Читать книгу The Greenprint - Marco Borges - Страница 8
ОглавлениеWELCOME 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
