I was determined from the outset that my blog would not be about weight loss. Nope, no diet talk here. You see, I am not a calorie counter. Never have been. I am not one of those women who know the number of calories in every morsel of food that passes their lips; I know some who can tell you exactly how many calories are in three bites of a McDonald’s cheeseburger, or a handful of jelly beans, or two-thirds of a bag of Doritos. Craziness.
I’ve always been a Big Picture kinda gal, more interested in the powerful impact of diet on chronic disease, like cancer and heart disease and diabetes. And how our food choices as a population are slowly killing us—which is what led me to pursue my Masters in Nutrition. But I digress.
Let calorie obsession be the domain of the myopic dieting crowd. Because with a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle, there’s no need to count calories. Instead, if I want to flex my arithmetic muscles, I can count how many pieces of fruit I enjoyed today, or how many Elaine Benes Big Salads I gobbled up this week, or the shrinking number of my pant size.
Now granted, it’s hard for a blog about WFPB eating not to be about weight loss in some way. Let’s face it: if you are overweight, which I am, you will lose weight eating this way. It’s unavoidable. And I’m not complaining. A woman who is barely 5’5″ should not weigh more than her 6’1″ partner. It disrupts the balance of the universe.
But I promise not to dwell on my weight loss. Maybe a little happy dance when I can fit into my size 12 jeans again. And an ever-so-tiny fist pump when I cross that 200lb threshold on my way back down to a healthy weight. But mostly, let’s explore all the other fabulous benefits of the WFPB lifestyle: more energy, glowing skin, better sleep, reduced joint pain, lower blood pressure, decreased risk (and in some cases, reversal) of various chronic diseases, better sex life—the list goes on ad infinitum. I say, bring it on!