All You Need to Know. If you’ve been looking up anything regarding the vegan diet over the past year, you’ve probably come across the term high carb low fat vegan or HCLF vegan. It seems like this is a new trend going around the internet, people eating tons of bananas and potatoes, riding their bikes, soaking in the sun, being lean and energetic. But is this really just a new trend without any good foundation? Or is it actually the real basis of a healthy plant- based diet? More.. After having been a vegan for over 5 years now (back when everyone on You. Tube either ate vegan junk food or a fully raw diet), we thought it’s time to write up a good overview of this way of eating and living. Let’s see what high carb veganism is all about. Vegan or high carb low fat vegan diet: The Difference. Simply put, vegan foods come from plants instead of animals. If one is solely interested in following a vegan diet for ethical or environmental reasons, they can basically eat the Standard American Diet – only made with vegan foods. Learn more about best low carb (Atkins) diet plans for fast weight loss, such as paleo, mediterranean, pescaterian, raw, vegan, as well as top 3 worst diets. Want to shed pounds using the Atkins diet and need a food list for each of the four phases? You may associate this weight loss plan with being very restrictive but. There’s vegan burgers dripping of oil, vegan cheese made with 2. This step and dietary change gives you quite a few advantages of course – from not causing any harm to animals, to saving the rainforest, having a smaller carbon footprint, and cutting out cholesterol, most saturated fat, and animal protein that’s been linked to causing cancer. But then, there’s this next step that many people want to take in order to take good care of their bodies too. And, luckily, they do this by adopting a high carb vegan diet. This means, that the majority of their calories (usually 7.
People eating this way usually eat a lot of either fruit and/or grains and root vegetables, which means bread, potatoes, pasta, banana smoothies or ice cream, rice, and much more. At the same time, they cut out most or all of the free oils and eat limited amounts of nuts, seeds, and avocados. This greatly reduces the amount of processed food one can still eat, but of course there’s the possibility of eating refined white or brown sugar, syrups, sugary cereal, and sugary fruit sorbets – all of which are sub- optimal for our health. So when we look at a vegan diet, we can see that the majority of whole, natural, plant- based foods are already high in carbohydrates: Animal- based foods, such as meat, fish, dairy, and eggs, are almost completely devoid of carbohydrates (with the exception of some lactose, milk sugar, found in dairy). What’s more, they are devoid of fiber, many essential vitamins and minerals, as well as antioxidants. Instead, they consist of anti- nutrients such as cholesterol, saturated fat, animal protein, toxins, and much more that is detrimental to our health. So the more whole vegan foods we eat, the higher in good carbohydrates our diet will be. Many foods contain carbohydrates, but. There’s no more effort required to keep the fats very low, apart from eating a limited amount of nuts and seeds. High Carb or High Fat? With the latest diet craze around low carb diets going around, we feel like we need to emphasize this point again. There are of course 3 macro nutrients, namely carbohydrates, protein, and fat – all of which are found in every single whole plant- based food. And we do need all of these nutrients in different amounts. Glucose, which is most readily obtained from carbs, is the body’s preferred and the brain’s only energy source. It should therefore predominate our diet, which is what most national and international health organizations also suggest. When we eat fewer carbs than we need, we get crazy cravings for calorically dense food, we get tired or hangry. It’s also associated with loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and hypotension (lower blood pressure). This metabolic state of a starving person is simulated when eating a low carb, high fat diet and tells the body it has some kind of serious illness. And since no health organization would recommend eating over 3. Regarding the second macro nutrient: It’s almost impossible to not get enough protein, even when you eat a vegan diet. The WHO and US National Academies Institute of Medicine recommend that around 1. Most people in the Western world are literally obsessed with protein, thinking it’s the single most important nutrient and that one needs to eat a lot of animal products in order to be lean, muscular, and healthy – when in fact, most of us eat way too much protein, which not only causes weight gain and extra body fat, but also stresses your kidneys and leaches important bone minerals. What’s worse: animal protein always comes with a huge load of saturated fat and cholesterol. And lastly, people surely don’t suffer from a fat deficiency - quite the opposite. When eating over 2. Fat slows down our blood flow and keeps the sugar from entering the cells by blocking it, so the nutrients cannot be properly assimilated. Because insulin is keeping to be produced in this scenario, it can exhaust the pancreas and actually cause type 2 diabetes. It’s not the sugar in the blood! Another very common disease (actually the number one killer in the Western world) can be prevented and even reversed by eating a low fat vegan diet. The number one risk factor for developing heart disease is dietary cholesterol, followed by high blood pressure, excess weight, and diabetes. All of these are easily avoided by eating a low fat vegan diet and engaging in moderate movement. Health benefits of a low fat, whole food vegan diet. Every year the CDC (Center for Disease Control) creates a list documenting the leading causes of death in the United States. For many years now, the number one killer has been heart disease, followed by cancer, respiratory problems, strokes, accidents, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Though these diseases seem unrelated, these all fall under the banner of lifestyle diseases– meaning that they can be prevented by making healthier choices in our lives. This is why most plant- based doctors recommend eating a low fat vegan diet for the prevention and reversal of most chronic diseases. Yes, it can even cure these diseases. And it makes a lot of sense, since it’s the traditional diet most peoples in the human history have survived successfully, even thrived on. Even today, those who follow a traditional high carbohydrate Japanese diet are amongst the healthiest and longest lived people in the world. Research demonstrates that the most protective factor against heart disease is fiber, which is only found in plant foods. The factor most correlated with heart disease is cholesterol, which is only found in animal foods. A single meal of animal products can paralyze our arteries, cutting their ability to function properly. Each meal featuring animal foods leads to temporary inflammation, but if every meal contains animal foods we face chronic inflammation which can damage our cardiovascular system, but also our lungs and brains. Even after just two weeks of plant- based eating, breast cancer and prostate cancer cell growth rates decrease rapidly. It seems like we can actually reprogram cancer cell death by improving our diet. Vegan blood can suppress cancer 8. What’s more, Alzheimer’s disease, which affects 4 million Americans each year can be helped by reducing meat intake. Research shows that meat eaters have 2- 3 times the risk of Alzheimer’s than those eating a vegan or vegetarian diet. Eating a lot of fiber has also been shown to help with constipation and diarrhea, as well as autoimmune diseases. By keeping the fat very low, people can also heal their acne or candida. The high amounts of carbohydrates help with chronic fatigue and balance out hormones. The benefits are endless when we start eating a diet that’s made of the foods our bodies are designed to eat – which is luckily acknowledged by bigger research who wants more physicians and dietitians to learn about this topic too. What to eat on a high carb vegan diet. When eating a high carb low fat vegan diet, the basis of your meal should always be either starch or fruit, depending on your preferences. While human beings thrive on starches like whole grains or potatoes, some of us like more fruit in our diet – especially when it’s summer time. Generally, you should fill your plate about half with food like: Rice, oats, quinoa, barley, buckwheat, millet. Spelt, whole- grain pasta or bread Potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, parsnips. Pumpkin, winter squashes. Any kind of beans, peas, lentils. Your main calorie source may also be fruit like apples, oranges, bananas, stone fruit, berries, melons, grapes, pineapples, etc. Even if you choose to eat a lot of potatoes and rice, you can add as much fruit as you like to your meals. But let’s not forget about all of the healthy and beneficial colorful raw or cooked vegetables that you should add to your starches or fruit. They contain a lot of water, minerals, and fiber, which also reduces the calorie density of your meals. Examples of vegetables are: Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, collards, kale, chard. Asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots Cauliflower, corn, eggplant, mushrooms, onions. Green peas, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini. Topping your food with some natural sweetener is also an option, though they should be used sparingly of course, since they are processed. Salt (along with any other herb) is another way to spice your food and make it as tasty as possible – though some high carb vegans try to limit their sodium intake to 1,0. But what about other healthy and whole plant- based foods such as nuts, seeds, avocadoes, tofu, or olives? They can be eaten in moderation, meaning less than 1. Everyone has slightly different needs and preferences, so play around with different amounts in order to find what works best for you. Oil of course needs to be cut out completely for health reasons, or at least greatly reduced to a minimum amount. Then, there are foods which should not be eaten on a high carb vegan diet. These are: Meat, poultry, fish, seafood. Honey, gelatin, eggs, mayonnaise. Milk from animal sources or milk products like cheese. What Salad Dressings to Use on the Atkins Diet. The Atkins Diet, or any other high- protein, low- carb diet, severely limits the amount of starchy foods you eat daily. Many foods contain carbohydrates, but you'll find high amounts of them in bread, pasta, sugar, many snacks, potatoes and fruits. Meals on the Atkins plan usually consist of large servings of meats, fish and poultry, which contain no carbohydrates, and leafy green vegetables, whose carbohydrate content is negligible. As you progress from phase one, where you are only to eat 2. During phase one of the Atkins diet, you consume almost no carbohydrates. The only foods permitted are meats, poultry, seafood and fish, eggs, fats and oils and most watery, fibrous vegetables. You could make a salad with tomatoes, spinach, chopped celery and a little mashed avocado and not exceed your carb limit in this phase. Top the salad with an ounce of shredded cheddar cheese or two tablespoons of Parmesan for extra flavor. You are limited to the amount of dressing used, and it shouldn't exceed 3 grams of carbohydrates per serving. Bottled options specifically listed by the Atkins plan include Caesar, bleu cheese, ranch and creamy Italian; serving sizes are limited to 2 tablespoons. Alternatively, make your own dressing with 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar or lemon or lime juice and a tablespoon of olive oil. Most fresh herbs are permitted even in phase one of the plan, so you could add them to a homemade dressing for more flavor. However, the plan limits lemon and lime juice to no more than 3 tablespoons total per day. Use the same dressings as you did in phase one, but you can add ingredients such as yogurt or heavy cream to a homemade version when you reach phase two. A 1/4- cup serving of cooked beans, such as black or pinto, and 2 tablespoons of chopped nuts are other possible salad additions. Don't add all of these ingredients at once to your meal plan, though. You're only permitted an additional 5 grams of carbohydrates daily. So, in the first week that you've moved to phase two, you might make a dressing to use all week that contains a total of 1/2 cup of low- fat yogurt. In week two, you can continue to use the dressing and add the beans to your salad one day. You continue to progressively add a little more daily carbs each week on phases two and three so that you can find the right amount of carbohydrates for your system and not initiate weight gain or cravings. Phase four of Atkins represents what you'll eat for the rest of your life to maintain your weight loss. In phases two and three, you experimented with adding more carbohydrates to find the level that's right for you. In phase four, you settle into that level. Salads still play a large role in your diet, and thus, so does salad dressing. You'll be able to enjoy a variety of salad dressings, as long as they don't have added sugar and you count the carbs in your overall total for the day. Along with the dressings that have been permitted throughout the plan, you might be able to add a tablespoon or two of freshly squeezed orange or grapefruit juice to a homemade version. Otherwise, it's the components of your salad that change more than the dressing. You'll be able to enjoy a dish that contains a slight bit more starchy vegetable options, raisins or chopped fruit if your maintenance carb level permits. Like any diet, Atkins can help you lose weight because you limit your calorie intake by cutting back on carbs. Adhering to the dietary restrictions presented by the plan can be challenging, especially since weight loss is a gradual process and can take many months. Researchers remain divided on the merits of Atkins as well as other dietary strategies to lose weight. To lose weight, your best strategy is to simply eat less and move more.
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