are whole food plant based people TOO thin?

I got too thin when I went full-on plant based the first time, way back when I was in my 30's. But I didn't really fully understand the importance of sufficient calorie intake back then, and simply assumed if I was full I had eaten enough. Well, that doesn't necessarily work on a plant based diet...if you are eating a lot of greens and vegetables you may well easily be meeting requirements for vitamins, minerals, and all the other good antioxidants etc, but still fall pretty short on sufficient calories to maintain a healthy BMI.

My assumption back then was "I must not be getting enough vitamin B12, or omega 3's, or protein", all the things vegans supposedly don't get enough of. The problem was a more pedestrian one...not enough calories. Which are not, as it turns out, all that difficult to add to a whole plant based diet.

The basic food categories on a whole plant diet that have more calories are fruits, nuts and seeds, starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, legumes, whole grain rice, etc), and certain fruits that are high in fat, like avocado and coconut.

If we're on a whole food diet we do not use refined fats however, which are extremely high in calories. In fact the vegetable oils are the most calorie dense "substance" we consume. I call it a substance not a food. Why? Several reasons in addition to the fact it is an empty calorie substance (no micronutrients): you couldn't make a meal of it (gag), you wouldn't be attracted to it instinctively for look or taste (it has no taste), and you can't find it growing in nature.

So it is not really "food". But these substances are in everything we obtain from restaurants and processed foods, and are the (more or less) "hidden" reason for the obesity epidemic. If the average American were tracking their calories accurately they would be shocked to see how many they get from vegetable oils every day. For many it would be the largest single category of calorie intake, by a fair margin.

One of the main reasons for a whole foods diet is to avoid consumption of all empty calorie substances! They are not healthy, they are not good. Oils in the diet are the perfect recipe for weight gain.

Many of the leading lights of the whole foods plant based movement are quite lean, and some would say TOO lean. A quick Google image search will show Colin Campbell, John McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn, Joel Fuhrman, Pam Popper, Neal Barnard, Doug Graham, Michael Klaper, Alan Goldhamer, Michael Greger, and Doug Lisle to all be quite lean.

Well we can assume they know by now what a calorie is and how many they want in their respective diets, so they are apparently making a conscious choice to be on the lean side of "healthy BMI range". One may or may not like that "look" (we are not used to seeing it much these days), but there are good reasons for running a bit on the lean side of healthy range. Here's a few I can think of off the top of my head: we tend to feel more nimble and coordinated, we have more energy, and it lasts into days end, when we are active we last longer before getting tired, our bodies just "seem to want" to move more! That one is kind of a biggie, really. We are healthier in general, and more resistant to common colds etc. Last, but certainly not least, we age far more gracefully, and our odds of being healthy right into our elder years skyrocket. Studies also show we live longer when we are lean.

This "lean" group of leading lights has a few things in common: widely published in popular and/or scientific press, MDs, PhDs, DCs, and advocates for an approximate calonutrient ratio of 80% carbohydrates, 10% protein, and 10% fat, and consisting of all whole foods. A big part of my own health journey has been to become familiar with all their good works in the world. As near as I can tell, they are, to a person, altruistic in their motivations.