Top Highlights

• The foods we eat and, in fact, our meals and entire dietary patterns should be anti-inflammatory; free from industrial pollutants; high in fiber and water; and low in high-glycemic and addictive foods, added fat and sugar, calorie density, meat, refined grains, and salt. They should also be low insulin index, friendly to our friendly gut flora, par...
• a whole food, plant-based diet was found to be the single most effective weight-loss intervention ever published in the medical literature, proven in a randomized controlled trial with no portion control, no calorie counting, no exercise component—the most effective ever.5
• The one piece of advice that probably best sums up my recommended weight-loss boosters would be to wall off your calories. Animal cells are encased only in easily digestible membranes, which allow the enzymes in our gut to effortlessly liberate the calories within a steak, for example. Plant cells, on the other hand, have cell walls that are made o...
• count? A systematic review of successful weight-loss strategies concluded that given the metabolic slowing and increased appetite that accompanies weight loss, to achieve significant weight loss, calorie counts may need to drop as low as 1,200 calories a day for women and 1,500 calories a day for men.9 I set up a spreadsheet and tried a bunch of co...
• Eating whole grains is good, but eating whole-grain kernels is better. Former Harvard nutrition chair Walter Willett has argued that the term whole grain should probably be reserved for only whole, intact grain kernels.10 So, eat the wholiest of grains: intact grains, also known as groats.