New and Improved Food Diary - Marcella

As promised to our friend Tony from the cruise, here's my new and improved diet tracking sheet! Save it to your computer by selecting File (top left), then Download as, then Excel.

I've included a daily calorie needs calculation (Katch-McArdle formula) at the top right, based on your weight, body fat %, activity level and goals and you can either use that as your guide, use your own calorie target, or ignore calories entirely and focus on your percentage of total calories from protein, fat, and carbs as that's really what we're interested in. We certainly don't count calories or restrict them, the real concern is where the calories are coming from...a diet of 3,000 calories/day from Fruit Loops and potato chips and a diet of 3,000 calories/day from steamed vegetables and lentils are not created equal and that quickly becomes apparent when you look at the percentages. I've even added a % of carbs from fiber to give you an idea of how much whole versus refined grains you're eating. And sodium and sugar tracking by popular demand.

This is really an evolving project of mine - eventually I'd like to build it into a full-on free nutrition program in Excel more like a software program. In the meantime, if you have questions or need help getting this sheet to work, you can e-mail me at marcellam.torres@gmail.com

Nutrition Principles Part 3 - Derek

Hello and happy February! To start the month off right I thought I'd finally get Dr. Campbell's last Principles of Nutrition up, so thank you for your patience! To recap on where we left off, just check the first two posts (1)here and (2)here. Onto the rest...

6.) The same nutrition that can prevent disease in its early stages can also halt or reverse it in its later stages.

The clearest example that comes to mind here is the number one cause of death in the US - heart disease. Heart disease rates have climbed steadily in the US for decades, and now the disease claims 430 thousands lives every year in the US alone. Work done by Dr. Esselstyn demonstrates that heart disease is a completely avoidable disease for everyone, and he now coaches patients on how to halt and reverse their heart disease at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic. Dr.Esselstyn has successfully taken many patients from the brink of death by heart disease to return to normal healthy lives through dietary intervention alone. His website and his book "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" go into far greater detail than I can here, but suffice to say if it works for these most extreme cases, it will work for anyone. While a diet rich in processed foods and animal products strongly promotes the hardening of arteries, the formation of plaques, and the raising of blood pressure, a whole foods plant based diet has the exact opposite effect. In fact, the same is true for cancer. Dr. Campbell's own lab demonstrated that nutrition alone could promote or halt the growth of tumors in rats, and epidemiological studies clearly support this theory in human populations.

7.) Nutrition that is beneficial for a particular chronic disease support good health across the board.

This principle is pretty self explanatory. A whole foods plant based diet will prevent and treat any and all chronic disease prevalent in society today, and will simultaneously promote good health across the board.

8.) Good nutrition creates health in all areas of our existence.

Dr. Campbell's final principle of nutrition is by far the most all-encompassing. By eating more healthfully, every aspect of our lives and our surroundings stands to benefit. Our economy stands to benefit by saving billions of dollars on healthcare costs. Our population stands to benefit by being better fed because it is cheaper and much more efficient to use land to produce crops rather than livestock, and the environment as a whole stands to benefit for this same reason. In fact, the single greatest impact you can have on your 'carbon footprint' - if that is important to you - is to choose whole plant foods over processed foods and animal foods.

So, sorry for the lengthy post, but I really hope you find this information helpful and inspiring. As always, we love to receive comments and answer questions so have at it! And now you have more reason than ever to break out the Greens & Beans!

Principles of Nutrition Part 2 - Derek

I hope everyone out there is still voting. Only 10 days to go! Thank you all again for the support!

To continue with Dr. Campbell's Principles of Nutrition as outlined in my most recent certification, I will give a brief overview of his next 2 points. Keep in mind these Principles were explained at length during the course lectures, so what I'm providing here is just a brief explanation.

4.) Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes function only by being activated or expressed, and nutrition controls which genes, good or bad, are expressed.

I think this is an extremely important point. The modern rise of genetic research for combating chronic disease has been fruitless. Mainstream tabloids would lead one to believe that simply identifying a gene that causes disease, then making a drug to control said gene, will be the end of poor health as we know it. Things just aren't that simple. Each disease is the product of actions by potentially hundreds of genes, and no single gene only has one job. So, expecting a single desirable effect from the chemical control of a single gene is very unrealistic.

Whats worse, the belief that your health is controlled entirely by your genes leaves you in a helpless position. Why bother taking care of yourself if it all comes down to your genes? In actuality, eating a whole plant-based diet goes extremely far in giving you the most beneficial possible gene expressions, putting you back in control, and all without any fancy research or drugs required.

5.) Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.

Another very important point. Similarly to controlling your genes to your greatest benefit, nutrition also greatly improves your body's ability to handle nasty chemicals that could potentially do a lot of harm. Take Aflatoxin as an example. Aflatoxin is among the most toxic and carcinogenic chemicals ever discovered, and in Dr. Campbell's own lab he was able to keep rats on an aflatoxin-laced diet completely healthy and cancer free just by controlling their nutrition. 0% of the animals on high protein plant-based diet developed cancer, while 100% of animals on a high protein milk protein-based diet developed cancer. Results don't get much clearer than that.

For a human example, studies following heavy smokers who practice a whole plant based diet have shown that they have lung cancer rates almost as low as typical non-smokers!

I will post again soon on the final 3 principles. If you have any questions or input, comment away! And feel encouraged to learn more for yourself by picking up a copy of The China Study or signing up for the plant based nutrition courses!

As an aside, my friend and disciple/poster-boy/victim Jeff Kroll of Crossroads Coffee recently pointed out the article below to me, and I think it goes very well with what I've been discussing, so thanks Jeff! Check it out:

Why Plants are (Usually) Better than Drugs

BodySpace Spokesmodel Contest, and Principles of Nutrition - Derek

I have recently entered a competition through bodybuilding.com for a chance to become the BodySpace Spokesmodel of 2011! If I win I will get a chance to be on the cover of Iron Man Magazine and attend the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia contests. A great opportunity, and extra motivation to get well and get back to training. To win I need the most votes on my photos, so check them out Here and vote! You can vote once per day for the month of November so repeats are especially appreciated! (my screen name is Treesize and contestants are listed alphabetically).

I also wanted to go into a little more depth on some highlights from my Plant Based Nutrition certification. Dr. T Colin Campbell outlined his lessons in nutrition with 8 Nutrition Principles. While nutrition is an extremely complex and integrative topic, these 8 principles were designed to answer many fundamental questions about nutrition and to provide a simple guide to healthy eating. I want to cover the first three here:

1. Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you consider that each whole food has literally thousands of compounds within it, many of which are unknown and/or unstudied, imagine the possibilities for beneficial synergistic effects when many whole foods are eaten together. I talked about this when I discussed phytochemicals in an older post.

2. Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.

In other words, eating terribly can not be made up for by taking some isolated vitamins. Dr. Campbell describes nutrition as operating as an infinitely complex biochemical system involving thousands of chemicals and thousands of effects. Isolated nutrients cannot substitute for whole foods and may have dangerous side effects. Studies cited in the course described Vitamin A and E supplementations as being associated with an increased incidence of caner - something to think about!

3. There are no nutrients in animal foods that are not better provided by plant foods.

Animals products across the board are rich sources of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol (which is only present in animal foods). Plant foods, on the other hand, are good sources of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants (with the last two only being present in plant foods). Many indicative charts were presented that showed the striking distinctions between these two categories, but plain and simple: Plants have more nutrients and less calories, while animal products offer the exact opposite.

I will follow up with more nutritional principles soon. So, in the meantime make sure you check out my pictures and vote, and eat your Beans & Greens!

Injury, and Plant-Based Nutrition - Derek

I am writing once again after a rather extended break. As my last post suggested, I experienced several injuries after my last extended bout of High Intensity Training. One of these injuries has proved troublesome, so I have decided to take time off from training and focus on recovering completely. This also means I have decided to push back my premier contest appearance to a later date.

In the meantime I have focused on educating myself further in nutrition and have just completed the Certification on Plant-Based Nutrition offered jointly by Cornell University and the T. Colin Campbell foundation. This was a phenomenal three-course series covering virtually everything about plant based nutrition, from the physiological effects to social and environmental impacts to elite athleticism. Lectures were given by 8 different experts in the field, and the sum of everything presented was extremely telling. Needless to say, I am more convinced than ever of the importance of our dietary choices, and I encourage anyone with an interest in furthering their own education to enroll in this course series.

For those who choose not to, I will go over some important lessons I learned during this course in posts to come. So in case you've forgotten during my absence, be sure you're still getting plenty of Greens and Beans.

P.S. I was recently quoted in a Richmond Times Dispatch article regarding exercise and job hunting. If you or anyone you know happens to be looking for work you may find it helpful. Take a look here.

Marcella Shoot Prep, Phase 3 - Derek

The final pictures are coming in today, so without further delay I want to go into Marcella's final phase of photo shoot preparation!

To recap a little: after Marcella's Phase 1 routine she was losing body fat quickly, but also a lot of muscle. We quickly changed things up and her Phase 2 routine restored a lot of her muscle size, and she kept losing body fat so she was right on track for the shoot.

Her third phase had all the same focuses as mine (muscle definition, fat loss, etc) so I won't go into too much of the strategy detail on that. You can check out her routine here.

A major difference from her 3rd routine and my own is the upper body pace. While I was focusing on very high pace, high 'burn' workouts, Marcella kept to a more standard upper body breakdown with more rest and heavier weight to continue maintaining as much muscle as possible there.

Nutritionally we followed a carbohydrate-depleting and carbohydrate-loading cycle timed right before the shoot. What that means in plain English is that we went ultra low carb for the last 5 or so days before the shoot to really deplete our muscles, then a day and a half before the shoot we began 'carbing up' by eating large servings of things like sweet potatoes, oat bran, quinoa, and even a piece of pie! Hey, we earned it :). As the theory goes, in our depleted state our bodies were more efficient at absorbing carbohydrates, so this helped our muscles look more full and firm. To avoid the dreaded 'puffy' look that everyone should be familiar with after a night of sinful eating, we simultaneously dehydrated ourselves (minimal water and zero sodium intake) for about 18 hours before the shoot. This allowed us to have big, full looking muscles while keeping all the definition we had slaved so hard for. This carb cycling process is commonly used by bodybuilders to peak on show day, and I strongly advise caution with anyone wanting to try it. I will even go so far as to suggest avoiding the dehydration step entirely as dehydration is a very dangerous condition to play with.

So, there you have it. All our secrets of hard work and often painful dieting to get into the shape we were in. I will post the end results later today so stay tuned and keep training!

Photo Shoot Prep, Derek Phase 3 - Derek

ANNOUNCEMENT: The final pictures will be released and posted shortly thereafter this Tuesday 5/18 so stay tuned! In the meantime I will describe Marcella and my 3rd phase of prep for that big day, starting with mine.
After my Phase 1 and Phase 2 routines, I was feeling right on track to where I wanted to be. I had gained an appreciable amount of weight and worked hard to build a good aesthetic balance. All that was left to do was maximize my muscle definition and get 'shredded'. Check out my routine here.

To accomplish this I used the following techniques:

• Added Cardio almost every morning (eek!), especially the high intensity variety, which I did on an empty stomach to ensure I was burning as much bodyfat as possible.

• Performed an ab or calf only workout every morning after cardio. Calves are by far my weakest muscle group and I wanted to do everything I could to improve them. Abs were a focus for this phase to etch out the best 6-pack possible come shoot day.

• For my weightlifting, my focus was burning maximum calories and achieving the most definition. To do this I decreased my rest between sets and started performing supersets and triple sets. I also added more isolation exercises and unilateral (one side at a time) exercises to really hit every muscle fiber and make everything show. I even threw in a couple Tabata Sets (queue scary music) per week to really burn out the target muscle(s).

All these techniques will burn fat and improve definition, but it is also very easy to lose muscle during a cut down phase. I prevented this somewhat with Nutrition: To aid in fat loss we reduced overall calories, but to maintain as much muscle as possible we actually increased our protein intake so that if the bodies were going to use any protein for energy, it would be from food and not muscle. This is a technique used by bodybuilders as they diet for contests, but I don't recommend it because it is very stressful on the body, particularly the kidneys. Keep in mind we only used this tactic for 3 or 4 weeks.


To get this extra protein we actually selected some processed foods (again not recommended as a staple) that were high in protein and low in carbs and fat. These were Gardein meatless products and Purefit protein bars (my new favorite protein bar).

We also greatly decreased our fat intake and our simple sugar intake. This meant less fruit. I want to stress that fruit is extremely healthy and packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and phytochemicals; but in our effort to completely deplete our bodies and force the use of bodyfat we eliminated all fruit but the low sugar options strawberries and grapefruits. These choices had the added perk of tons of vitamin C to keep the immune system running during all our hard work.

If this sounds like a pain, it was. But it was also well worth the struggle and if any readers are interested in looking your absolute best for an event important to you, you might give these tricks a shot. Until next time, eat your greens and beans!

A Plant-Based Ingredient to Aviod - Derek

Before continuing on our photo prep plan, I wanted to do a quick post on an interesting article Marcella recently pointed out to me. I have mentioned to many of you who see me regularly that plant-based doesn't always equal healthy. A great example of this is french fries. Another is high fructose corn syrup.
High fructose corn syrup is found in virtually all processed foods that are sweetened and has been for the past 30 years. It has often been blamed at least in part for America's obesity rates skyrocketing in the same time frame, but I had not seen any hard evidence supporting this fact until reading this article. You can see it for yourself here.
The take home message is avoid processed foods in general, and those containing high fructose corn syrup in particular. The processing destroys many of the nutrients found in the whole food, and the additives are... not good.


So until I get back to the shoot prep, avoid processed foods and if you have to indulge, go for real sugar. Oh, and beans & greens!

Diet Planning Worksheet!!

Here it is: a simple, interactive diet worksheet I built in Microsoft Excel to help us reach our respective fitness goals, and that we're now sharing with you as a proven success!

How we did it:
Derek gathered info about the diets of the male and female winners of the Olympia bodybuilding contest and adjusted their calorie and nutrient intake down to our body weights. Then I put my Excel skills to work in creating a spreadsheet that was easy to update quickly and understand. Before sharing it with you, I added some formulas to make it work for everyone, like calorie calcs based on weight (averaged from values on the American Cancer Society site and checked by Derek for reasonableness) and adjustments for activity level.

How it works:
In finance, we tend to compare actual results to expected results using ratios to get a comprehensive snapshot of where we stand and I figured why not do the same here? Hence the "Actual/Ideal" ratio I've included at the bottom of the sheet: 100% across the board is perfect, while something like 150% of your ideal fat intake is clearly bad...Instructions are contained on the first page, please follow the link to download:

Diet Planning Sheet on Google Docs

The Greatest Grain - Derek

Our March photo shoot approaches this Sunday, and before I finally post the plan we have been following I wanted to share some background information on one of our current food staples. Many of you that see me regularly have heard me talk about Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) as a very healthy complex carbohydrate source. I caution everyone to limit their grain intake in general and refined grain intake in particular due to the low nutrient and high calorie source they provide, but with Quinoa this is much less the case.



Quinoa, unlike most other grains, is an excellent source of many macro and micro nutrients. For the macros: it is low in fat, rich in slow digesting carbohydrates and fiber, and is one of the few plant based complete proteins so it provides all he essential amino acids the human body needs. Its protein is even ranked as highly as soy based on its amino acid profile, making it an excellent food option. In terms of micro nutrients, quinoa also boasts high concentrations of the minerals iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and manganese. These factors make it a much more nutrient dense food than other grains, and therefore a very healthy option. If you'd like to learn more about Quinoa, check out its background here or its nutritiondata.com analysis here.

Until next time, try some Quinoa, but don't skip the beans and greens!

Another Reason to Eat Your Produce - Derek

An interesting article was recently brought to my attention by my good friend and client, Jeff Kroll of Crossroads Coffee . Having worked with me for several months, Jeff knows the benefits of a whole foods, plant based diet. For those of you who are still researching (keep it up) here is a link to add to my list of sources on why this way of eating is the most beneficial for your health:

A Solution For Diabetes: A Plant-Based Diet

In his book Eat To Live, Dr. Fuhrman has an entire chapter devoted to how he has cured diabetes with nothing but food, and if that isn't enough for you perhaps this article will add a little more weight to the claim.

If anyone else has an article they'd like to share please email me and I'll be happy to post on it. The more sources we have, the more reasons you all will have for making changes to your lifestyles and those of your loved ones, and the healthier we will all be for it. So keep up your reading, and keep eating your veggies!

A Note on Grains - Derek

I wanted to write a little on nutrition since I haven't in a while. I thought I'd address a question I get a lot when I am helping people with their food choices, which is: why are carbs (grains) 'bad'? After the Atkins craze a lot of people will agree that carbs make you fat, but why then are they the base of our food pyramid, and why are whole-grains sold as health food?



The answers to these questions are more straight forward than they let on. First of all I want to say clearly that carbohydrates are not bad for you, refined grains are. The easiest way to show why that is the case is with Dr. Fuhrman's equation for defining a health food: Health=nutrients/calories. Refined grains are calories dense, and through their refining they have been stripped of nearly all their fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. These factors combine to make them a very unhealthy food. As for the reason they are the base of our food pyramid, I can only speculate that this is because they are cheap and easy to mass produce, making them a good choice as a calorie staple (without consideration of health). And of course, whole grain products are marketed as health foods because it is a way to charge more. These products are more nutrient dense than their completely depleted counterparts, but they are still nowhere near as healthy as super-ultra-mega healthy produce.

So remember, when presented with the choice of rice, pasta, bread, cereal, chips, crackers, or pastries, politely decline and say: "Beans and greens please!"

The Wonders of Phytochemicals! - Derek

I've wanted to post something about this for a while, so I finally went through several of my old exercise magazines and clipped out some nutrition articles. For those of you who read such magazines with any regularity, you probably recognize the type of article I was looking for. They usually begin with "such and such chemical found to have xyz dramatic health benefits", then they go on to tell you to buy said chemical in supplement form. I always find these articles funny (and frustrating) because of their obvious implications. Here are some I cut out as examples:

• Antioxidants in blueberries found to slow the effects of aging - CNN
  
• Beta-ecdysterone in spinach increases protein synthesis [muscle growth] by 20% - MuscleMag
• Betaine from beets found to increase muscle endurance and recovery - Flex
• Fruits and vegetables help maintain muscle mass and reduce muscle wasting in older adults - MuscleMag
• ECGC in green tea boosts the immune system and helps reduce bodyfat - Muscle and Fitness
• Capsaicin in hot peppers helps reduce overeating and aids in loss of bodyfat - Muscle and Fitness
• Polyphenols in apples increase muscle strength - Flex
• Licorice extract from the licorice plant increases weight loss - MuscleMag
• Resveratrol in grapes is a potent anti-cancer chemical - Men's Health
• Lycopene in tomatoes prevents prostate cancer - Eating Well

The pattern is pretty obvious to me, but the magazines inevitably go on to advertise a supplement form of the aforementioned chemical to reap the health benefits. It seems a lot easier and less expensive to me to eat a salad or have some fruit. Not only that, but there are literally thousands of phytochemicals in all the plants we eat. Isn't there just a chance one of those that hasn't yet been studied is also beneficial? Isn't there also a chance that some of these compounds have synergistic benefits when eaten together? It seems reasonable to assume so, so we can go ahead and say that eating produce to ingest these miracle compounds is easier, cheaper, and more-than-likely much healthier than taking them as isolated supplements. Hmmmm...

Just me ranting on what ought to be obvious, but I hope this encourages everyone to eat even more greens and beans!

Vegan Weight Gainer revision, and more

As I had mentioned I've been playing around with the weight gainer shake we made up to aid in my calorie surplus. Through trial and error I have whittled away some unnecessary ingredients to make it easier to make and/or shop for. I found that it tastes fine without the agave nectar or the vanilla, so I've cut them out, and by removing TVP the shake is simultaneously less processed and less chunky, a trade I have found reasonable for the loss in protein.

In addition to these removals I have come across a superfood I really should have known about before now. While searching for seeds lower in fat than sunflower seeds, I discovered Pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds).


Pepitas have more protein and less fat per calorie than any other seeds I've come across, have an excellent amino acid profile (which means they have all the amino acids your body needs) and they are rich in minerals (Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, and Phosphorus). A detailed nutritional analysis on Nutritiondata.com even rated their protein score as higher than eggs! (and instead of the whopping amount of cholesterol and nutrient void they have minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals).

Check out all their stats here. The only precaution I will add before anyone goes on an all pumpkin seed diet is that being a seed they are high in fat, so eating too many will make losing bodyfat difficult if that is your goal.

INGREDIENTS (Calories/Carbs/Protein/Fat/Fiber):

• 1/4 cup raw hulled pumpkin seeds (153/5/7/13/1)
• 1 scoop NitroFusion, or similar protein powder (190/9/25/2/2)
• 1 cup soymilk (90/7/7/3.5/1)
• 1 cup water
  
• 1 banana (121/31/1/0/4)
• 1 can canellini beans, rinsed [aka white kidney beans] (420/73/28/0/35)
• [optional] cocoa powder to taste

Directions: Blend all ingredients to desired consistency

Total stats: 974 calories, 125g carbs, 68g protein, 18.5g fat, 43g fiber

Or, for an all whole foods shake omit the protein powder for stats like:
784 calories, 116g carbs, 43g protein, 16.5g fat, and 41g fiber

Either way, a great and highly nutritious shake with stats to match. I would even recommend a half serving of the whole food version to those looking for a meal replacement shake that would help weight loss or maintenance.

Several recipes after a drought

I'm woefully behind on posting recipes and workouts. What can I say - finance exam über alles...

I'm actually going to list several recipes at once here to help me catch up. Ah, and, incidentally, I've lost 8 lbs now in the 5 weeks since I adopted this diet. At the same time my strength has dramatically increased...all around a win.

Here's one of my "crap it's 9 pm and I have no time to be creative" meals:

Rotini and Eggplant

• 1 eggplant, chopped
• mushrooms, chopped (optional)
• low sodium jar of marinara
• 5 oz whole wheat pasta, such as penne or rotini
  

Easy easy easy.

1. Saute eggplant in a bit of water til almost tender.
   
2. Add mushrooms and sauce. Cook til heated through, meanwhile cooking pasta according to package directions.
   
3. Serve with steamed greens and a big salad.

And another easy pasta dish:




Lentil Bolognese Spaghetti

Traditionally made with ground beef, the lentils are (naturally) much healthier

• 2 carrots, cut lengthwise then chopped thinly
• 3 celery stalks, cut lengthwise then chopped thinly
• 1/2 jar low sodium marinara
• 1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added
• 1 cup cooked lentils (brown, French, or black beluga)
  
• 5 oz whole wheat spaghetti

1. Saute carrots and celery in 2 Tbsp water for about 5 minutes
2. Add sauce and diced tomatoes.
3. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
4. Add lentils and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Meanwhile cook pasta.
5. Serve with steamed greens and a big salad...seeing a pattern here?

Now, for the salad...it was a favorite of mine, made with a bag of "broccoli slaw" from Trader Joe's composed of shredded broccoli and carrots. I add diced Fuji apple and walnuts as well, and usually raspberry dressing. Alas, we were completely out of the dressing...So I said what the hell, why not make it myself:

Berry Dressing

• About 1 cup frozen raspberry/blueberry mix
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• cold water as needed

Blend all ingredients.





I have several more to post but I'll save those for tomorrow; stay tuned.

Ranting about Recipes and Some...Recipes

I should probably mention that most of the recipes I post are just modifications of things I've always made or from cookbooks or websites that may or may not even be vegan to start with. Some recipes lend themselves easily to modification, like the soup below where all I really had to do was omit the 1/4 cup olive oil and salt, or a pasta recipe for which more vegetables can be swapped out with the excess of pasta.

There's really no way, though, without the fat and salt in most vegan recipes out there, to make things taste like the rich and salty dishes that are the staple of the American diet. It's been a good 7 year process for me, letting that go. It's all too easy to mimic things like real ground beef or even fettucine alfredo - there's super fatty vegan cream and margarine and imitation parmesan out there that I'd dare someone to distinguish from the real thing in a blind taste test. I've made empanadas - deep-fried Argentinean savory pastries stuffed with ground beef, olives, and egg - by cooking the fake ground beef in a ton of oil and salt, brought them to company potlucks and no one could tell they weren't the "real" thing. I didn't tell them, they didn't ask, and the whole pile was always gone by evening's end. So when people wrinkle their noses at the thought of "vegan food" (which is really just food...) ever being able to pleasure their overstimulated taste buds the way "real food" can, it's generally a lack of realization that they're addicted to the taste of fat and salt. Put enough of that on anything and it'll taste just great. It makes me cringe when I'm searching through recipes on sites like Allrecipes.com and see vegetable dishes with descriptions such as "My kids hate broccoli and carrots, but they always ask for this healthy dish!" and go on to read the recipe which inevitably involves drenching them in 2 cups of cheddar cheese or something.

I think the reason why so many vegan recipe sites and books out there devote most if not all of their space to mimicking the unhealthy foods we all know and love is to prove to the world that we're not making any monk-like sacrifices here, we can eat just like everyone else. And so we end up boxing ourselves in to the same narrow selection of foods, when in reality the "vegan diet" includes the lion's share of options - an incredible variety of grains, legumes, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruits...how many kinds of meats and cheeses are there?

Hmmm...

Anyway, this recipe, posted at Allrecipes, for Greek Lentil Soup required very little tampering. Instead of 1/4 cup of olive oil I used 1 tsp, used a packet of low sodium vegetable broth (bouillion would work as well) in the water, and omitted the salt. Still delicious.
We enjoyed it with 1 lb steamed green beans and some whole-wheat pita - half each - with greens and hummus from the recipe section of Eat to Live:

Tasty Hummus Spread or Dip

• 1 can garbanzo beans, or 1 cup cooked
  
• 1 Tbsp tahini (sesame seed butter)
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup bean liquid or water
• 1 tsp horseradish (optional)

Blend all in a blender or food processor. Great for dipping raw baby carrots and broccoli in.

Weights, Nutrition, and Beer

The past week has been rather crazy. With school winding down, finding time to post has proven difficult. The same goes for working out, so my last 'official' workout was a chest+back day (shown below), and what has followed since are whatever workouts I've been able to fit in between work and class.
I have been continuing on an extended bodybuilding phase to aid in my goal of gaining a few pounds of muscle. I have been having the vegan weight gainer recipe daily and feel like it is really helping me add lean weight without all the discomforts of powders.

Nutritional Notes:
More on why we avoid animal protein: Here's a (disturbing) glimpse of the book I keep recommending, Eat To Live, showing some of the multitude of informative graphs and charts it contains. The pictures below come from Dr. Fuhrman's blog.



If you are a skeptic who needs the source of such information (good for you!) I urge you again to purchase the book or view one of the of sites below, all packed with research, such as:

Saved By Nutrition

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

and, of course:

DrFuhrman.com

After you've done your reading, or if you can take such information on my word, you should be well on your way to incorporating more fresh produce into your diet. The literature says it all. With such a clear correlation between too little unrefined plant intake and America's #1 and #3 killers (heart disease and cancer), it's no wonder our fridge looks like this:

And, if you are wondering about what I've got circled here, just remember:

"Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

Discovery: Vegan Weight Gainer!

During my recent quest to put on a couple pounds of muscle, I have found it hard to get enough calories in without eating tons of shakes or bars because of my crazy schedule.I don't like or recommend getting a lot of calories from shakes or bars because they are highly processed and often have less than optimal nutrition stats. When my search for a vegan whole-food weight-gainer yielded nothing, we began experimenting...

And the result is a weight gainer shake with mostly whole-food ingredients and excellent nutrition stats:

VEGAN WEIGHT-GAINER

INGREDIENTS (Calories/Carbs/Protein/Fat/Fiber):

• 2 tbsp hulled sunflower seeds (105/4/4/9/2)
• 1/4 TVP [textured vegetable protein] (80/7/12/0/4)
  
• 1 scoop NitroFusion, or similar protein powder (190/9/25/2/2)
• 1 cup soymilk (90/7/7/3.5/1)
• 1/2 cup water
  
• 1 banana (121/31/1/0/4)
• 1 can canellini beans, rinsed [aka white kidney beans] (420/73/28/0/35)
• 1 tbsp agave nectar (43/11/0/0/0)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• [optional] cocoa powder to taste

Total stats: 1049 calories, 142g carbs, 77g protein, 14.5g fat, 48g fiber

DIRECTIONS:

Add first 2 ingredients to blender and process to a powder.

Add remaining ingredients and blend for at least 2 minutes, adding more cold water while blending if the shake is too thick.

I know it may look questionable, but it actually tastes quite good and packs a much better nutrient punch than your average gainer shake!

A Word of Caution: If you are not used to eating high fiber foods (like beans) I would try half shakes or even smaller portions at first. This shake contains a whopping 48g of fiber from whole foods, (roughly twice the recommended daily allowance which most Americans still don't get) and if you are not used to it you will have indigestion and gas, guaranteed. These are not signs that you should avoid such foods, these are signs that your diet is deficient in fiber. Once your body is used to high fiber fruits, vegetables, and legumes they won't cause you any trouble.

So, if you're looking to add a few pounds but don't want to choke down another powder gainer, give this one a shot!

Fun Food Facts and a Chili Recipe

Derek's birthday put some posting on hold (what an attention hog!)


but here's some catchup stuff:

Lunch was leftovers with a *special* salad with hearts of palm and also edamame. Usually there are no leftovers when Derek's around...

Anyway, there's usually steam-in-bag edamame in the frozen section, sometimes already lightly salted as is this Trader Joe's variety.

Dinner was a July tradition, burgers and fries and chili. Except that our burgers were of the Dr. Praegor vegetable variety, with no more than 1 whole-wheat bun per person, and the fries were unsalted sweet potato spears with some balsamic vinegar and salt-free seasoning sprinkled on top and baked about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Now the chili was based on the Vegetarian Chili recipe in Eat to Live. I omitted the celery since
we didn't have any, used jarred roasted peppers since we used up all our fresh bells, and used no salt low fat marinara instead of crushed tomatoes because we were out of that too.

Vegetarian Chili

• Big can kidney or pinto beans
• 1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups chopped red onion
• 2 cups chopped green or red peppers
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup TVP (textured vegetable protein)
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp chili
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar

Directions: Combine all ingredients and cook for an hour. Pretty easy!


TVP is an excellent replacement for ground meat, and can be found in the bulk bins of Ellwood Thompson's or Ukrops, or the Bob's Red Mill brand packages can be found in the natural food sections of other stores.

I'm accustomed to backing up my assertions with some kind of numerical analysis, so I decided to apply a little of that here in comparing the nutritional facts of TVP and extra lean ground beef.

Would you look at that?! The calories aren't that far off, but where they come from is vastly different. The grams of protein are almost equal but when you eat even extra lean ground meat, nearly half of what you're getting out of it is just fat. Ratios are so much more telling than units sometimes. Let's not even get started on the mineral and fiber deficiencies of the ground meat vs TVP.

Examining things like this validate what I've read in the aforementioned book, like this quote:

"The Chinese eat about 270 more calories per day than Americans, yet they are invariably thin. Exercise cannot fully explain this difference, as researchers discovered the same thing with Chinese office workers as well...The data suggests that when a very low fat diet is consumed(15% average dietary fat in rural China), as compared to the typical Western diet (30-45% of calories from fat) more calories are burned to convert carbohydrate into fat, so the body cannot store fat easily."

Fascinating.

More big weights, and now on to something better

My final routine of this power phase is completed. I threw legs in with arms because the routine for them will remain the same until my knee feels 100%. I'd like to give more thanks to Marcella for her great spotting while I attempted and achieved my new 135lb barbell curl 1 rep max. The rest of the workout was lackluster, as you can see below:



Tomorrow I get to move back to my favorite, the bodybuilding phase. The Bodybuilding style of training is focused around maximum muscle stimulation and fiber recruitment to stimulate muscle growth. This is achieved by lifting a moderately heavy weight for 8-12 repetitions through the longest possible range of motion and over the greatest variety of angles. I also like to superset opposing muscle groups (such as biceps with triceps) during this phase to keep intensity high while simultaneously stretching whichever muscle I'm not using. I picked up these techniques from a book (The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding) written by one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A brief, though important, nutritional note:
Many viewing this may wonder why I advocate avoiding animal products. I plan to discuss the 'how's and 'why's in as much detail as I can when I have more time, but for the moment I'd like to start by saying that animal products are scientifically proven to be dangerous to long term health. I am certainly not saying animal foods are the only unhealthy foods out there, but they are high on the list of foods to be reduced and/or avoided if long term health and a better figure are your priorities.

Dr. T Colin Campbell, Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Cornell University and author of The China Study puts it well when he states:

"...animal protein has a quick and major impact on enzymes involved with the metabolism of cholesterol. Whether it is the immune system, various enzyme systems, the uptake of carcinogens into cells, or hormonal activities, animal protein generally only causes mischief"

I will supply more information, as well as supporting graphs and information in future posts, but suffice to say that the researchers I cite and the studies they themselves cite all indicate that animal products are a danger to your health. If you are a vegetarian consuming dairy products or an omnivore, it would be wise to reduce your intake in these harmful foods in favor of... you guessed it - fruits and vegetables! (and legumes, raw nuts, mushrooms, and whole grains of course)

So until next time, eat your beans & greens!