neglected but highly important lifestyle component. Finding time for spontaneous outdoor exercise and deliver assorted emotional and cognitive benefits and improve stress management.
      5. Including “adrenalin-rush” type adventures into our lifestyle feeds our hard-wired quests for freshness, stimulation, and challenge. We return to normal life refreshed and energized.
      6. Though our connection with the wild is far removed, our genes still expect age-old, nature-based inputs. Amid natural surroundings, our senses heighten, and the abundant negative ions (energized air particles) found in such settings help melt away stress and energize mind and body.
      7. Sunlight is an area where conventional wisdom has misled us, scaring us into avoiding the outdoors due to the misinterpreted risks of skin cancer. Obtaining optimal levels of vitamin D, primarily from sun exposure on your skin (with supplements and diet contributing only minimally to your total requirement) is critical to cellular health and cancer prevention.
      8. Our addiction to hectic daily pace and multitasking behaviors undermines personal relationships and individual fullfullment – not to mention physical health. A slower pace engages the brain and relieves stress and worry, inducing a state of relaxation – even flow.

The above information is not meant to be medical advice. I am not a physician. It is my comprehension of the research I’ve done along with my experience and self-experimentation. It is advisable to discuss with your doctor before making any dietary or lifestyle changes.

That’s it! Thank you for reading! If you’re looking for more help in optimizing your own life and would like to engage my services, or have an idea for a blog post, feel free to contact me.

Wishing you happiness, health, and success!

-Gregg

Reference Sites

https://pubmed.gov
https://www.webmd.com
https://www.marksdailyapple.com