Vegan Diet Guy

If your normally healthy diet goes out the window when traveling, you’re not alone.

Regardless of the type of diet you follow, temptation begins the instant you leave home. While the airlines have practically eliminated free snacks and in-flight meals, the airport, timezone changes, the waiting, lack of routine and accountability–especially when traveling alone–can all wreck your discipline.

When I heard the upscale Embassy Suites Waikiki offered a nightly evening manager’s reception, I pictured eating green salads, antipastos, and raw vegetables I had often found in Hilton’s Asian properties.

It took me 2 days to realize the happy hour’s “rotating menu of snacks” alternated between a variety of salty junk foods (peanuts, pretzels, party mix and chips), which–try as I might–I couldn’t resist shoveling onto my plate. What’s worse, I still ate a normal dinner afterward, in order to feel satisfied.

I had to make sure this situation would not continue, or I would certainly be in store for big weight gain during my vacation.

How does a traveler stay healthy, when it seems so much is out of your hands??

• First of all–it may sound obvious–but don’t select a vacation destination just because of its unbridled eating opportunities. Your subconscious mind is more powerful than you think.
• If you have a choice of hotels, check around ahead of time and choose one that offers fresh foods containing plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. (more…)

I always try to keep a batch of these protein bars in the freezer to give me a little boost following my workouts. They remind me of Clark Bars, although the last time I had one of those was decades ago. I suspect if I tasted a Clark Bar now, I’d prefer these. Without a doubt, they’re much more nutritious, too!

The recipe is from Bob’s Red Mill, and uses Bob’s 5-Grain cereal. While Bob’s doesn’t call these vegan (unfortunately, many of their recipes aren’t), they can easily be veganized by replacing honey with maple syrup. They take less than 30 minutes to make, and are really handy for eating after a workout or for a convenient and nutritious low-calorie snack. (more…)

Been thinking about your New Year resolutions?

Perhaps you’re considering going on a vegan diet, but can’t see how you’ll ever get there. Maybe you’ve dreamed about running a marathon, too, but abandoned it as impossible?

If so, just think of the expression by William Arthur Ward:

“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.”

Five short years ago, I had not begun a vegan diet, nor had I run more than an occasional 1-2 miles on the running machine (staring at the wall at the fitness club, it felt like a death sentence). Growing up, I had been a miserable athlete, skipping all PE classes from the 9th grade to save myself embarrassment.

Just as a plant-based diet often begins with small steps, such as avoiding meat one meal a day (or one day a week) or eliminating a single kind of meat from your diet, until you’ve actually begun running, it’s totally natural for you to believe you’re not capable of getting in shape to run a marathon. (more…)

Long before all the controversy over the health risks of eating movie popcorn, I would smuggle my own popped corn into the theater because it was fresh and healthier, not to mention economical (OK, cheap!). Paired up with a large cup of icy-cola, my 6-quart brown grocery bag of popcorn was usually empty before the opening credits!

Eaten in moderation, popcorn is certainly one of the more healthy snack foods, especially when air popped (contains only 30 calories vs 150 using oil and butter), and with little to no added salt. Even when you haven’t the time to see a movie, you can enjoy popcorn as part of a nutritious meal, rather than bingeing on it as a snack. (more…)

While some visitors to this site come searching for first-hand vegan diet advice and easy and delicious vegan recipes, others wind up here simply curious about how vegans can live without consuming any animal products, including dairy or eggs.

A vegan diet is widely described as a “strict vegetarian diet”, and apparently even vegetarians see it as too difficult to follow. On the other hand, many long-term vegans cannot identify with the challenges of those trying to go vegan.

All the hyperbole over a vegan diet can be overwhelming to someone just considering beginning one. To ease the journey, I recommend the term “plant-based diet”–focusing on the vast number and variety of plant foods available, instead of what you perceive you’ll be giving up.

When I first read “The China Study” and decided I was ready to take author Colin Campbell’s One-Month Challenge (“You’ve eaten cheeseburgers your whole life; a month without them won’t kill you.”), I wondered why the publisher didn’t commission a China Study diet plan and recipe book to aid the transition to a plant-based diet.

Well, Rip Esselstyn’s “The Engine 2 Diet” is about as close as you can come. (more…)

By William Santoro

A few weeks ago, I was becoming frustrated at the fact I had been exercising more frequently and eating healthier than ever–even cutting back on alcohol (mostly wine) to just a couple times a week–with little results to show for my efforts. If anything, it appeared that my weight and body fat had increased slightly!

Then a friend suggested that I may actually be eating too few calories. That didn’t make any sense to me at all, so he recommended I try out an online meal planning system, called Vitabot. Vitabot is offered by many health clubs as an added benefit for its members, and is recently being offered in an online subscription service by a small number of internet resellers. According to Vitabot’s website, their system has received critical acclaim from top nutritionists and trainers. (more…)