6 Ways to make the change EASY
6 Ways to make the change EASY
The hard part is all in our heads!
I remember the early scene in Forks Over Knives, where they were turning cancer on and off by changing the amount of animal protein in the diets of mice.
20% of total calories from animal proteins = CANCER ON.
5% of total calories from animal proteins = CANCER OFF.
And they could lather, rinse and repeat that shit.
I hit the pause buton and swore. I swore a lot. Because I didn’t want to do what I now knew I must do. I had to go freaking vegan, and I knew to the core of my being that it was going to be HARD.
I caught that episode just after my 59th birthday. I figured I probably had one more birthday in me because my mom had died two weeks after her 60th. Pancreatic cancer.
And so, when I just happened to find a documentary, two weeks after my 59th, telling me a scientifically proven way to keep “cancer genes” from turning on, it seemed like a pretty blatant guidepost. You know, when the Universe knocks on your brain and says, “Hey dummy. Listen up,” you listen up. Or at least, I do.
So I swore a blue streak, because I now had to undertake this very hard thing. This all but impossible thing. This I-don’t-even-know-where-to-begin thing.
And it turned that the hardest part of it was all the dreading of it. As soon as I took the first step, it became easy. It’s not the doing it that’s hard. It’s the worrying about doing it that’s hard. The longer your procrastinate, the more time you spend in the hard part.
The idea that’s it going to be difficult and awful, that you’re making a sacrifice, that you are going to suffer, is all just bullshit you’ve made up in your own mind.
You’re not giving up food, you’re receiving extra years of life, vastly improved health and a leaner, stronger body. And trust me, the crap you’ve decided not to eat anymore is going to seem like absolute garbage to you in six months. Those "but I love cheese” feelings are also mental constructs. Just stuff you made up so long ago you think it’s a reality. It’s not. It’s just a flawed notion, a bad habit, a misunderstanding. (And with dairy, it’s also the casomorphines, which are as physically addictive as their name implies.)
How to make it easy
Do your homework.
Use the resources that are out there. They are abundant! And remember, when looking for resources, the key is whole food plant-based. Not just vegan, not just plant-based, but whole food plant-based (WFPB.) Some people feel compelled to add letters indicating no oil, low sodium, low sugar to WFPB but that’s entirely unnecessary as those things are already part of WFPB diet. Cookbooks and chefs who rely on oil need not apply. We don’t need, want, or use oil. It serves no good purpose.
But you don’t need to search too hard, because I’m always reminding you where the good stuff is…
I keep the excellent cooking videos I find here
Forks Over Knives has hundreds of beautiful whole food plant-based recipes on their website as well as on their free recipe app. Just search “Forks Over Knives” on your app store to download the free app. Or visit the plethora of recipes on the website here:
2. The Master List
After you find some recipes that look good to you, make yourself a master grocery list. And be brave enough to include a few items on that list that you’ve never used before, like tamari, nutritional yeast, tofu.
Curate this list as you go along. Remove stuff you didn’t use or used but didn’t like. (I recommend three tries in three different recipes with any food item before giving it up entirely.) Your master list is a living, growing, evolving thing. Add to it as you go along.
*There are grocery master grocery lists in the paid subscriber section of this site.
3. Feed your brain, too!
Watch the major documentaries during your first few weeks, to keep yourself motivated and well-informed. Most of these are on Netflix and Prime. Some of them are can be found free on Tubi, or on Youtube.
Forks Over Knives
What the Health
How Not to Die
The Game Changers
Cowspiracy
Seaspiracy
Live to 100
You are What You Eat
4. Use Training Wheels
It’s okay to rely on some of the ultra-processed plant-based stuff while you’re transitioning. You know the goal is to get to as many whole, plant foods as possible, while curtailing the worst of the ultra processed things.
Just to recap, whole foods are foods that haven’t been messed with and include fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and minimally processed products like soy or almond milk, tofu, tempeh, and tamari.
It gets confusing because of the term “plant-based.” I honestly believe those of us in the WFPB community should ditch the term plant-based and just say we eat whole plants. Plant-based is stamped on a whole array of ultra processed, high fat foods with brand names like Impossible and Beyond and others, more and more every day. Make no mistake, these are NOT included in a whole food plant-based diet.
BUT they can be of a lot of help in making the transition. Eat them in moderation with the long term goal being to minimize or elminate them. They are less harmful than ultra-processed animal-based products—but not by much.
You can mitigate the harm by checking the labels and choosing the products where the oil ingredients are the farthest down on the ingredients list. (They’re in descending order by weight.)
A California Burger is far healthier than an Impossible or Beyond burger, for example. And not all frozen French friest are created equal either.
Ingredients: Amy’s Brand California Burger:
Organic mushrooms, organic bulgur wheat, organic onions, organic celery, organic carrots, organic oats, organic walnuts, organic wheat gluten, organic potatoes, sea salt, organic high oleic safflower and/or sunflower oil, organic garlic.
Ingredients: Beyond Beef Burger
Water, pea protein*, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], calcium pantothenate).
Look at the ingredients. Whole foods in Amy’s brand; mushrooms, wheat, onions, celery, and the oils are number 11 out of 12 ingredients. Very little, and it shows in the nutrition label.
In the Beyond, you don’t have any whole foods. Pea protein instead of peas. Not a whole food. Rice protein, not the rice. Apple extract, not apples. Beet color, not beets. And the oils and fats are ingredients 2, 3, 7, and 15. And that also shows in the nutrition label.
Amy’s Beyond
Total fat: 5 grams 14 grams
Saturated: 0.5 grams 5 grams
Sodium 550 mg 390 mg
*Notice the Amy’s has more sodium than the Beyond. Further proof that even the best processed foods are always a trade-off.
So you can see, you don’t want to eat these things daily. But it’s okay to lean on some of the processed stuff as you make the change. Gradual change can be a little bit easier.
5. Try new things! Variety is essential!
Tamari is a vegan’s best friend. Nutritional Yeast is a Godsend. Flaxseed meal goes in everything. I cursed tofu at the beginning, now I complain the grocery doesn’t carry enough of it.
The key to good nutrition is eating a wide variety. If you eat a wide variety of fruits, veggies, whole grains and legumes daily, and eat enough of them to get full, you are getting enough nutrition. (With the exception of Vitamins D and B12, which nearly everyone should be supplementing.)
So buy fruits and vegetables you don’t normallly buy. Expand your favorites list. Challenge yourself to get 20 different foods, including herbs and spices, every day.
It’s not as hard as you think. For example, my morning oatmeal today had: oats, flaxseed meal, a banana, strawberries, blueberries, a handful of raisins, cinnamon, and chia seeds on top. That’s 8 of my daily 20 in one meal. My lunch today is a leftover one-pan meal I made for dinner last night that included: onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, spinach, sweet potatoes, curry powder, tamari, whole grain pasta, chick peas, and tomatoes. That’s 11 more. I’ll have 19 different whole plant foods in my first two meals of the day. And then there’s dinner, where I will no doubt go beyond my daily 20.
And there are other new things to try besides the foods. Try new ways of making them.
Try the oil-free saute method. We don’t need oil, we only think we need oil. It’s another mental construct. A good pan, pre-heated until a drop of water sizzles and beads, and frequent stirring will carmelize and sauté. When it gets sticky and brown, add a splash of liquid (veggie broth, tamari, water) to deglaze. The resistance most feel to this notion ends once they take the plunge and try it. My clients are always amazed that they are able to cook without oil, and so easily.
Try new ways of preparing those few veggies youthink you dislike. Cauliflower Buffalo Wings, Korean Barbecue Brussels Sprouts (recipe coming soon,) or Breaded Air-fried Zucchini, for example.
6. Be Easy on Yourself
You don’t have to do this all at once. I thought I did it all at once, but I didn’t. I was doing it in stages, just as most people do. First I got off the meat, dairy, and eggs, and that was a huge step. Later, I stopped using oil, and still later I brought my ultra-processed foods down to about one meal per week, and today, those “treat meals” are far less harmful. Still later, I started actively reducing my sodium and sugars. It’s a process, an unfolding, and once you begin, it’s a natural unfolding. It keeps improving becasue my body is more and more in tune, and giving me clearer and clearer feedback. If I eat a Beyond buger I feel like hell after. An Amy’s burger, not so much. Plant-based coffee creamers I once used all day long, now leave an unpleasant coat of oil on my tongue that I can feel and taste. So I stopped using them naturally.
You will find the same thing happens to you. With every improvement, your body’s components—living things, all of them—must sing for joy. And when you go back to the stuff that was preventing it before, they let you know.
I don’t think you can understand how bad you are feeling when you perceive it as normal. If you haven’t felt good in so long you don’t know what good feels like, and then suddenly you do feel good—now you have a comparison. Now you know what bad was, and there’s not a cell in your body that wants to go back to that.
It’s not as hard as you think.
Everything in the Universe is conspiring to help you. As you look for answers, they are literally laid upon your path for you to find. You just have to open your eyes and pay attention.
And stop procrastinating. Take the first step. Once you do, it gets easier, and each additional step makes it easier yet.
Now go eat something wonderful!
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