| Need a Kickstart Diet? In his book, “21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart Diet”, Dr. Barnard offers a transition diet that can help you gradually moves from the Standard American Diet (SAD) toward a Vegan diet (no animal products.) The goal of Dr. Barnard’s diet plan is to have you try it for 21 days before you judge it. If it works then who is complaining? If it doesn’t work, you’ve still benefited from a diet that a significant improvement over the SAD. The diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, and plant-based protein as alternatives to animal products (meat, fish, dairy) foods. Sugary foods are also discouraged. While home food preparation is the ideal, Dr. Barnard recognizes that eating out and convenience foods are almost unavoidable. For these situations, he offers a practical way to choose wisely and stay on course. His diet involves no calorie counting and no carbohydrate restrictions. To overcome what might otherwise seem a dieting contradiction; Dr. Barnard’ s diet emphasizes eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. The idea is to fill up with good foods that help you keep you from binging on junk food. To help curb cravings, the diet eliminates the most addictive foods. Of course, sugar foods top the list and milk isn’t far behind. The rationale for eliminating dairy products and especially cheeses is that they are mildly addictive? If you guessed their addictive quality is part of natures design for helping mothers and babies bond you are on track to appreciating why being weaned from milk can help adults lose weight. Recognizing that habits are hard to change, Dr. Barnard’s food choices include generous servings and assurances of weight loss without deprivation and additional exercise routines. A pancake breakfast with maple syrup, burritos with potatoes and spinach is typical of his approach to keeping meals interesting and filling enough to keep you on the diet for 21 days. From a medical perspective, the most motivating idea for the diet are studies indicating that a vegan diet has promise for decreasing our risk for cancer and halting atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries.) In small studies, reversal of atherosclerosis has even been reported. Given that most chronic diseases and deaths are attributable to complications arising from the progression of atherosclerosis, Dr. Barnard’s diet is on the right track. Of course, Dr. Barnard’s ideas are not new. His diet recommendations are similar to ideas put forward by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn in his book, "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease,” and Dr. John McDougall in his book, "The McDougall Program." Like most diet books, the “21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart Diet” covers the health advantages a good diet can provide along with examples of people that lost weight and experienced overall health improvement. The last third of the book provides an abundance of sample daily menus and recipes. With few exceptions, most items should be in stock at your favorite grocery store. For examples of recipes typical of those in the “21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart Diet” click here. You would be right to doubt that a three-week diet is really enough time to make a lifestyle change. What Dr. Barnard believes is that three weeks is long enough to lose some weight and feel better. The hope is that small successes will breed more success as you continue to build on the new habits you have been learning. The stumbling block for many will be giving up their favorite food. Even if not sold on a vegan diet, the abundance of solid health tips Dr. Barnard offers makes the book recommended reading for anyone wanting to understand more about nutrition research and how inextricably nutrition and health are interrelated. For more about Dr. Barnard and his research, visit his website at www.pcrm.org. Again, a vegan diet is only one of many diet approaches and not for everyone. As for the idea of a 21-day diet, that’s just to interest you in trying it without feeling you’re making a lifetime commitment. Overall, the diet has many positives although the promise of eating all you want without exercise is questionable. Granted, moving away from the more addictive foods will help, however, I’m inclined to believe that most will need the self-discipline to eat modestly and keep up their exercise. You can get the book at the local library or for about five dollars have like new copy delivered to your door by Amazon. Nancy Neighbors, MD Huntsville, Alabama |