Lost more than 50 Kgs in one year

Hi everybody,

Today, one year ago I started my new diet, my new way of life. Back then, 12 months ago I was weighing 139.6 Kgs (308 pounds) and now I today I weight 86 Kgs (190 pounds). That's a loss of 53.6 Kgs (118 pounds) in 12 months.

Now, my special lady was kind enough to help me arrange the pictures in this post using her GIMP skills. Take a look!!!!

I had morbid obessity, my fasting glucose was 129, my HB1AC was 7.2, I had chronic pain in my legs so I couldn't walk more than 100 meters w/o pain, my blood pressure was 170 at the doctor's clinic and I she adviced me to start taking Metformin. 

I didn't know what diabetes was at that time and I saw this book "the end of diabetes" written by Dr. Fuhrman advocating the nutritarian life style. I became vegan, and a healthy one and fats started shedding off me at an unbelievable rate. I lost so many pounds and w/o ever being hungry. It's the super micro nutrients oriented nutrition that provides my body with everything it needs. I am rarely hungry, I don't think about food and how to avoid it - I eat tons of greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, seeds, nuts & fruits.

And look at me today - only one year after starting, my fasting glucose is at 92, my HB1AC is 5.8, I no longer having any pain in my legs and I run between 3 and 8 Km three times a week. 

It's amazing how our body can heal *IF* we just give it a chance to heal!! I encourage every fat person out to read my blog here, there's tons of information, and start his voyage back to health.

Aviel. 

You wouldn't get the following essential nutrients from the nutritarial vegan diet!!

Hi everyone,

After dieting for 4 months - it's time to review my daily intake - is it enough? is it too much?

A decade ago I was growing aquatic plants at home in a huge aquarium.

Plants were looking at their best when all conditions were met, that is they had enough light, enough "sleeping hours", enough CO2, low enough PH, and the chemistry of the water had all the nutrition and at the right concentration. I was measuring the water condition on a daily basis, checking iron level, phosphate, nitrate, etc, etc, etc to make sure the plants are getting everything they need. If iron was missing then you could notice the deficiency in few days. If nitrate was missing then plants were so weak that they looked terrible. The thing is - a plant needs all the nutrients in order to flourish. If only one poor nutrient is missing - then the plants is stagnant, stuck! Actually that one nutrient that is missing is causing the plant not to consume the other nutrients!!

The human body behaves very much the same - if something is missing - it will show eventually, and it can be devastating to your health. So I think it's a good idea to check for deficiency in one's diet. Using the USDA data base - I went over all nutrients and checked for deficiencies.


The importance of Macro Nutrients

Back then when I was growing plants and people in the forum were asking me about plant nutrition, and about some micro element that may be missing like boron... I would say that with all respect the most important nutrients are the N, the P and the K!! NPK! These are the plants macro nutrients: Nitrate, Phosphate and Potash. There's no point in going into the details of some micro nutrient when a bigger, more important macro nutrients is missing or is in excess.

So for human beings we are talking about fat, carbs & protein. These are the macro nutrients and the rule we should have enough fats, carbs and protein.

So before talking about raw food, and dude do you get enough fiber, and the ratio between omega 3 and omega 6 - let's get this thing straighten out - it's the Macro nutrients that count. You should get enough of them.


Calories

The best way to summarize how much fat, how many carbs and how much protein we consume is to look at the calories because it's actually a weighted sum of all the fats, the carbs and protein in your diet.

9 x weight of fat in grams + 4 x weight of carbs in grams + 4 x weight of protein in grams = calories.

So calories is the first thing that we should be looking at - is it enough? Is it?

In order to calculate the calories that one requires we first calculate the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). BMR calculates the number of daily calories you need to sustain life if you were totally immobile - how much energy do you require just to stay alive.

Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) 

Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

In my case BMR = 66 + 6.23 x (105: 0.453) + 12.7 x 83 - 6.8 x 50 = 66 +  1444 + 1054 - 340 = 2224 calories.

Next we use the Harris-Benedict formula to multiply the BMR by the appropriate physical activity factor.

• Sedentary: BMR x 1.2
• Little active, light exercise, 1-3 times a week: BMR x 1.375
• Moderately active, moderate exercise, 3-5 days per week: BMR x 1.55
• Very active: hard exercise, 6-7 days per week: BMR x 1.725
• Extremely active: very hard and intense sport and training twice a day: BMR x 1.9

I estimate that BMR=1.6 should represent my case so I need 3558 calories (BMR 2224 x 1.6) per day.

Looking at my daily intake I am shocked to find out that I consume less than half of this, I get ~1700 calories. That's very low. Even if I take into account my target weight which should be 71 Kg - still I shall need 2,800 calories.

So yes I lost weight quite rapidly as result but I think that this party should be over. Time for me to ramp up my caloric intake.


Macro Nutrients

What should I increase? fat? carbs? protein?

Chris Carmichael, recommends in his book Food For Fitness that athletes should consume 65% of their caloric intake from carbohydrate, 13% from protein, and 22% from fat.

As you can see my body is striving for more fat and more carbs while protein is almost OK.

Dr. Fuhrman too seems to be all for having more fat in my diet. In his book "the end of diabetes" he writes "Adhering to a diet that is less than 10 percent of calories from fat is not an appropriate recommendation for ideal health . This too-low percentage of fat results in less-than-ideal health outcomes such as low energy and minimized hormone production . The simple truth is that a healthy diet could be 15 percent of calories from fat or even 30 percent of calories from fat. As long as the diet is rich in micro nutrients and does not exceed our daily need for calories , a lower-fat diet has no advantage in the prevention and treatment of disease."


Micro Nutrients

Keeping the above in mind I am going now over all the nutrients and see how much do I have relative to the RDA.

Vitamin D 

As for Vitamin D - as I explained in another post - I get it from the sun. You can follow this link in order to calculate how many minutes you need to expose your face and arms to the sun in order to get your daily RDA.

But on the first rainy day I already bought this -

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 I get as a pill that I take daily under the tounge - 1200 ug daily.



Choline

Choline is a problem. The RDA for this nutrient is 550 mg. And as a vegan I am not sure how I can get enough if I don't eat liver or 5 eggs per day...

• Beef liver - pan-fried - 100 grams (about 3.5 oz) - 418 mg
• Whole large egg - 112 mg choline
• Beef (ground) 80% lean/20% fat - 3.5 oz patty - 81 mg
• Cauliflower - 3/4 C cooked (1" pieces) - 62 mg
• Navy beans - 1/2 C cooked - 48 mg
• Tofu - 100 grams (about 3.5 oz) - 28 mg
• Almonds - sliced - 1/2 cup - 26 mg
• Peanut butter - 2 T - 20 mg

So I bought this...

Niacin

I am consuming only 88% of RDA today and I want more. How do I increase that? There's plenty of niacin in fish, chicken, pork, liver & beef but I don't eat these.

There's also lots of niacin in peanuts, sun flower seeds and avocado but it takes many calories to get the RDA here. For example spanish peanuts provide 0.028 mg Nicain per calorie. So in order to get RDA one should consume 571 calories per day from peanuts. That's about 100 grams per day. Currently I consume 50 grams nuts in one day and so if I double that and make sure half of my nuts & seeds comes from niacin then I should be ok.

Vitamin E

The RDA here is 15 mg per day.

There's lots of Vitamin E in sunflower seeds (0.06 mg per calorie), almonds (0.045 mg per calorie), tomatoes (0.03 mg per calorie), and peanut butter (0.015 mg per calore).

All of this is suggesting to raise the amount of nuts & seeds and make sure I get portion of sunflower seeds, almonds and peanut butter.


ZINC

The RDA for Zinc is 11 mg per day.

Food that are rich with Zinc are: oisters (0.2-0.75 mg per calorie), beef (0.06 mg per calorie), alfaalfa seeds sprouted (0.04 mg per calorie), basil (0.03 mg per calorie).

Till now I got most of my zinc from beans (0.008 mg per calorie)...

If I want to increase my Zinc intake by say 4 mg then it means 100 grams of sprouted alfaalfa. It just doesn't make sense.

So I will have to buy this -

Iodine

I don't have any numbers for my Iodine consumption but I would guess that it's close to zero since I don't consume sea salt. So I will have to take this supplement as well.

Salt & Sugar

The maximum amount of salt to be consumed by a human being is 2.3 grams per day. I consumed 0.48 grams so I am "OK". There's lots of evidence that such low consumption of salt is not healthy, I shall read more about it and tune my diet accordingly.

As for sugar the maximum allowed is 284 grams per day while I am consuming 119 grams of which 77 grams are from fruits. I think I am OK here too.


Summary

The nutritarial vegan diet that I was leading for the last couple of months has some severe deficiencies and before it's too late - it's time to make sure I get enough. The most important 'nutrient' is the number of calories. I am going to double the amount of seeds and nuts from 50 grams per day to 100 grams per day.

This increase shall also resolve the issue of vitamin E & Niacin intake.

In addition I shall consume the following supplements daily: Vitamin D or sun light, B12, Choline, Zinc & Iodine.

Aviel.

Let thy Salad be thy Main Dish

Hello everyone,

To be super healthy you have to nourish your body with as many as possible micro nutrients - Vitamins, Minerals & phytochemicals - as simple as that. And what's the best sources for the above? - Greeeeeens!! you have to eat tons of greens. Yes, you can get your vitamins and minerals from meat - true! But you will have to pay with lots of calories. If you eat meat and you are thin then it means you are consuming a moderate amount of calories and it means that you don't get enough nutrients. Period. The greens have the highest density (nutrients per calorie) and thus they should be your main dish.

So don't tell me about a miraculous goji berry that I MUST try, and don't tell me that you read that black chocolate is good for the health and that there's this bee pollen that you eat and it's good for you. All of this is total bull. Yes they are healthy - but who cares? These foods are at the perimeter. They cost money, the enrich whoever sells them to you - and you are busy reading and searching for these miraculous medicine when they are right in front of your eyes - THE GREENS!!

You have to eat them, you have to learn to enjoy them. Every food other than breast milk is an acquired taste  Yes, the first time you eat the real hardcore salad - it's gonna be tough. And so shall be the second and the third time. But taste is acquired - you will get used to it.

And please don't start with "I rather live less but at least I enjoy myself, I can go to Moses and eat a good stake whenever I feel like". Don't you start with me. I enjoy my salad way way more than you enjoy your stake - cause you know what? taste is acquired and when I eat I am already truly hungry so I salivate and I need my real food and then the food tastes 10 times more! So both of us are going to live happily. You are going to die at the age of 85 and I am going to die at the age of 105. You wanna live happily as long as I do? Then "suffer" just one month... - NOW and then you will be back to where you were - happy, healthy, with no pains, no illness, with perfect fitness level. It's your choice - you are gonna "suffer" during the transition period and that's it. 

Think about it - how many years did it take you to acquire your Bsc degree in MIT? How many years of hard work have you invested before you became a lawyer, a doctor? Here I am talking about one month of getting used to something that's gonna be as important as your job - your health!!!

So how do you "prepare" your main dish? There you go - 

A handful spinach

מלוא החופן תרד

A handful mixed leaves

חופן עלי בייבי

Few chard leaves cut without mercy

כמה עלי מנגולד חתוכים ללא רחמים

Green onions

בצל ירוק

Dill

שמיר

Some cucumbers

מלפפונים אחדים

Mushrooms

פטריות

Chopped onions

בצל חתוך

Now that looks quite like the food you give chimpanzees or you used to feed your turtle with. So every 3 year old knows that turtles should be fed with this stuff. They just can't imagine that we human - we are supposed to eat this stuff as well. Hell it's written in the user manual that accompanies new baby on this plant! But no... - let's feed the turtles something good and continue devouring our McDonald's Mac Royal. And with Chimpanzees it's the same story - when you go to the zoo they are asking you please please not to feed the animals and the signs explain that whatever you are eating could poison the chimpanzees!!! I wish I had the picture of this. 

And then you pour some lemon - you need the vitamin C in order to digest the greens.

And then you add your favorite sauce which could be nuts/seeds based or tofu based - and you make sure not to exaggerate here - cause now and for the first time we are talking REAL calories here...

And then you take the oil bottle and you throw it out the window. One word of caution here - when you throw the m*er f**er out the window - you make sure there's no body standing there. Another word of caution - when you throw that olive oil out the window - you make sure nobody watches. And why do you throw it? Cause these are empty calories - the ratio of nutrients to calories is 0 - you gain no nutrition from olive oil. And yea olive oil is better than canola or the fat that you have in meat but still it's an empty oil - it should be avoided.

And then you mix the whole thing and voilla.

Now half of my salads are raw as above.

But then another half are half raw - half steamed...

So here's the veggies as I am steaming them - see? broccoli, Brussel sprouts, peas & green beans.

ברוקולי, כרוב ניצנים, אפונה ושעועית ירוקה.

These folks are frozen so I steam them for 10 minutes or so.

And one half of the salads that are half raw - half steamed - I add starched veggies - which I will describe on one of my future posts.

That's it for today,

Enjoy you salad,

Aviel.

The one big problem with this nutritarian diet

It's the food preparation!! This is the problem with this diet. Last weekend for example, I had to spend 6 hours in the kitchen preparing my food for the next week.6 f**ing hours of cutting, blending, mixing,  warming, packaging food into plastic containers, etc, etc - Wow!! If there's something that could break my enthusiastic spirit - it's the fact that I can't just grab some processed, pre-prepard junk food from the fridge. I have to prepare it myself, upfront and I have to spend time on this. TIME! Time is such an asset for me - I really don't have time, I really don't, I can hardly find one hour to blog here and there... and this diet is time consuming. Yes - it is!!

But as for now I think that it is worth it - it's an absolutely life saving diet, I feel so absolutely great that yes - it is worth it.

My Nutritarian Vegan Diet

Hi everyone,

People are amazed at how come I lost 24 Kgs in two months. So here's the answer.

what do I eat? 

I am following Dr. Fuhrman's diet as described in his book "The end of Diabetes". This diet focuses primarily on the G-BOMBS....

• Greens
• Beans
• Onions
• Mushrooms
• Berries
• Seeds & Nuts

I am vegan. I don't eat meat, fish, chicken, milk, cheese, eggs - in short no animal food intake.

I eat 3 meals a day. A small breakfast that most of your would consider 'aperitif' (Well at least that's what my special lady thinks and I am in no position to argue with her). It contains fruits, oats, seeds, nuts, oats...

I eat lunch, I eat dinner, I don't snack between meals. I don't eat before I feel hungry.

I drink only water. No coffee, no tea,  no herbs, no coke, no sweetened drinks, even artificially sweetened!

My main course for both lunch and dinner is a huge salad with all sorts of sauces made primary of Tofu and nuts. I top the salad with a cup of cooked beans or bean patties, or tofu, hummus and such, but the main course is the salad.

Half of my meals contain a vegetable soup and in that case the salad is smaller.

If I have to estimate then I consume 400 grams greens per day - mainly lettuce, spinach, chard & green onions. Occasionally I add parsley and such. I eat most of these raw! 

On top of this I eat  200 grams cruciferous vegetables: kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, radish. I eat half of these raw and half of these steamed.

Then I also liberally eat tomatoes, mushrooms, leeks, artichokes, peepers, celeries, endives & zucchinis. About 200 grams per day.

I top the salad with home made lemon juice. I sometime add mustard roots.

I also add garlic cloves and onions to my soups and home made sauces. I also add tofu and when I need a sweet taste then I add dry dates.

I don't consume oil. I eat nuts & seeds instead. Occasionally I would add half an avocado to my salad. I limit myself to 50g nuts/seeds per day so if I eat half avocado then I eat less nuts & seeds. I eat half of my nuts for breakfast mixed with my fruits.

I eat frozen berries: all sorts of: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, currants.

I eat 3 fresh fruits in the morning, 1 eat lunch and one at dinner: bananas, peaches, apples, grapes, kiwis, pomegranates,  and many more.

I eat the following starchy stuff only every second dinner: carrots, beets, peas, squash. About 100 grams in total.

I limit grain consumption. I rarely add minuscule amounts of rice to flavor my salad/soup. I do eat half cup oats sometimes for breakfast but I don't cook them, I soak them in water. 

As for high-starch foods made of flour - I don't touch them. I don't eat whole wheat bread (!!), I don't eat white rice (god forbid) or white potatoes. And of course I don't touch refined flour products such a 'normal' bread... I don't eat bread at all.

I never add salt, I never sprinkle oil and I don't use sweeteners.

Every day I take 100 m Cartia (aspirin), 25 mg iron, 1g Omega oil, 1200 mcg B-12 & 400 mcg Folic Acid.

I spend 10 minutes tanning per day, I run every day for ~20 minutes and I lift heavy weights twice a week.

Aviel.

If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small

"If you can keep your Cholesterol under 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small"

Says Dr. Ellsworth Wareham, a 98 year old Cardiothoracic surgeon. The guy is 98 years old and is on a low fat vegan diet.

I urge you to take the time to listen to these 13 minutes - what can I say - these are some words of wisdom and are a true inspiration for me.

In short - 

1. Vegan is a very fine form of nutrition.
2. He tries to maintain a calm approach to life - not to get worried because of
3. He has a good night sleep, and he takes a nap during the day if he feels like it.
4. Vegetable based diet is the healthiest way to go.
5. "All tastes are acquired except for breast milk" - You can change your taste habits and any time given will power and a little patience.
6. Cholesterol is the chief problem that we have to be concerned about - as far as coronary disease.
7. if your cholesterol is under 140 - very very seldom a person experiences a heart attack when cholesterol is under 140.
8. One of the factors for high Cholesterol is the consumption of foods that are high in saturdated fats.
9. Most animal fat is saturated, nost plant based fat is non saturated or mono saturated.
10. There are scientists like Dr. Campbell of the Cornell university who claims that not only animal fat shall increase cholesterol but also animal protein.
11. If you can keep your Cholesterol under a 140 - you chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very small.
12. If you go on a low fat vegan diet then your chances of developing a coronary heart disease are very low.

Aviel.

You are going to end up very fat if you follow the weight watchers diet - here's why

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I skipped the weight watchers meeting. It's not the first time that I skip this meeting. After starting to follow the nutritarian diet I no longer feel the need to know what my weight is. When asked in weight watchers about my diet I always said that it's about healthy stuff - I don't care much about the weight. Actually I am losing weight too fast!! In fact I wish I could be healthy without losing my weight so fast!!!

I am also sort of 'helping' a friend and on a weekly basis we weigh our self. It's not for me - I don't care about my weight. I am in a total different league - I care about my health. I care about my glucose level way more than I care about my weight. I care about my longevity and stress level. So when he whats-apps me and tells me that this week he won't come to the weighing because he gained 1 kilogram instead of losing 2... - I mean obviously he's not committed and he can't pursue his diet because it's not full of nutrients.

Yes, I have been sitting there in weight watchers and looking at the poor women discussing how they fight the hunger. How they need something sweet and I hear the coach telling them that she eats ice cream every night and it is OK because she calculated the points. And I am thinking to myself - wow these women are struggling with something that they will never win. No way they are going to win this war - even if they lose 20 Kgs, they will go back to where they were. No force in the world shall help them. I am admiring some of them - how stubborn they are, they plan, they know the points of this and of that, so given the weight watchers program flexibility they now optimize such as to avoid hunger and how to get that sweet food and all that. Here in this picture you can see one food type that these women are consuming and it is perfectly "all right" to eat this trash. It's... "something for the soul" - that sweet time of the day where they sit there and munch on this trash. And I am saying that this is something for their FAT WAIST. It contains low calories and it tastes good and all that - yea it contains zero nutrition, all sorts of taste enhancing materials and they are bad for their health. But this is how these women are optimizing their well being without crossing the PointsPlus limit....

But they will fail eventually - it only takes time. I mean I failed, I went all the way down from 125 Kg to 86 Kgs with weight watchers and I maintained it for 1.5 years before I gave it all up and I started this round weighing 139.6 Kg!!!! They will fail, and they will fail miserably. And you know why? Because their body is hungry!!!! hungry for REAL food, for REAL NUTRITION. Here, take a look at this picture here - this is REAL food - this is REAL NUTRITION.

The food that they eat has such low nutritional value that they need to eat 4000 calories in order to give the body what it needs - which means they consume tons of calories. The trick is to eat 2000 calories or for these small women 1200 calories and still get whatever nutrients the body needs. I don't dare to even raise this issue during those roundup meetings. It's like saying that I am a Jew in the middle of a Ku-Klux-Klan meeting. I mean - no body will understand - they will think it's too harsh, too extreme but truth is that it's not. I have to make an effort to eat 3 meals a day... I am not hungry at all - I forgot what hunger is - because my body is getting now all the nutrients that it needs with so less calories. 

If only for once they give a chance to a truly healthy diet, then they will feel great, look great and they will forget about their weight - it shall go down so fast they wouldn't have a chance to remember how much they weigh.

Sincerely,

Aviel.

Lost 20.6 KGs in 7 weeks.

Hi there,

Weight watchers combined with being a nutritarian vegan... - 

First week lost 5.5 Kgs.

Second week lost 2.1 Kgs

Third week lost 2.2 Kgs

Fourth week lost 1.7 Kgs

Fifth week lost 2.1 Kgs

Sixth week skipped weight watchers.

Seventh week lost 7 Kgs in two weeks. (vegan)

I feel good, I am never hungry, I have no diabetes and I enjoy my vacation,

Aviel.

Top ten nutritious foods

Hi there,

The most important and basic nutritional tip that you ever hear is to get just enough calories such that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs. Just enough means way less calories than normal western diets provide. I know many of you hate math - but just remember that your goal is to maximinze N/C where N stands for nutrients and C stands for calories. You want to get more nutrients for less calories. 

I already presented you with the nutritional target map where you can see how nutritious is every food type and how it makes you feel full. But is there a way to give a total score to a food and then sort all foods on earth according to this score?

Well there *IS* !!! - The ANDI Score!

ANDI stands for "aggregate Nutrient Density Index". It shows the nutrient density of a food on a scale of 1 to 1000 after evaluating an extensive range of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities.

Now let's look at the top 10 - they all belong to the green family!!

KALE (score = 1000)

קייל

Just a week ago I was frustrated cause I could only find it in the Tel-Aviv Port but this week it appeared in Shufersal both in Ayalon Mall and Givataim and also the store where I get my greens in Ramat-Gan. Do yourself a favor - eat this stuff!!

COLLARD GREENS(score = 1000)

עלי קולארד

I couldn't find it in our little country.

MUSTARD GREENS(score = 1000)

עלי חרדל

WATERCRESS(score = 1000)

גרגר הנחלים

The guy from the greens store in Ramat Gan told me that *this* was watercress - but it was NOT. I haven't found this one in Israel yet.

SWISS CHART(score = 895)

עלי סלק

BOK CHOY(score = 865)

בוק צ'וי \ פאק צ'וי

SPINACH (score = 707)

תרד

ARUGULA (score = 604)

ארוגולה

ROMAINE (score = 604)

חסה ערבית

as pictured in my kitchen...

BRUSSEL SPROUTS (score = 490)

כרוב ניצנים

I eat these every day at least once, I keep them frozen. They are very yummy - a bit bitter.

Anyway - what's common to the top ten nutritious foods in the world? They are all greens. Yes - this is what humans should consume! Remember that!

Aviel.

The USDA SR-21 data base

Hi everyone,

In the last few days I have been preparing the data base for solving the above optimization problem and I would like to share with you my efforts as I progress...

But first let's define the goal.

Goal

Eat the lowest number of calories per day.

Constraint

Provide the body with all the nutrients that it needs.

Why such a goal?

Because the secret for optimal health is losing weight, maintaining low glucose level while providing the body with everything that it needs. If you try to use weight using the conventional stupid diets (weight watchers, atkins, etc) then at that low calorie intake your body won't get all the nutrients that it needs and it shall bug you with hunger will you surrender and regain all your weight back.

Which data base am I using?

There are several dietary programs in the market but I prefer to work with the data directly, I prefer to feel it, to touch it without the GUI of those programs, I would like to do things that are impossible with those programs. 

I am going to use the USDA SR-21 data base directly. You can download the zipped excel file from the following page.

This data base is an excel that contains information about any food that you can think about, cooked, not cooked, frozen, with salt, without salt, etc, etc. For each food it provides the number of calories, sugar, proteins, vitamin this, vitamin that and a long list of maybe 40 elements. 

Here's a snapshot - 

Now on a second sheet in the same excel I organized all of my intake for one single day.

Here - take a look

So you can see that I take two tbsp of almonds milk (using a blender) in the morning which adds 172.5 calories, 6.37 grams of protein to my diet.


My daily calorie intake

Summing up the numbers give us the number of calories: 1857.

And we can also draw the cake that tells us where do we get the calories from:

As you can see we get most of our calories from nuts & seeds.


The first nutrient that I am looking at - Protein

If we take as an example Protein as an important nutrient that should be provided to the body - then we see that I get 79 grams a day. This is very good. Where do I get them from? let's see - 

So you can see the importance of nuts, seeds and beans in this business. 

How can we get as many proteins as possible but without 'spending' lots of calories? That's a very easy question for the excel. We create an additional colum that contains the proteins divided by calories, sort everything according to that column and look at the winners - those that have the highest grams of protein per calorie.

So the winner is soy which requires 3.6 calories per gram of protein - that's very cheap. It is followed by all sorts of animals living in the cold sea, and also egg whites. This is followed by "normal animals", and followed by cheese.

Now if we look for vegan stuff then we can see

1. Water crest - 4.78 calories per 1 gram of protein.
2. Cabbage - 13.3
3. Some mushroom - 13.4
4. Beans - 13.5
5. Lentils - 13.6
6. Turnip - 13.7
7. Pumpkin - 13.8
8. Tomatoes - 13.8
9. Lettuce - 13.8
10. peas - 13.9
11. brussels sprouts - 14.1
12. oats - 14.2
13. tofu - 14.2
14. artichokes - 14.4
15. Brocolli - 14.7
16. Kale - 14.7
17. Kohlrabi - 15.8

Down below you can find the nuts & seeds at 30-40 calories per gram of protein. This looks like a waste of calories - this is not the reason why we include nuts & beans in the nutritarian diet. The reason for including them is that the body needs fat and instead of consuming olive oil or canola oil (empty calories), we prefer to consume it from the nuts & seeds where we can still get some nutrients apart from other benefits.

Needless to say that at the end of this list are all sorts of oils, sweets, margarines, puddings, candies, alcoholic beverages, all sorts of salad dressings are that are good for nothing - in short food that have lots of empty calories.

Aviel.

My nutritarian breakfast

Hi everyone,

Just a quick shot of my extremely healthy and nutritious breakfast today...

DELICIOUS, NUTRITIOUS AND FULFILLING!!

• 2 tbsp soy or almond milk
• 1/2 cup oats (old-fashioned rolled oats)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• 1 chopped green apple
• 1 full tsp ground flaxseeds

Soak the oats in the water for the night together with the oats and the water.

In the morning add the blueberries, the flaxseeds and the apple.

I couldn't find fresh blueberries yet so I am using frozen yogurts. One package of 300 g costs ~30 IS (~9 $) and it can serve roughly two breakfasts. Expensive!

Aviel.

I am vegan!!! (starting today)

Hi there,

Yes I am vegan - that is I don't eat animal food. I don't eat meat or fish but that's no news cause I am vegetarian since I was 7.5 years old. But as a vegan - I don't consume milk, cheese, eggs and any other animal products. This is a happy day cause I have been dreaming about going vegan since I was 10 years old.

But the true story is not about the vegan way. I actually am following the nutritarian diet. My diet is way way stricter and is based on lots of green, berries, onions, mushrooms, beans, seeds & nuts. And that's about it...

In addition I eat fruits however I don't touch bread and wheat products. I drink only water and I don't touch any sweetened drink, not even artifically sweetended drinks.

Now my inspiration to all of this is a book written by Dr. Fuhrman called "The end of diabetes" which you can download directly to your kindle here.

This is not the first book by Dr. Fuhrman - the best seller one is "Eat to live" and it provides you with a dietary plan that will get you off your medicines. 

I strongly recommend this book - it can save your life.

I of course I will give way more details in future posts - but Just wanted to share this with you,

Aviel.

"

The Nutritional Target Map

Folks,

Today's posts is very important - Do yourself a huge favor - read it & comprehend it. I am going to talk about nutritional density and fullness factor and understanding this issue is the basis for understanding how the best diets in the world work. This is new stuff!!

I am familiar with 3 diets: 

• Calorie restriction that uses this concept to optimize the number of years you live on earth.
• Doctor Fuhrman's "end of diabetes" diet that optimize your chances of getting rid of diabetes.
• Weight Watchers diet that optimize... well optimize the inflow of money into the pockets of the owners.

So first of all I would like to say that all of the information from this point onward - I got from this absolutely wonderful website: nutritiondata.self.com. I urge you to take a look and use this site as a great reference for optimizing your diet.

Today I am going to talk about the nutritional target map which is nutritiondata.self.com's trademark.

Each food gets two marks: its fullness factor and its nutritional value and thus is located somewhere on this grid.

The vertical axis is the fullness factor. Foods that are located at the top are very filling. That is - you eat them and you feel full. Food that are located at the bottom part of the grid are food that you eat and eat and eat and you never feel full.

The horizontal axis is the nutritional value. Food that are located at the right side are very nutritious. That is they have more nutriants per calore. You can think vegtables here. They are full of micronutrients, vitamins, phytochemicals and you get tons of these with few calories. On the left side you have all the food that give you nothing in return - you invest your calories, but you stay hungry, your body doesn't get what it needs. This is one reason why some people can't lose weight using the weight watchers method. It is perfectly ok there to eat a cake here and there but then the person is wasting his points on something that doesn't give any nutritional benefit. Then, after a while, the guy (or actually the lady) becomes hungry again.

So the trick is to make sure that most of the food that you eat is at the right side of the grid- high nutrition density. Also you want to reduce the number of calories, you want to eat less - so that's the fullness factor - you want to be at the top right corner of this chart in order to eat less food, feel full and get as much nutrition as possible with the few calories.

Now let's look at some typical foods...

French Fries (One large please... - Mcdonald's)

Well turns out French Fries are not that bad right? The nutritional value is average, but I would say that the fullness factor is quite low - which means you will want to eat more, more, more....

OK, next...

Cheese Danish - Starbucks

"A flaky pastry folded around a generous serving of cream cheese filling" mmmhoo whooo... yum, yum, yummy. Unfortunately this is one food you should avoid - it has almost no nutritions and you won't feel full after eating it. Do you get it? Do you understand why you end up fat after eating this? it's because you are hungry for more after this, it's because it has no nutritional value and your body neeeeeds nutrition!!!

OK let's look for one healthy food that I shall consume in large quantities in my diet.

Cooked Pinto Beans

Now this is what I call an ideal food - it is very nutritious and it is filling you and soothing your hunger. Amazing stuff.

OK, my gym instructor told me to look for low fat chicken because it's very nutritious and low fat, well let's see

Chicken Breast

This one is 4% fat but it doesn't matter much. It's quite fullfiling - that is after you eat it - you are ok in terms of hunger but look at the nutritional value... - it's very average.

Now let's go back to real food - shall we?

Raw Tomato

As you can see - extremely nutritous and very fullfiling. Now this is true for almost all veggies, they are super nutricious and super fullfiling. You eat as much as you want and you can never get fat. Actually - the more you eat - the thinner you get. Do you know why? Because they are so nutritious that your hunger shall go away.

Now let's talk about oil shall we? We do need 10-30% of the calories coming from oil. So which one would it be? Yes, I can read your minds - you are saying olive oil...  let's analyze this one - 

Olive Oil

First of all - all oil products must be located at the bottom of the chart. I hope this is understood but just in case let me clarify: oil is a product that makes you gain weight, the fullfilness factor is low meaning you are going to consume tons of olive oil before you feel full and on the way you are going to add thousands of calloreis to your belly.

So this is something that is common to all oils.

Now the question is if this is the best oil we can consume - and as you can see it has miserable nutritional value. It means that when you add this tbsp of olive oil to your salad - then you are wasting empty calories. It's better if you get these calories from something nutritous...

Is there such a thing? 

Let's see - 

Almonds

As you can see almonds are not only more nutritious but are also more fullfilling. Now this is not true only for almonds, it's true for all nuts and it's even more true for all seeds. 

In summary:

• You want to flood your body with nutrients to let it feel great and nourished.
• You want to do it w/o becoming fat.
• That's why you are looking for foods that are located at the upper right corner of the nutritional target map.
• Vegetables & beans are great winners.
• Abandon olive oil - forget about this myth - get your fat from nuts and seeds.

I really hope that you understand the information above - this is so basic and so important for having an optimal body.

Aviel.