An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

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shanyin
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An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by shanyin »

https://nutritionstudies.org/an-introdu ... free-diet/

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Some people eat only meat, but this is the opposite of that I think.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Cutting down on animal protein, eating lots of fruits and veggies is indisputably a healthy choice to make in sedentary Western societies where many people are obese, suffer from metabolic issues, etc.. Particularly in terms of issues with metabolism, etc., the evidence for adopting mostly plant-based diets is pretty strong.

Personally though, I get very suspicious once people introduce specific formulas, food-ideology talking points, etc. The basic notion of eating more fruits and veg and less animal protein has a ton of evidence backing it up, ideological points of view do not.

IMO overly restrictive diets lead to dysfunction and neuroses around food, whereas simply following where the general evidence points, without trying to be a purist (for instance, there is little discernible health difference between never eating sugar or meat, and only eating sugar or meat occasionally, outside of ideology) does not. Severe restriction and taboo creates a relapse cycle, or at least it can in many cases.

So, I am suspicious of people who claim to have some new reductive formula for eating. The stuff that is healthy is reasonably obvious, doesn’t require a specific philosophy, and doesn’t require some strict reduction in choices, just some general changes in emphasis.

In short Diets don’t work whereas well-considered and reasonable lifestyle changes just might.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -what-does

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/whe ... 0052519889

These articles address weight loss diets, but the same principles apply.

Some of this advice is crap, and ideologically based. Other parts of it are just sensible. Find a good doctor that studies nutrition and you will infinitely better off than with the diet-peddlers, In my experience, who thrive on creating impossible standards and creating a cycle of adherence, rule breaking and guilt. Diet peddlers are essentially snake oil salesmen, sorry to say.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32238384/

This study is echoed by others, basically when people try to go on "diets", it appears they may experience positive effects for a year or so, and then the positives vanish. IMO this is because it is simply the wrong approach to think there is some program you can adopt that will do the work for you. If you want to change eating habit you have to work on it as habit. Under those circumstances learning to work with food cravings, etc. using cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based methods etc. are a smarter idea than specific diet programs.
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shanyin
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by shanyin »

I was thinking of it less as a diet for weight loss and more for one for health and wellness and improving lifestyle habits. A middle way between vegetarianism and meat eating. Thanks for the great reply.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by shanyin »

Oh you said these articles are about weight loss diets but the same principles apply. Again thanks for the thoughtful and great response.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

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shanyin wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 8:43 pm I was thinking of it less as a diet for weight loss and more for one for health and wellness and improving lifestyle habits. A middle way between vegetarianism and meat eating. Thanks for the great reply.
Like I said, it seems like there is a lot of good advice there on a generally healthy diet, but diet is tailored to the individual, and that includes capabilities and capacities, needs and limitations, etc. That's why if you are lucky enough to have a good, evidence-based doctor -or- someone like a qualified acupuncturists/TCM doc, a Tibetan Medicine doc, Ayurveda doc etc. to get a program from, it probably has better long term results than following a list of restrictions.

In general, doing that has a bad psychological affect that sabotages itself.

If you read the second article I posted, it talks about what is likely successful for health long term in terms of diet...in short, you have to like what you are doing and not feel like it just "what I'm supposed to do". This holds true for exercise programs, etc. as well.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by shanyin »

My doctor told me to cut out the junk food and increase my vegetable consumption. So there I go I could start with that.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

shanyin wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:03 pm My doctor told me to cut out the junk food and increase my vegetable consumption. So there I go I could start with that.
Yeah. In my experience sometimes it good to start as small and manageable as you can. So say, for the next week or two do a certain amount of veggie meals, include 2 new vegetables, something like that. Habits are best gradually changed over time in a manageable way, if possible.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by KristenM »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:05 pm
shanyin wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:03 pm My doctor told me to cut out the junk food and increase my vegetable consumption. So there I go I could start with that.
Yeah. In my experience sometimes it good to start as small and manageable as you can. So say, for the next week or two do a certain amount of veggie meals, include 2 new vegetables, something like that. Habits are best gradually changed over time in a manageable way, if possible.
Do you know of any good resources for CBT for weight-loss/health?
I have a client I’m trying to help with that issue who is pre-diabetic.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

KristenM wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:50 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:05 pm
shanyin wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:03 pm My doctor told me to cut out the junk food and increase my vegetable consumption. So there I go I could start with that.
Yeah. In my experience sometimes it good to start as small and manageable as you can. So say, for the next week or two do a certain amount of veggie meals, include 2 new vegetables, something like that. Habits are best gradually changed over time in a manageable way, if possible.
Do you know of any good resources for CBT for weight-loss/health?
I have a client I’m trying to help with that issue who is pre-diabetic.
I mean, NOOM claims to be evidence-based and based on CBT, but it's way expensive and I'm skeptical of it, I think it's another diet fad.

Since I am mostly familiar with addiction/substance use stuff, I would take a look at the Stages of Change and it's cycle, and maybe at things like Mindfulness-Based relapse prevention, and just generally getting people to look at attitudes towards their own behaviors. Alan Marlatt was the originator of MBRP I believe, but Newa Chawa has stuff available also on "urge Surfing" around cravings for free, if you do some Google -fu. It's just meditation around learning to deal with cravings. Cravings and their triggers are big things to look at, providing someone is motivated to really do so.

The Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention workbook is good and can be applied to eating, but you really have to have someone who is fully motivated to participate, there are a bunch of MBRP videos on Youtube too.

If you haven't had training in Motivational Interviewing, I think it's vital for working with people who are engaged in trying to make changes, whether they are compelled by outside forces or their own initiative. There are a few books on it but my favorites are the original books by Miller and Rollnick and Building Motivational Interviewing Skills by David Rosengren. In my experience working with people around changing behaviors is as much about how you approach them as it is techniques. The last book is really worth it, it's dense but I spent time going over the exercises and it really helps with working with people who are contemplating change.

Mindful Eating by Jan Chosen Bays also has some good exercises for examining habits around food, it has her own take on types of cravings for food which I have not seen elsewhere and I thought was excellent.

Those are what I know about, I'm sure there are all kinds of other resources. My point of view is slanted towards addiction, but I see the same cycle of relapse in dieting and overeating that I do in addiction stuff, though often at a lesser level...so that is my bias in looking at it. Someone who worked directly in diet will know more than me by far. I am going by a combination of my professional experience and personal experience with health and diet, which is of course limited.

But I'd strongly advise learning MI if you haven't looked at it, it comes from an addiction counselor and a doctor (if I recall right at least) and their years of experience working with people around change. I consider it vital to what I do, to the point where I feel like people who don't employ it in my field are risking negligence somewhat.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by KristenM »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 10:30 pm
KristenM wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:50 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:05 pm

Yeah. In my experience sometimes it good to start as small and manageable as you can. So say, for the next week or two do a certain amount of veggie meals, include 2 new vegetables, something like that. Habits are best gradually changed over time in a manageable way, if possible.
Do you know of any good resources for CBT for weight-loss/health?
I have a client I’m trying to help with that issue who is pre-diabetic.
I mean, NOOM claims to be evidence-based and based on CBT, but it's way expensive and I'm skeptical of it, I think it's another diet fad.

Since I am mostly familiar with addiction/substance use stuff, I would take a look at the Stages of Change and it's cycle, and maybe at things like Mindfulness-Based relapse prevention, and just generally getting people to look at attitudes towards their own behaviors. Alan Marlatt was the originator of MBRP I believe, but Newa Chawa has stuff available also on "urge Surfing" around cravings for free, if you do some Google -fu. It's just meditation around learning to deal with cravings. Cravings and their triggers are big things to look at, providing someone is motivated to really do so.

The Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention workbook is good and can be applied to eating, but you really have to have someone who is fully motivated to participate, there are a bunch of MBRP videos on Youtube too.

If you haven't had training in Motivational Interviewing, I think it's vital for working with people who are engaged in trying to make changes, whether they are compelled by outside forces or their own initiative. There are a few books on it but my favorites are the original books by Miller and Rollnick and Building Motivational Interviewing Skills by David Rosengren. In my experience working with people around changing behaviors is as much about how you approach them as it is techniques. The last book is really worth it, it's dense but I spent time going over the exercises and it really helps with working with people who are contemplating change.

Mindful Eating by Jan Chosen Bays also has some good exercises for examining habits around food, it has her own take on types of cravings for food which I have not seen elsewhere and I thought was excellent.

Those are what I know about, I'm sure there are all kinds of other resources. My point of view is slanted towards addiction, but I see the same cycle of relapse in dieting and overeating that I do in addiction stuff, though often at a lesser level...so that is my bias in looking at it. Someone who worked directly in diet will know more than me by far. I am going by a combination of my professional experience and personal experience with health and diet, which is of course limited.

But I'd strongly advise learning MI if you haven't looked at it, it comes from an addiction counselor and a doctor (if I recall right at least) and their years of experience working with people around change. I consider it vital to what I do, to the point where I feel like people who don't employ it in my field are risking negligence somewhat.
Thanks Johnny, good tips. I do use Motivational Interviewing (I try), but I will see if I can check out the Rosengren book, that sounds very useful. I don't pretend to be an expert at MI, but I agree with you that it would be negligent to not use it, especially in the field of addiction. I'm sure since addiction often correlates with many other issues, including trauma, depression, anxiety, etc. that when you work with someone with addiction issues, you are often addressing the underlying reasons for addictions. All of my clients are children or under the age of 25, so addiction isn't the usual focus of treatment, but when I was a social worker, utilizing MI was extremely important. Still is, though. Thanks again.
shanyin
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by shanyin »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 8:12 pm Cutting down on animal protein, eating lots of fruits and veggies is indisputably a healthy choice to make in sedentary Western societies where many people are obese, suffer from metabolic issues, etc.. Particularly in terms of issues with metabolism, etc., the evidence for adopting mostly plant-based diets is pretty strong.

Personally though, I get very suspicious once people introduce specific formulas, food-ideology talking points, etc. The basic notion of eating more fruits and veg and less animal protein has a ton of evidence backing it up, ideological points of view do not.

IMO overly restrictive diets lead to dysfunction and neuroses around food, whereas simply following where the general evidence points, without trying to be a purist (for instance, there is little discernible health difference between never eating sugar or meat, and only eating sugar or meat occasionally, outside of ideology) does not. Severe restriction and taboo creates a relapse cycle, or at least it can in many cases.

So, I am suspicious of people who claim to have some new reductive formula for eating. The stuff that is healthy is reasonably obvious, doesn’t require a specific philosophy, and doesn’t require some strict reduction in choices, just some general changes in emphasis.

In short Diets don’t work whereas well-considered and reasonable lifestyle changes just might.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -what-does

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/whe ... 0052519889

These articles address weight loss diets, but the same principles apply.

Some of this advice is crap, and ideologically based. Other parts of it are just sensible. Find a good doctor that studies nutrition and you will infinitely better off than with the diet-peddlers, In my experience, who thrive on creating impossible standards and creating a cycle of adherence, rule breaking and guilt. Diet peddlers are essentially snake oil salesmen, sorry to say.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32238384/

This study is echoed by others, basically when people try to go on "diets", it appears they may experience positive effects for a year or so, and then the positives vanish. IMO this is because it is simply the wrong approach to think there is some program you can adopt that will do the work for you. If you want to change eating habit you have to work on it as habit. Under those circumstances learning to work with food cravings, etc. using cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based methods etc. are a smarter idea than specific diet programs.
To continue this conversation...

Yeah, relapse cycle. I was a vegetarian for about 2 years and I stopped once I was starting to feel like I was making an accomplishment and feeling healthy. Why? I don't know. But I started smoking ciggarettes too.

Were you calling some of the advice in the article I posted is crap? Or the one you posted? Not clear on that. :shrug:

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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

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The article you posted. Some of it is just ideology. That’s how most diets are, a couple of good pieces of advice (things like eating fresh veggies and fruit) then some stuff that’s just nonsense, such as beans or grains being poisonous, etc. A lot of it you might call “food ideology” disguised as evidence-based advice.

In the case of the article you posted it has some reasonable advice, but the idea of doing things such -entirely eliminating- sugar is an ideological position, being disguised as something else, in my opinion.

It is basically the same diet I have been on in the past as an anti-inflammatory measure, ordered by my doctor. It works, it’s legit, but outside of specific medical reasons or ideological ones, there is no real reason to go on it. If you have a specific reason then it makes sense.

If you don’t and just want to be healthier, you can just do a less extreme version. Cut down on sugar, salt, etc. and increase the fresh fruit, fiber and veg and such.

IMO people who casually adopt this kind of diet usually fail, and it restarts the diet/relapse cycle all over again. Like I said, I suspect that the very idea of making long term changes through highly restrictive diets has a low success rate.

On the relapse cycle, I’ve found that really black and white thinking, and the idea that healthy choices about things are supposed to ‘do something’ for you - like produce some (usually unrealistic) result leads people to relapse quicker.

That pretty much describes dieting so….
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by Hazel »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:55 pm On the relapse cycle, I’ve found that really black and white thinking, and the idea that healthy choices about things are supposed to ‘do something’ for you - like produce some (usually unrealistic) result leads people to relapse quicker.
I definitely agree with that. It's also entirely unrealistic to how bodies work and differ, from a health standpoint.
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Re: An Introduction to the Whole Food, Plant-Based, SOS-Free Diet

Post by seeker242 »

Anything from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies is good stuff. It is all based on actual science. The "SOS-Free Diet" is the healthiest type of vegan diet there is.
Find a good doctor that studies nutrition and you will infinitely better off
AKA the Doctors at the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies :smile:
The article you posted. Some of it is just ideology. That’s how most diets are, a couple of good pieces of advice (things like eating fresh veggies and fruit) then some stuff that’s just nonsense, such as beans or grains being poisonous, etc. A lot of it you might call “food ideology” disguised as evidence-based advice.
This itself is “food ideology” as the article posted says nothing, at all, about beans or grains being poisonous, etc....
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