Weekly Mission

This week's mission is guest written by Mickey Z., whom I met after he spoke at the NYC Veggie Pride Parade. He's a wonderful activist, writer, public speaker and vegan personal trainer who is sharing wisdom this week for Vegans at Heart who want to get fit, lose weight, and feel great this summer.

  

At its most elemental, losing weight is a math problem:
 
Eat less + exercise more = lower body fat
 
As a result, when I encounter a client seeking to trim down, I don't automatically lead with my veganism. Instead, I suggest portion control. Let's face it, just about every American eats more food than she/he needs. This unfortunate reality presents us with a fortunate opportunity: Cutting portion size just may be the easiest first step toward better health--both physical and psychological.
 
I say this because reducing our food portions is a huge move toward developing food discipline. The satisfaction that results from taking control of our eating habits makes it easier to continue making adjustments. Smaller portions--combined with increased physical activity--will provide the ultimate motivation:  lower body fat and higher energy. This creates a triple dose of confidence:
 
*Developing self-control
*Losing weight
*Feeling more energetic
 
Once you've exercised the discipline to eat less and have felt the subsequent physical results, you'll find it less daunting to move on to addressing the quality of your meals, for example:
 
*Replace processed foods with healthier whole foods
*Cut out refined sugars and try eating more fresh fruit
*Then, of course, the ultimate goal:  Move away from meat and dairy and instead opt for plant-based foods
 
As you feel and look better and better, the likelihood of turning back becomes negligible. In fact, the worst you may have to deal with will be all the questions from those in your life. There's one query I can guarantee you'll hear over and over: Where do you get your protein? This question is borne of the protein myth so let's put it to rest right here and now:
 
The typical American adult ingests 100 grams of protein every day, roughly four to five times the amount recommended by scientists not affiliated with meat and dairy corporations. How did we develop this idea that more is better when it comes to protein?
           
One reason is the indefensible institution of animal experimentation. Since trying to discern biological trends from human to human is often impossible, what makes us think testing done on a rat will lead to any knowledge about our anatomy and physiology? The breast milk of rats, for example, derives nearly half of its calories from protein. Human breast milk is 5.9% protein. Obviously, there's little useful information to be gained from monitoring the protein needs of rodents. However, many of today's "experts" are still relying on protein requirement studies done by Osborn and Mendel on rats...in 1914.
           
What about those who believe we need extra protein if we want to run faster, jump higher, or build larger muscles? As reported by Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D.: "Athletic performance is actually improved by a high carbohydrate diet, not a high protein diet." In addition, the mainstream National Academy of Sciences has declared, "There is little evidence that muscular activity increases the need for protein."
           
So, how much protein do we need? The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says 2.5% of our daily calories should come from protein. According to the World Health Organization, it's about 5%. How does that work out in grams? A lot lower than the U.S. average of 100 grams a day, that's for sure.
           
"An adult male on a fast only puts out 4.32 grams of urinary nitrogen per day," says William Harris, M.D., author of The Scientific Basis for Vegetarianism. "Each gram represents 6.25 grams of broken down protein, so under conditions in which some protein is actually being catabolized and used for fuel, only about 4.32 x 6.25 = 27 grams/day are actually needed." Twenty-seven grams.
           
Which brings us to back human breast milk. Humans undergo their most rapid growth during infancy and human breast milk has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to become the perfect food to facilitate that growth. As stated earlier, it derives only 5.9% of its calories from protein. So, if we need less than 6% of our calories from protein during a time of intense growth, why are we consuming so much more protein as full-grown adults?
 
One more thing: Let's take a minute to discuss the food combining/complete proteins myth. Since it's really amino acids and not protein our bodies require, many on the animal-eating front try to downplay plant proteins as being "incomplete." This is yet again based on obsolete research that designates the egg as the "perfect" protein. However, even the conventional British medical journal, The Lancet, has declared: "Formerly, vegetable proteins were classified as second-class, and regarded as inferior to first-class proteins of animal origin, but this distinction has now been generally discarded." (By the way, the egg is perfect for one thing: producing a baby chick.)
           
The truth is, meeting protein requirements is more about calories than food combinations. If you're eating only from the "four food groups" of veganism you are guaranteed enough protein. These new four food groups are:

*Vegetables: 3 or more servings (a variety of green, yellow, and orange, including juicing)
*Whole Grains: 5 or more servings (bread, rice, pasta, cereal, etc.)
*Fruit: 3 or more servings (that's whole fruits and their juices)
*Legumes: 2 or more servings (beans, peas, lentils, plus: nuts and seeds)                   

More about Mickey:

Mickey Z. is probably the only person on the planet to have appeared in both a karate flick with Billy "Tae Bo" Blanks and a political book with Howard Zinn. He is the author of 9 books--most recently Self Defense for Radicals. Mickey Z. also works as a personal trainer, self-defense instructor, and urban health coach and can be reached at mickey@mickeyz.net.