Regarding our philosophical conversation about the potential winner of the upcoming "smackdown", one thing I realize clearly after this weekend, is that Dr. McDougal and Dr. Fuhrman are in two similar but very different conversations with the common theme of getting healthier, losing weight, and reversing disease.

 

Dr. McDougall IS most definitely helping people get healthy, lose weight and reverse disease as an enduring pioneer in plant based nutrition, and Dr. Fuhrman is doing the same, with an added focus on performance and longevity. The nutrient-rich way to eat is inherently a broader and more detailed discussion about maximizing health, performance AND longevity; hence, the focus on nutrient density, naturally reduced caloric intake as a result of comprehensive nutritional adequacy (not proactive calorie restriction AKA dieting) and minimization of even mild withdrawal symptoms caused by higher salt, more calorie rich, less nutrient dense foods.

 

Dr. Fuhrman gives additional attention to a new level of detail for maximizing healing, recovery and longevity overall. You probably know the studies on longevity, as an obviously astute researcher; combine them with performance and you have a very new message.  That is not what Dr. McDougall is focused on in my assessment even though he enables improvements in both additional areas, somewhat, simply by virtue of that fact that he promotes a healthier diet than the SAD and weight loss only diets.

 

I support Dr. McDougall 100% nonetheless. I love what he does in the world. This is about the targeted benefits that require an evolution of the standard vegetarian or vegan or even the plant based message, to one that is based on maximizing the nutrient per calorie ratio of the foods you eat. Even though the end result may be similar, the mindset is greatly enhanced.

 

Dr. Fuhrman has just taken things to a new level, and one that in my assessment after the conference, many are simply just beginning to come to terms with, including many of the doctors in the plant based community. And it has naturally created tension. This is good. There are many entrenched nutritional paradigms that are getting uprooted and in some cases upstaged right now as the message about the healthiest way to eat through nutrient density or "nutritional excellence" evolves. The science of nutrient rich nutrition has emerged.

 

Healthy eating is not simply about not eating meat as you already know; it's about knowing how to eat a whole food, plant-based, nutrient-rich eating style optimally, and not everyone is ready for that. It depends on where they are in the nutrition transition we define and help people make, here at this site.

 

Dr. Fuhrman is focused on how to do that optimally, so you get all the real health benefits including maximum performance and longevity. This is true here a nutrientrich.com as well. Eating up to 90% or More, Plant Based Nutrient Rich is not inherently about weight loss, but weight loss and living at or near your ideal weight all year round, is a natural consequence of eating for health, performance and longevity. This is a complimentary but broader more detailed discussion and the reason why the discussion about what your diet is "based" in, has been so tenuous. These two doctors are sending similar but different messages.

 

• Dr. Fuhrman is basing his approach on the most nutrient dense foods that are naturally low calorie, with higher calorie yet still nutrient-rich foods in smaller amounts pending activity levels. He refers to people who seek the most nutrients per calorie as a "nutritarian".

• Dr. McDougall is basing his approach on calorically dense foods that are still considered nutrient rich, with the most nutrient rich, lower calorie foods added in after a person get's enough calories. He refers to the person who eats a starch based diet as a "starchivore".

 

Both of these approaches have their merits but become more meaningful, relevant and actionable when you understand the complex of benefits they are designed to realize for the healthy eater. Pending the array of benefits you are seeking, where you are in your nutrition transition, and other individualized considerations, will determine what approach you take.

 

In my view, if a person is not active enough, or is starchy carb sensitive, they can very easily gain weight as a starchivore especially after they have been eating this way for a while and their body has transitioned fully from their previous usual nutrient poor diet. If a person who is eating a vegetable based diet as primates do, and needs more calories, or to eat more often for any of a variety of potential reasons, they can just do so; but they are surely going to get the most nutrient rich foods when they eat with the nutrient density of foods in mind first and foremost. And this favors a vegetable based diet since vegetables are the most nutrient rich foods around and the best for healthy weight loss. Especially in a world that is not that active anymore. This is why in my opinion, one eats kale before corn and romaine before russet potatoes...  

This broader conversation requires a great deal of additional nutritional education to understand concepts not yet commonly discussed in the vegan, vegetarian, now plant based community, so it's no wonder that some percentage of people are going to misinterpret, or simply miss aspects of the message. It's inevitably going to happen, but that does not in anyway constitute a message gone awry. It's a message not yet fully understood, that requires at least a basic nutritional education.That's what I see.

After a few years away from this conference, following 6 prior years of attendance, and a 23 year evolution to this point on this very subject, I could see this pretty clearly.  

 

It was an amazing conference!

 

The post Starchivore or Nutritarian appeared first on Nutrient Rich.

As a Nutrition Education Trainer who delivers the lifestyle perspective on the subject of healthy eating, I teach a body of knowledge known as Nutritional Excellence. It's not a weight loss program per say, its the science and practical understanding of , great tasting, healthy eating  that we teach you and give you structure around so you can apply it, for life.

When you learn what to eat, how to eat healthy and why as part of your lifestyle, you will lose weight naturally among a host of other benefits, such as optimal health, aging slower and looking younger and maximizing your longevity.

What's so you unique about Nutrient Rich "Nutritional Excellence" as we call it, is that it's not based on one singular idea of nutrition which so many camps in the nutritional field are based on. For example: thinking that the glycemic Index of foods is all that matters is limited thinking, yet, many people think this quality of food is all they need to pay attention too and it's just not true. The examples are endless.

Here you will learn more about the bigger picture of Nutrient Rich nutrition or "Nutritional Excellence". This is great perspective if you really want to be successful with healthy eating for life.

Below is part 1 of a series that explains why Nutrient Rich healthy eating is essential to your success. I am focusing on insights gleamed from a transcribed 2-21-06 Tele Conference, delivered by Joel Fuhrman M.D, one of the leaders in the nutrient rich revolution who did a great job explaining the idea.

Dr. Fuhrman: 

Essentially, I just wanted to talk about what this body of knowledge is that we are teaching.  What we call Eat to Live, the name of my book, or what we just call, "nutritional excellence" or nutrient rich eating for excellent health or to live longer free of disease and not to be relying on medical care, whatever your reasons for doing this is. 

Let’s just describe the features that highlight this way of living, so we can kind of put it together to make it clear what we’re doing and why, and then, differentiate it from what other people think or do so we can be clear.  Those of us who are into this way of thinking, living and eating, what are the concepts and the highlights that make it different?

We know, for example that the average American male lives about to be about 74; the average American female is about 77.  So the average American lives about 75 years old.  That’s not very good.  Clearly, we can do a lot better than that and certainly, there are a lot of people who live past a hundred in the history of the world.  And with what we know about science, nutrition, lifespan, longevity, why can’t we all live to be over a hundred with good health?  I think that’s not an unrealistic goal especially considering, if we look at a lot of the people that have survived a long time, we find that people who live a long time, in their 70s, their 80s, and their 90s, they’re not really sick people.  They are pretty healthy people in their 80s and 90s.  They’re living a pretty good life.  So in other words, people who live a long time are not generally very, very sick. 

People who are very sick don’t usually live a long time and there are certain characteristics that we can look at of people who manage to survive a long time and we can put it together with the body of knowledge I teach.  And that body of knowledge draws from a lot of other past bodies of knowledge.  It takes the benefits or advantages from a lot of different schools of thought and fuses the best from many different ideas and puts them together in a way that’s most logical and scientific to enable us to interpret why people get sick, why people die young, why people are overweight.  In other words, how we can have robust heath for later years. 

So clearly, going for 75 years of age to a hundred years of age for the average person I believe is possible and I think that’s one of the goals of learning this body of knowledge.  It should enable most people to achieve that leap from 75 years of age where you’re sick at 65 or 60 to 75 to be able to live to be a hundred where you’re not sick or certainly not very sick from 90-100, and relatively in good health until you pretty much weaken and die about somewhere between 100 to105 or 110.  And true, there are people that live to be 114, 120 but those are exceedingly rare.  And that would take a tremendous amount of luck and genetics besides just good health to achieve that. 

So one thing we’re certain when we look at people who live a long time.  None of them are overweight.  You can’t really be significantly overweight and expect to live a long time.  You have to be of a relatively normal weight.                                 

> Stay tuned for Part 2 Control Overeating

The post Dr. Fuhrman on Why Nutrient Rich Eating is Unique and Essential to Your Success - Part 1 - Healthy Aging appeared first on Nutrient Rich.

When I first launched Nutrient Rich.com in 2005, our motto was "eat better, not less". The idea was simple, the better you eat, the less you need to eat.

That original tag line seemed simple; however, it also opened up many dynamics and raised many questions.

For instance, the biggest question was; can you eat unlimited amounts of plant based, whole, nutrient rich foods?

Well, the answer to that question is NO!

At first maybe, when you first begin your transition from nutrient poor eating to Nutrient Rich, healthy eating it may seem like you can and that you should. But then, something changes. The more you eat nutrient rich, the more your body becomes nutrient rich and then you simply don't need as much food.

The law of quality selection kicks in.

Believe me, that was a difficult lesson for me to learn especially since I was used to eating so much food in my earlier days as a bodybuilder, in the off season that is

Over the years we continued to talk about eating better, not less, a play on "taste great, less filling"  slogan from the famed Miller Beer commercials but we have evolved in our thinking as we realized that it's not as simple to just say "eat better, not less". It's probably one reason why we brand Nutrient Rich as the next level in healthy eating, because there are so many concepts to learn when it comes to Nutrient Rich versus the "better" but often still nutrient poor way of eating that most people do.

So in this post I'm going to share a few more thoughts on the subject.

Are you eating less of more, or more of less?

If you find yourself eating less of more, you are eating a Nutrient Rich diet. If you find yourself eating more of less, you are are eating a nutrient poor diet or a diet that is nutrient barren.You can learn more about The Food Class System here.

Eating "Less" is only possible when you are eating nutrient rich food.

Eating "More" is driven by taking in less nutrients, nutrient poor foods, and needing to eat more to get more nutrients; unless you are merely eating for stress or recreation which is a different subject.

conversely,

More nutrients equals nutrient rich foods, and less nutrient equals nutrient poor foods.

So you can see, depending on what "more or less" is attached to, it creates a converse dynamic.

The more nutrient rich foods you eat, the less you need to eat. You don't have focus on eating less, it will happen naturally. This is not possible when you eat a nutrient poor diet, unless you require that chronic feeling of hunger that let's people know they are dieting. Those people only feel like they are doing something when they feel hungry all the time.

When you are eating a nutrient rich diet you don't have a chronic feeling of hunger - you just aren't hungry in the same way. I found that I only experience true hunger, a term that Dr. Fuhrman sourced, after I haven't eaten for a while, or after prolonged physical activity where my immediately accessible nutrient reserves are depleted.

The less I ate, "naturally", not "proactively", the more I could experience true hunger.

The more I ate of less, (nutrient poor) or for the wrong reasons, the less I could experience true hunger.

Here are two reasons:

1. Nutrient poor foods bring with them a withdrawal factor, headaches etc. that are often confused as "true hunger". This is because nutrient poor foods are not just nutrient poor from what they don't contain. They are nutrient poor because of what they do contain that the body does not need.
2. Living in a chronically anabolic state (meaning you are always eating and keeping the bodies energy in a position where it can rarely focus on digestion, assimilation and utilization) is not a good thing.It's also probably the biggest detractor from slower aging and longevity. Just ask the Calorie Restriction advocates.
   • Note: as you may have noticed, I'm not a fan of calorie restriction.  I believe that proactive restriction of calories leads to the wrong mindset and I have seen many a CR (calorie restriction) advocates take it way to far. This is one case where more can be less in the wrong kind of way.

You can over eat with more of less and when you eat more of more nutrient rich foods for the wrong reasons and over "nutrify" the body that only ends up leading to excess FAT!

It's very important for you to understand true hunger. Once you do, you will start making the right decisions that are best for your PerformanceLifestyle.

I told you this post might be a mind twister.

The post True Hunger - Are you Eating Less of More or More of Less? appeared first on Nutrient Rich.

Full and Fulfilled!

Reprinted with Permission:

The Pleasure Trap. Dr's Alan Goldhamer DC, and Doug Lisle PhD.

Making Every Calorie Count is the key to the Nutrient Rich Way of Eating. The only way you can get satiated with few calories is to eat nutrient dense foods!

Just look at at this graphic above...

See what happens when you eat oil? Lots of calories, pure fat and no food in your stomach.

Now see what you get when you are eating Fruits and vegetables. Lots of food and still the same calories!

What's the point of fighting to eat foods that are going to make you fat and sick, and not even satisfy your desires to eat?

The key is learning how to eat the nutrient rich way, great tasting foods that will satisfy you with fewer calories; which by the way, also just so happens to be the ultimate food formula for longevity.

The sample equations are talking about just eating natural foods, now factor in eating Nutrient Rich Recipes and oh my god you are in for one amazing satiating treat.

The Next level in Healthy Eating, is to move beyond nutrient poor foods (only in small quantities if you eat them) and start eating 80-90% or more nutrient rich foods.

This is now you lose weight naturally.

The post Full, with Fewer Calories - Make Every Calorie Count. appeared first on Nutrient Rich.