The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (16 page)

If you eat meat, drinking eight glasses of water a day is not a bad idea. Why? Because animal protein builds up uric acid in the body, and you need lots of fluid to flush it out. Also, your average American diet contains so much bread, meat, salt, sugar, chemicals, and caffeine that you’re basically walking around dehydrated much of the time and in need of some irrigation. However, a diet composed mainly of grains, vegetables, and legumes is fluid-rich, toxin-free, and doesn’t cause the body to build up so much uric acid. Therefore, you can just relax and listen to your thirst!

IS IT OKAY TO DRINK ALCOHOL?

Let’s be honest. Alcohol is not a health food. Yes, some studies have shown that one glass of red wine a day (or two for men) may be good for the heart. But that’s only because we’re walking around with meat-battered, stress-stricken tickers, and a little booze helps to relax us, thins the blood, and contains antioxidants. However, giving up meat and dairy, eating your veggies, and getting some exercise will do all of the above. Red wine is a pretty extreme “medicine” for a condition caused by extreme foods. Remember, it’s hard on the liver, dehydrates the body, and can become an addictive habit. A recent study done in England, looking at the health and habits of more than 1 million women, found that even moderate drinking (one drink a day) increased the risk of breast, liver, rectum, and upper digestive tract cancers.
²

So we need to take alcohol out of the health category and put it where it belongs: the indulgent pleasure category. If you are used to the occasional alcoholic beverage, go ahead and enjoy it. Life is for living fully, and sometimes alcohol is part of the picture. If you choose not to drink alcohol, that’s awesome. Personally, I rarely drink at home, but at a good restaurant with friends, I love a fine glass of red wine. And, well . . . there are a couple of weddings I don’t remember!

Armed with all these facts, I hope you can now move forward with confidence that all your nutritional needs will be met while you remain kind to yourself and the planet.
³

PART II

living the kind life

I’m assuming you want to be a Superhero. Who wouldn’t want all the benefits of great health and to see their maximum potential in life? But I also know that Superhero status rarely comes overnight and that even Superheroes have lazy days. So I’ve designed this next part to help you make whatever moves are right for you in that direction.

When you make this journey in your own way, there’s no such thing as failure. Maybe you’ll start tonight by trying a veggie dish at the restaurant you’d planned to go to for dinner. Perhaps you’ll buy some brown rice and fire it up on the stove. No matter. I believe that very powerful forces will propel you forward; first, the startling truth of the nastiness of nasty foods, and second, the mysterious, seductive quality of the Kind Foods. Once whole grains and vegetables take over your bloodstream, they will reveal how amazing you can feel . . . and that’s addictive.

So I encourage you to read all three plans in order to determine your best starting point. There is no right or wrong on the Kind Diet, and you may find yourself mixing up suggestions from different plans from the get-go, or you may work through them all methodically from A to B to C, spending 30 days on each plan. It may be that you read through these plans and one of them grabs you and says, “Do me!” There’s no right way. As long as you continue to make good choices, one choice at a time, you will learn, and grow, and feel better. And soon, the little choices will start to mount and your skin will begin to glow and you’ll find yourself standing in the kitchen a full-blown Superhero.

YOUR FIRST STEP

Here’s a little challenge: If you’d really like to experience the transformation that comes with a plant-based diet, commit to whichever plan you choose for 4 weeks.

Whether it’s Flirting, Vegan, or full-blown Superhero, it’s important that you follow it as faithfully as you can for those 4 weeks. If you choose to go Vegan, that means
really
staying away from meat and dairy. If you’re moving up to Superhero status, it means making whole grains, vegetables, and beans the center of your diet and reducing your dependence on processed and convenience foods.

I ask for your commitment because the magical, mind-blowing changes the Kind Diet can bring about will not occur if you spread that pat of butter on your toast or add that dollop of chicken salad to your lunch. Sure, reducing meat and dairy makes a difference, but feeling the greatest benefits comes from total abstinence. It’s like the difference between smoking two packs, half a pack, and no cigarettes at all. Which person has the healthiest lungs? If you’re trying to quit smoking and you bum a cig off a coworker a few times a week, you haven’t really quit. Your body is still processing the toxicity of smoking instead of using its energy to heal itself. Yes, you’ll have made big strides, but the real freedom, the deep transformation and healing occur when you smoke no cigarettes . . .
that’s
when your body switches gears. It’s the same with meat, dairy, and even sugar. So choose a plan, and do your best. And remember, it’s only for 4 weeks. That’s one menstrual cycle! That’s two paychecks! That’s four episodes of
The Bachelor
! That’s it. No stress.

See how you feel a month from now, and figure out your next move from there.

I have included some meal plans in the Vegan and Superhero sections, but they are merely springboards for your palate and imagination. If following a meal plan helps you, great. If not, that’s fine, too. Remember we’re saying hello to freedom and good-bye to rigid diets. My goal is to empower you to make good choices in your kitchen, at the grocery store, and at restaurants. The Kind Diet will give you a way of living that is flexible, doable, and yours to design day by day, meal by meal.

7

Flirting

flirting:
(verb)
to court triflingly or act amorously without serious intentions

Here’s the thing with flirting: The key is that you be open. Open to being seduced. You are putting your best foot forward and looking for the best in your potential partner. So this is about making no commitments, but remaining positive and open to possibility. When you flirt, you reserve the right to walk away at any time, but you are hoping to be surprised and delighted.

The Flirting Plan contains very little pressure; in fact, it’s just a bunch of suggestions you can implement for the next few weeks. By following them, you will get your foot in the plant-based diet door.

Action #1:
Start dating the vegetarian restaurants in your area. (Go to
thekindlife.com
and enter the keyword Restaurants to find suggestions and links to the best vegan restaurant in your area.) Ask the waiters: What’s the
one
thing that I must taste? What would make you sad if I didn’t try it?

If there is not a veggie restaurant nearby (unlikely but possible), begin dating the vegetarian options on the menus of your favorite restaurants. Where you normally buy your lunch, get the veggie option; even chain restaurants have them these days. Subway makes a sandwich with no meat, there are veggies options at the Cheesecake Factory, even a bean burrito at Taco Bell qualifies.

Action #2:
Find your nearest health food store and go. Just walk in the door and say hello. Remember: You’re just flirting. Look around. Get familiar with some of the products. Run your fingers along things and laugh in a coquettish way. Browse a few books, if you like.

Go to the transitional foods chart on the next two pages and buy 10 things you want to try. Personally, I would start with Earth Balance “butter,” Vegenaise “mayonnaise,” and some type of frozen dairy-free dessert like the Rice Dream Mint Chocolate Frozen Pie!

Action #3:
Buy some organic brown rice and unrefined sea salt. Make a pot of rice for yourself and eat it with your regular meals over the next couple of days. If you need to make a gravy for it, fry it up with some vegetables, or cover it with vegan cheese. Go for it. Just eat some brown rice and notice how it makes you feel. When it’s done, make another.

Find two recipes in this book that look exciting, and buy the ingredients to make them. Go crazy with any of the recipes in the Vegan section, but don’t be scared off from sampling the Superhero recipes, too. I strongly recommend the Thin Mushroom “Pizza” (page
220
) or Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (page
183
).

After your little shopping spree, when you open the fridge for a snack, you will have a whole new selection of ingredients to play with. Experiment! Make a vegan grilled cheese or a PB & J with a big salad. For anything you’d make with mayonnaise, substitute Vegenaise. Go for soymilk in your coffee, and butter your toast with Earth Balance Buttery Spread. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you adjust to these new foods and how light you feel with just these small changes.