Simon: Eating a plant-based diet can be an excellent way to fight cancer. But if you make these seven mistakes, you can make it harder to succeed on a plant-based diet. Eating a plant-based diet is not healthy or sustainable if you break these golden rules.

In this episode, you're going to learn seven traps that you need to avoid if you want to fight cancer with a plant-based diet and succeed.

Intro jingle: Welcome to the Cancer Wisdom podcast. This podcast teaches you how to treat cancer with natural remedies without using toxic treatments. Discover how to take charge of your health and not be a slave to Big Pharma medicine. Here's your host Simon Persson.

Simon: Eating a plant-based diet is one of the best ways you can improve your health and lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Animal products contain a lot of stuff that can increase our risk of cancer, such as IGF-1 heterocyclic amines, heme-iron saturated fat, and more.

As I mentioned in episode two of this podcast, eating a plant-based diet is one of the best ways you can protect yourself from cancer.

So it's obvious when you look at the scientific research that converting to a plant-based diet can be good for you. But there are seven common mistakes that people can make when they try to convert to a plant-based diet.  

1. The first and most common mistake is not getting enough calories. Most newcomers that try to eat a plant-based diet eat far too few calories.

So a calorie is a unit of energy your brain, muscles, and cells need to function well. The calories that you need depend on your activity level and other factors.

It's like when you try to take your car from point A to point B. Your car consumes a certain amount of fuel per mile or kilometer. So if you want to take a trip from Miami to New York, then you need to calculate how much gas you need to reach the destination.

If you don't give your car enough gas, it will stall in the middle of the road. Our bodies work the same way. We need to consume enough calories to get through life. And if you are more active, you need to eat more food.

Fruits and vegetables contain a lot fewer calories than animal products. There are three major macronutrients that we need to thrive. They are fat, protein and carbohydrates. So most of your calories should come from carbs.

Plants use water, carbon dioxide, and energy from the sun to form simple sugars, which we call carbohydrates. So there are three types of carbohydrates, sugar,  cellulose, and starch. Each contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in specific configurations.

So the simplest of these sugars are sucrose, fructose, and glucose. We don't have the enzymes to break down cellulose, but it's still needed to do number two.

The body is very efficient in breaking down fruits and vegetables. And not long after we eat, we get hungry again. But since fruits and vegetables don't contain a lot of calories, we need to consume a lot of food.

The cheapest and best way to get enough calories on a plant-based diet is to eat starchy vegetables. Starchy vegetables are complex carbohydrates.

Starch is valuable because we can break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars and therefore get energy throughout the day.

Starchy vegetables include rice, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans. Starchy vegetables are cheap and contain more calories than ordinary vegetables and fruits.

It's like building a home. For a home to be stable, it needs a solid foundation. Starch should be the cornerstone of your diet, and then you need to eat vegetables on top of that.

Green, yellow and non-starchy vegetables contain only small quantities of starch. The primary role of ordinary vegetables and fruits is to add extra nutrients to starch-based meals. But they only offer quick-burning energy.  

Therefore you should add 600 to 900 calories of your choice of grains, legumes, or starchy vegetables to your meals.

So when people struggle with a vegan diet, they often eat too few calories or too many non-starchy vegetables. And when they give up and add meat, they hit their daily caloric intake and feel better. In their case, it would be smarter to add more starch to the diet.

The volume that you eat does not equal the same amount of calories. Protein, for example, has four calories per gram, and fat has nine calories per gram. And carbohydrates such as sugar, starch, and fiber only have four calories per gram.

So that's more than half the calories of meat. That means that you can eat more delicious plant-based foods than a  meat-centered diet.

When people see me eat a plant-based diet, they are shocked by how much food I can eat. I can have a big bowl of rice together with vegetables. But since it contains about half the calories, I have to eat more food to feel full. If you eat a meat-based diet,  then that would be too much food.

For fun, I looked at how much 1280  calories could give you if you tried different foods. So one Big Mac with large fries and one big soda is about 1280 calories.

If you cook broccoli, then you need about eight pounds or 3.6 kg of broccoli. A pork house beef steak that weighs less than one pound or 440 grams is also 1280 calories.

And if you cook potatoes, you need about four pounds or 1.6 kilograms to reach the same calorie. If you consume extra virgin olive, then you need only a little bit more than half a cup to reach the same 1280 calories.

So can you guess how much iceberg lettuce you need to get 1280  calories? So I looked at it, and it was 20 pounds of iceberg lettuce to reach 1280 calories. So no one would eat that much food to get  1280 calories.

The cheapest and best way to get enough calories is to consume more rice and potatoes. So you can look at the fat, protein, and carb content of different foods at www.chronometer.com.

2. Another mistake people make when they try to eat a plant-based diet is converting their Standard American Diet into a plant-based diet. That means they eat vegan burgers dripping with oil and potato chips or refined food.

So you can't just replace your meat with vegan alternatives and call it a day. Soy meats include soy protein isolate, which is a powder that contains a lot of protein. Soy can be a health food if you eat the whole food.

But soy protein isolate contains only the protein and not many nutrients. So white sugar and oils are also unhealthy because they don't contain a lot of nutrients and are processed foods.

Many people that fail on a vegan diet are animal rights activists. They only convert to a vegan diet because of how badly the industry treats animals and don't try to eat a healthy plant-based diet.

I personally know three people that went vegan for the animals but later gave up because they felt tired and had no energy.

And the reason for that was that they didn't eat enough calories and probably ate too many non-starchy vegetables and processed foods.

Before you can help the animals, you need to help yourself first. It's like when you go flying. If there is an emergency, you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself before your child because if you become unconscious, it's harder for your kid to help you than the other way around.

So the healthiest diet you can eat is a whole, low-fat, plant-based diet. A whole food plant-based diet consists of whole unrefined or little refined plants.

So it's based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. They contain all the nutrients that you need to be healthy.

To succeed on a plant-based diet, you need to eliminate all animal products and junk foods from your home. It's really easy to fail when you allow yourself to consume some animal foods or processed foods.

It's like an alcoholic. If an alcoholic wants to quit alcohol, then he must go cold turkey because if he allows himself to take one shot per week, then he will drink the whole bottle.

So therefore, you need to throw away all junk foods from your fridge and pantry or give them away. When you eat a healthy diet, then your cravings will disappear after a short time.

3. Another mistake newcomers make on a plant-based diet is when they consume oils and a lot of fats. It's vital that you limit your fat intake on a plant-based diet. 

Fat makes you sick and obese. Excess fat can cause heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Our bodies are not that great at handling too much fat.

You should especially avoid vegetable oils. They contain 100% fat, no nutrients, and are the most calorie-dense substance you can eat. Every vegetable oil is unhealthy, even coconut and olive oil.

You don't need to eat vegetable oils or animal products to get enough fat. Vegetables and fruit contain fat, and they have enough fat to sustain you.

We don't need to consume that much fat to be healthy. Your diet should consist of about 80% carbs, 10% protein, and 10% fat.

To maintain this ratio, focus on four foods: vegetables, fruits, beans, and grains. And limit your intake of nuts, seeds, avocados, and other foods that contain a lot of fat. These foods are whole foods, but they still have a lot of fat, which is not good in the long run.

I looked at the fat content of vegetables that contain a lot of fat. For example,  walnuts that are raw contain about 83% fat. Avocados have about 70% fat, and sunflower seeds contain about 74% fat.

Hazelnut has a staggering 81% fat. And as I mentioned before, extra virgin olive oil has 100% fat. And then I looked at potatoes, and they contain only 1% fat.

4. Another reason why people fail on a plant-based diet is when they don't have a clear goal. So you need to have a strong reason why you want to do it. 

Is your aim to defeat your cancer, lose weight, get more energy, or save the planet? So you should write down your goal and why you want to eat a plant-based diet. And then, you should look at your goal daily.  

When you have a higher purpose, it's much easier to stick to your diet when things get hard. So if you have any hesitation about sticking to your diet, think about the rewards you will get if you continue it. Reflect on your good health and happiness when you feed your body the best food.

Pick a date when you want to start to eat 100% plant-based and try it for a year or shorter. So, in the beginning, it's better to go slow.

Learn some recipes and slowly try to replace your animal-based meals. In the beginning, it might seem that there's nothing to eat but salad. But you will realize that there are many different vegetables and fruits that you can eat.

Buy a vegan recipe book or find recipes online. Find about 14 recipes that you enjoy and then use them to go full-time. So my goal was to eat a vegetarian diet for one year. I didn't eat any animal products except dairy.

After ten days, I had a lot more energy, and I couldn't go back to a meat-centered diet because I felt so much better by eating plants. And later, when I learned more about the negative effects of dairy and how it's like liquid meat, I finally went 100% plant-based.

5. Another mistake that people can make on a plant-based diet is worrying about what other people think of them. Your family or friends can oppose your diet change and try to convince you that it's unhealthy to eat a plant-based diet.

When I wanted to go vegetarian, my mom told me that I wouldn't be invited to family dinners. But later, she changed her mind. So one lie your family and friends might repeat is that plants don't contain enough protein. But that's just a myth.

If your family doesn't want to go plant-based, then you shouldn't force them. Instead, you can prepare your vegan dishes and then add the meat to their food. You can also serve them vegan food without being forceful and try to inspire them.

And if they try to convince you that your diet is unhealthy, then you need to educate yourself more about the health benefits of a plant-based diet. So one good source is www.nutritionfacts.org or our homepage www.cancerwisdom.net.

When you learn more about this topic and feel better, their arguments will not stand, and you will shake them off. When people try to criticize my diet, I have a lot of counterarguments, and they can't affect me anymore.

One of the reasons why I didn't go plant-based in the beginning was that I worried about what others would think of me and that I would be a big inconvenience.

But as I learned more about a plant-based diet, I finally decided that my health was more important than other people's opinions of me.

Do it for yourself and not others. But whether they accept you or not, it's not your problem. Your goal is to become healthy.

6. Another mistake on a plant-based diet is to eat a raw food diet. As I told you before, fruits and vegetables contain very few calories. And since it prohibits you from eating cooked food, then you can't eat starchy vegetables, such as rice and potatoes.

And that means you need to eat a lot of food to succeed on this diet. So I looked at the YouTube channel, FullyRawKristina, and in one video, she told the audience that she spent about $200 per week on groceries.

When I saw her video, I didn't understand why she had to eat so much food. But later, when I understood about the calories in vegetarian food, it made sense.

I have also looked at many ex-vegans on YouTube,  and one of the major reasons why they fail is when they eat a raw food diet.

But eventually, it's too hard for them to eat enough calories to sustain themselves on this diet. They usually fail when they have low energy and then try to eat animal foods and feel better.

If you want to fight cancer with a  plant-based diet, you don't need to eat a raw food diet. It's better for you to eat cooked food because that gives you access to starchy vegetables.

7. Another mistake people make on a plant-based diet is when they don't get enough B12. So a plant-based diet can give us most of the nutrients we need except B12 and vitamin D3.

You can still get B12 and vitamin D3 in fortified foods. It's bacteria that create B12. Our ancestors got B12 from spring water or from the dirt.

But since wastewater treatment plants kill bacteria and we don't grow our own food,  it can become almost impossible to get B12 on a plant-based diet. So therefore, you need to take a B12 supplement on a fully plant-based diet.  

Vitamin D comes from the sun. So it's extremely hard to get enough vitamin D from your diet. Your body produces inactive vitamin D3 through the skin when UVB rates hit the skin, and then your kidney and liver activate the inactive vitamin D3. The sun is by far the best way to get vitamin D.

Plants contain all the other minerals and vitamins that you need to be healthy. You shouldn't consume that many supplements, only B12  or vitamin D supplements, if you live in a country where you can't get enough vitamin D during the winter.

So, if you want to learn more about this topic, then you should read the Ultimate Cancer Diet And Nutrition Guide to learn more about plant nutrition.

In this guide, you will learn more about macro and micronutrients and how to get enough calories on a plant-based diet. And you will also learn how to stay healthy by eating a plant-based diet. So I will put a link to this guide in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.