Anyone doing the Fuhrman "Eat to Live" plan

Cafe Society
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This is basically a plant-based way of eating that HEAVILY emphasizes large quantities of raw or cooked greens, salads, fruit, beans. I say “plant-based” because you can make it strictly vegan or vegetarian or supplement with some fish, etc.

I have been vegan at different times, most notably when my late H was going into kidney failure and we tried that as a way of staving off kidney failure. It didn’t work and he had a kidney transplant nine months after he went on dialysis, but he dropped about 40 lbs (good thing, too, as right before he started dialysis, he put on 40 lbs of water weight). My cholesterol went down to 117.

It’s somewhat labor-intensive as virtually no processed foods can be eaten if you’re going to be strict.

I made a pot roast last week and it was very good, but somehow, I couldn’t make myself eat that big hunk of meat. Don’t know why, as it tasted okay. I’ve also had some strange allergic reactions lately, lip swelling, rashes, and feel like a zero-based eating plan might help me get a handle on things.

Anyhoo… are there others who follow this WOE (way of eating)?

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Is this the diet Bill Clinton is on?

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I’ve heard a lot about it, but I’m reluctant to try it. I know it would probably help me - I have high BP and cholesterol - but I just enjoy food too much to give up so much of it. What’s the point of a long life if I’m eating like a rabbit?

FWIW, at 6’0 and 192 lbs, it’s not like I’m a big fat fatty (yes, I’m overweight, but I’m trending downward). The only time my BP and cholesterol have ever been under control without meds is when I was an active lacrosse player and was down around 155 pounds. I’m hoping that running a half marathon in 4 weeks and then continuing to train for more races will help me get back to 170 and maybe control this without resorting to the Fuhrman craziness.

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I don’t know.

You don’t eat like a rabbit unless it’s a rabbit that lives in the produce department at Costco.. You STUFF yourself. I could barely get it all down tonight. Yeah, it’s not meat and potatoes, but it was pretty tasty and quite filling. In fact, he says in the book that the more you eat (of the greens and veggies) the more you will lose.

Fixing dinner was labor intensive. Pear-walnut salad (grated pear, baby spinach, walnuts, currants, rice vinegar, olive oil) was actually delicious. Tomato bisque I made in my blender that cooks soup. I dumped in the ingredients (tomatoes, celery, garlic, onion, shallot, sun-dried tomatoes, and a few other things) and this blender pulverizes and also cooks (it’s magic).

Go on his site and read some of the success stories.

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I saw him on Dr Oz. I believe it works, I’m just not sure it’s for me. I like chicken. A lot. And eggs. And wheat bread. Mmmmmm… Wheat bread…

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My mother is doing it and trying to get me to join her. I’m suspicious of fad diets, especially ones that make radical claims to be able to cure disease and prevent cancer. Those claims are clearly exaggerated or simply untrue–there simply isn’t evidence to suggest that any particular diet can prevent cancer. That said, my mom’s a medical doctor, and despite her tendency to go for things like this, she wouldn’t be doing it if it were clearly unhealthy. From the little I can tell, it’s a healthy diet, just an unnecessarily restrictive one. The fact that he’s been on Doctor Oz is the biggest alarm bell for me. That guy is an unmitigated quack, a fact that is made worse by the fact that he clearly has the training to know better.

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Thelma Lou - reading WOE made me smile. it sounds much healthier than the processed/non labor intensive WOE, that’s for sure.

yesterday I got to hear Dr. Ann speak and she was very inspiring as a speaker (in print she doesn’t really grab me) as she looks and sounds so healthy. she just glows with health, I mean.

and she would say there IS science to back up eating as a way of preventing cancer, as well as most other diseases.

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It’s not a fad diet. It’s just good, old-fashioned veganism. Nothing more, nothing less. Old as the hills. Who cares what the claims are? They have nothing to do with your experience of something.

If I claim that a certain shampoo will keep you from getting cavities and cause your lawn to be green, and you experience what it does for your HAIR, what difference do the claims make? Make up your own mind and don’t avoid or seek something solely because of claims.

I’m also not a fan of Dr. Oz.

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I guess I should have titled my thread “Anyone who has derived health benefits from veganism?”

Anyway. Re diet claims: For example, there are a bunch of “claims” about low carbing. However, if you’re diabetic, as I am, you can easily test those claims. For example, if I test my blood sugar before I eat, and it’s 90, then I eat a bunless burger (with cheese), a salad with oil and vinegar, a pile of broccoli, but no bread, rice, potatoes, or pasta, I can test two hours later and my BG (blood glucose) might be 92. If I eat that burger with a bun and have a few fries, I can test two hours later, and my BG might be 200. And if those results hold true for many meals… that is conclusive proof for me and my body.

But lately I’ve been in a dietary place where I can’t look at big hunks of meat and cheese (although I could still happily live inside a giant potato…). So this heavily vegetable* (“plant-based” is the buzzword, as the term vegan calls up images of tree-hugging hippies with long underarm hair-- I mean ARE there any Republican vegans?? I think not)* plan is something I’m going to try. I know it’s healthy overall. Plants are mostly carby, so I will have to test-test-test to see what effect this WOE has on my BG.

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Well, like I said, it seems like a healthy diet. But you said earlier that you could follow the diet as a vegan, vegetarian or “supplement with fish” which clearly implies that it’s not simply a vegan diet. And of course it is entirely possible to eat an unhealthy vegan diet of french fries and chocolate.

As far as the claims go, I suppose what you say is true, but you didn’t specify what kind of benefits you were interested in, so it seemed natural to assume you might be interested in the benefits actually claimed by the guy whose name is on the book you cited. I mean, if someone asks if anyone has tried homeopathy, I suppose it’s perfectly fair to give an answer of “The pills are delicious,” but it hardly seems unfair or unexpected to also mention that it won’t cure anything.

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It’s called “plant-based,” which means that the majority of your food will be vegetables. It can be vegan or not quite, but in any case, a big hunk of animal product will not be the centerpiece on your table. My point in calling it (mostly) vegan was to counter the comment that it was a “fad diet.” It’s repackaged, but it’s not new. (I’m tempted to call it “garden variety” veganism… but will resist the urge. :wink: )

I was interested in anyone’s “experience” of the plan, including shopping, cooking, storing all that fresh stuff, recipes, meal planning, plus any health benefits like diabetes improvement, weight loss, more energy, mental clarity, and the like. I’m not interested in matching anyone’s experience with Fuhrman’s “claims” (if he made any, because I skipped right to the recipe section). Claims are pointless. I’m interested in real experiences of real people in their everyday lives.

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My rule: if the diet has a name attached to it, then it’s a bad diet and people will not stick to it.

Generally speaking, people who lose weight and ***permanently ***keep it off do not adopt a fad diet, nor do they adopt a diet with a name. They simply eat less and eat better. Every day. For the rest of their life.

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Fair enough. It seems like a strange way of evaluating a diet, but that’s just me. I am curious what made you interested in this diet, especially since you didn’t read any of the health claims attached to it. Did the recipes just look tasty? Did someone you know try the diet and like it? Were you planning on going vegan and this seemed like a way of ensuring a healthy vegan diet?

Generally speaking, I guess I agree with you, but obviously these diets provide people with something. My mother is very healthy, has never been more than a few pounds overweight (if that), eats well and exercises. For some reason, she seems to get pleasure and motivation from periodically investing money and energy in one of these named diets or fitness plans, following it for a few months, and then switching to another or falling back to her regular diet. Since her regular diet is healthy and she knows enough not to pick named diets that are less healthy than her regular diet, she manages to avoid things like yo-yo weight loss and malnutrition that are typical risks of named diets. Choosing one of these diets or fitness plans for her typically means trying new recipes and/or slightly increasing her activity level with new exercise routines. It gives her variety and motivation without any negative effects.

For me, I’m moderately obese, largely sedentary and in less than perfect health. I know perfectly well what it would take to change those things (and it’s mostly what you describe) but I’m not willing to invest the energy in making those large-scale changes at this point. I try to avoid gaining weight or reducing my activity level. Trying a fad or named diet would do me more harm than good, because I know I wouldn’t stick with it long term, and I wouldn’t avoid the usual pitfalls of fad diets. OTOH, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what it would take to change largely because of doing Weight Watchers a few years ago. When I went through a job loss and move across the country, I didn’t have the energy to keep up with it, but I think I learned a lot about what kind of changes I would have to make to my thinking and lifestyle to make a diet permanent.

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From my OP:

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That was what made me think you were interested in specific health claims of the diet. If you weren’t looking at Dr. Fuhrman’s claims, what made you choose this particular diet or think it might help with anything you were experiencing (besides not wanting a big hunk of meat for dinner)?

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I guess it would be more accurate to say I stumbled across Fuhrman’s BOOK, as his PLAN (plant-based diet, which may be vegan or not strictly vegan) is something I’ve known about for decades. As I’ve emphasized, this is an old style of eating that has been re-packaged and re-branded, as it has been before and will be again. I was interested in his recipes. And because everything is fresh and made from scratch, there is the challenge of using the stuff before it goes bad.

When my late H was alive, I cooked every day and made everything from scratch, as he had many health problems, and I wanted him to have the best. I even made mayonnaise from scratch with olive oil, as I didn’t want him to have any other kind of oil. (Now you can get mayo in the store that is “made with” olive oil. Ha! “Made with…”). Since I’ve been a widow I’ve not found my footing in the kitchen yet. I like to cook, but cooking for one can be a drag. I’ve NEVER used many convenience foods. Have never eaten a bite of Ricearoni or Hamburger Helper in my life (although I love Kraft Mac & Cheese in the blue box). On my “grocery shopping” thread, I was looking for the ways people manage their grocery shopping, as the organizational part of it is a challenge to me, even for just one person.

Yeah, the health benefits interest me, but more, I want an integrated approach to diet that makes sense and that I can DO. I’m also type 2 diabetic, and low-carbing does keep my blood sugar down, but I just don’t want to eat all that meat. For no other reason than it just isn’t appetizing to me. I don’t know if this WOE will keep my blood sugar down or not. Plants are basically carbs and carbs make blood sugar go up. Period. That “glycemic index” stuff is bogus IN MY EXPERIENCE in MY life with MY own glucometer. Whole grain or not… steel cut oats or a bowl of rice krispies—> my blood sugar shoots up. I can’t really do any grains at all except in teeny-weeny amounts (like half a cup of oatmeal, and I LOVE oatmeal). I could rattle on about this at even greater length… but does that answer your questions?

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Yep. Thanks! Wish I had more to contribute, but like I said, my mom really likes it. I’m pretty sure her husband wouldn’t eat kale if he was starving, so I’d guess she’s mostly fixing meals for herself like you would be, and she said it’s easy. And like I said, she’s an MD and wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t a healthy diet.

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Actually, Alan, you have made a contribution in that your questions have got me analyzing this thing. When my husband was alive I was so careful about what I cooked. I wanted him to have the best. He had been a type 1 diabetic for over 30 years, and in addition to the kidney transplant, he had two heart attacks, a hip replacement, and just one damn thing after another. He was older than I and old-school, so the cooking fell to me, but that’s okay, because I love to cook.

But now that he’s been gone for a long time, I ask myself, Why did I want the best for him, but I’m not making/eating the best for myself? For him, I was doing it for a loved one and it was a labor of love. But am I not my own loved one? No one is going to do that for me, so I need to do it for myself.

So cooking really healthy stuff is a way I can take care of myself, nurture myself, not only with the food itself, but with the care I take in shopping, meal planning, recipe hunting, and cooking. I didn’t want a WOE that requires calorie counting, weighing, and measuring. I’d rather you tell me I can’t have rice or bread than to tell me I can only have one slice or one half cup serving. With this WOE, you choose from the pool (as it were) of vegetables, and then eat as much as you want. (No potatoes, of course, as those make my blood sugar go through the roof.)

When I eat stuff that I know isn’t good for me, it’s not that I feel guilt (I don’t feel guilt about much of anything… I think I was born without the guilt gene), but I have tangible proof with my glucometer that I am damaging my body. :frowning: Rats. I’d like nothing better than to scarf down 6 Krispy Kremes. Alas, it is not to be. Even one KK will send my blood sugar way up over 200.

Anyhoo, I just finished making a yellow bell pepper-tomato-onion-blackeyed pea thing that I tossed with some vinegar and will let marinate in the fridge overnight and eat tomorrow cold on romaine.

A couple of years ago, I found this very cool kitchen gadget at Tuesday Morning (I do love me some kitchen gadgets) called “Soup-a-Chef.” It’s a blender that cooks. You put all the ingredients in it and plug it in and push the button and it blends, cooks, blends some more and makes soup. If you don’t want the ingredients pulverized, you need to add them separately. It’s perfect for this WOE. I just made some soup in it with cauliflower, leeks, carrots, garlic, and some other stuff. To make it creamy at the end, you add pulverized cashews or cashew butter. The soup needed some tweaking… it needed umami, so I added soy sauce. Sometimes, vegan dishes lack umami, that dark, rich, depth of taste that you get in a long-simmered beef stew.

For breakfast, one of Fuhrman’s recipes is to cut up a banana in a bowl, add some old-fashioned rolled oats, chopped walnuts, blueberries, currants, and enough pomegranate juice to seriously moisten the whole thing. Microwave for three minutes. Holy crap-- absolutely freakin’ delicious! (Not that it wouldn’t taste better with two giant scoops of BlueBell vanilla… but it’s pretty darned good the way it is.)

In conclusion, this is something doing for myself to feel better physically, emotionally, and just to feel cared for. Thank you for your questions!

P.S. I’ve also started buying fresh flowers for myself. :slight_smile:

P.P.S. One of the Fuhrman recipes I made yesterday called for a dressing that sounded like it would be awful, to wit: put about 1/4 cup of raisins in a blender with a half a cucumber (I used 1 1/2 of those miniature cucumbers) and add a splash of vinegar. I used pomegranate vinegar. Sounds yukky, right? It was heavenly! Sweet, bright, tangy-- everything you want in a dressing. Who’d a thunk it? Unfortunately, it was to be used on collards that tasted like old manila folders, but I do plan to make that dressing again. (There’s a reason people cook collards for 40 minutes with a ham hock.) (Speaking of blenders, I also have a Magic Bullet. Did I mention I like kitchen gadgets? :wink: )

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Thanks and good luck to you! I like the idea of using the plan as a way to help you care for yourself emotionally. (The way you cared for your husband by wanting him “to have the best.”) I hadn’t thought about it that way.

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P.S. If your mom comes up with any really yummy recipes, please PM me. Also, tell her about the oatmeal-banana-blueberry thing (if she doesn’t already know).

Best to you, too! :slight_smile: