It's difficult to convey to people who are not whole food plant based how good it feels

Perhaps this will help...a whole food plant based lifestyle has several advantages over any other.

First let's define what a "whole food plant" is. It's the plant in it's first edible form, in other words an apple doesn't need to be cooked to eat, so don't cook it.

How many of the edible plants don't need to be cooked before eating? All the fruits, many of the vegetables, and all the nuts and seeds. All of these plants can be consumed in their "whole" form, and the advantage of that is they all contain chemical components that in a whole food form work in harmony with each other to aid digestion.

In other words they require less energy to digest, and you literally feel that excess energy that used to be spent on "difficult food" digestion flooding and animating your body and brain.

That's first and it's a biggie. What are some other advantages?

The micro to macro ratio is much higher. What that means in english is you are consuming considerably more vitamins and minerals per calorie than in the conventional western diet.

So we all know what an empty calorie is don't we? It's the complete opposite of a whole food that has all of it's thousands of chemical components intact, interacting and vibrating with health and energy. Whereas an empty calorie "food" (more accurately called a toxin) is devoid (or nearly so) of vitamins and minerals.

What empty calorie toxins do we consume most commonly? Refined sugar! We all know that one. But we actually get more toxic empty calories from another substance, and it comes from refining nuts, seeds and some vegetables until there is nothing left but pure oil, which is 100% fat with no vitamins and minerals. Some will argue some plant oils are better than others, and still have trace levels of vitamins and minerals, but a whole food plant based person will call that hair splitting, and wishful thinking.

We avoid all refined foods, and the nutrition to calorie ratio soars, and feel good energy soars.

Empty calorie toxins are also the primary reason we have so much excess weight on our bodies, which is also a drain on our most valuable resource, which is energy. And when the body does not have optimal levels of energy disease processes take root and grow.

And that takes us to another major advantage of a whole food plant based diet and lifestyle: the much lower probability of chronic and crippling diseases. The odds of heart disease developing plunge to nil, and heart disease is what kills most modern citizens of the west. The odds of coming down with any type of cancer also plunges. And something we've all been worried about recently, the odds of contracting viral diseases plunge: a robust energetic immune system is at least as effective on the whole as vaccines, and potentially more so.

You may have noticed I haven't mentioned cooked whole plant foods yet. Well I was getting to that:) Most whole food plant based folks will cook vegetables like broccoli, potatoes, squashes, beans, and grains, and include these foods as well. These are one step away from fresh off the tree and right out of the ground, and if we didn't cook them we wouldn't be eating them.

There are advantages to eating these foods, so what are they?

It gives us access to a wider range of choices, for the pleasure of variety, and the nutrients for energy and health. We want to learn to cook them minimally, to preserve the nutrients, without toxic oils. And it's surprisingly easy to learn to cook with water instead of oil, for sautés, stews, boiling, and steaming.

Eating in restaurants (socializing) can be challenging as EVERYTHING is drowning in oil and sugar toxins, it is, sadly, the standard western diet. And look around, it's easy to see the result of that! We do the best we can in those situations, which it is leagues ahead, and good enough. One learns to navigate restaurants so that your presence at the table is not an intrusion on social pleasantries. It is better to be an example than a squeaky wheel.

And social pleasantries are also necessary for a robust level of health!

I'll end on what prompted this blog post to begin with. Novak Djokovic, who many think will become recognized as the #1 rated tennis player in history, and who is, yep you guessed it, whole foods plant based. One has to know how to do WFPB correctly to get the levels of energy that can take an athlete from mid pack to head of the pack, and the good news is it's not all that difficult to learn.

And I see in the news this morning Djokovic won his 10th Australian Open title, in a comeback after being barred last year from playing in the open without having a vaccine first. Now you may wonder why on earth would he choose not to get the vaccine when it disallowed his participation in the tournament?

It's because foreign substances (which are, by definition, "not food"), have a negative impact on energy, and Djokovic, at his very high level of immune system energy, was very unlikely to contract the virus, and so then goes without saying, spread the virus.

Here's a 1 minute 30 second clip of Djokovic talking about his experience of a plant based lifestyle:

https://youtu.be/7Zcn-mwcTFs

And in a nod to our paleo cousins, if they can keep that diet going (which I gather is not easy due to something they refer to as "carb craving"), they will do much better than those still consuming a standard western diet.

Still, I will put a whole foods plant based athlete up against a paleo athlete all day long.

And if you are going to crave carbs, at least crave delicious whole food ones! (And kick refined carbs to the curb.)

One last comment! A whole foods plant based diet will also keep you younger for longer! We can all use more of that.