BOSH! Healthy Vegan. Henry Firth

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СКАЧАТЬ term, but chances are it will be short-lived. They may also be very high in fat and saturated fat.

      And, if you aren’t doing the exercise plans associated with these diets, then you may not even see the benefits. You could even end up putting on weight rather than losing it, due to the high calorific content of the food.

      Crashing in and out of different diets with different approaches to weight loss, by eating less, or eating more fats and proteins, you could end up affecting your body’s metabolism. Your body has an optimum balance, and it may adjust how it operates so it can remain there.

      Unlike those diets, our approach to nutrition, healthy eating and fitness is flexible. You don’t have to be doing complicated aerobics routines every day. We’re not saying you should avoid exercise – we are big advocates of it! – but our approach to eating works independently, with you moving and getting your body active in your own way. Perhaps a brisk walk to work or cycle to and from the shops is enough to get your heart beating faster. That’s fine – you’ll still feel the benefits from eating our meals. Or, if you are a regular gym-bunny, then this book will work for you too, and later on we’ll show you how to tailor your meals to achieve your fitness goals (see here).

      HEALTHY EATING IS FOR LIFE.

      This book will help you work through a few small changes to your lifestyle (and when we say small, we mean small), to steer yourself towards a happier, healthier you: one, two, three years from now. We hope this book will help you take control of your health, your body, your food, your energy levels, for once and for all.

      By learning a few simple rules on how to nourish yourself on a plant-based diet, you can take the stress out of mealtimes for good. We certainly won’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t look like either. Loving your body as it is, right now, is more important than anything else.

      THE PLANT SLANT.

      Until recently, concerns about nutrition put some people off a plant-based diet, and the word ‘vegan’ was almost seen as a dirty word. Now, many doctors are moving towards recommending plant-based eating, and more health professionals are recommending plant-based – or as some people call it, ‘plant-slant’ – diets to patients for promoting long life, fitness, weight loss and better recovery from illness. Eating only plants – or a lot more plants – is now seen as the optimal way to eat. And it’s better for the planet and all its inhabitants, too.

      ‘I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, wholefood diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person.’

      Ariana Grande – Pop Star

      VEGGIES ARE EASY TO COOK AND GOOD VALUE.

      Vegetables are easy to cook and don’t require long cooking times: you just need to learn how to make flavours work. We design our recipes with easy-to-find foods, so you can get most things from your local stores. And eating more plants can save you money, too. You don’t need to worry about splashing out on expensive high-welfare meat. You just want fresh veg. And if you buy seasonal or discount items (plants stay good for longer) then your shopping can be ever cheaper.

      DO IT YOUR WAY.

      You may well not be vegan, but this book is still for you! The more plants you eat, the better. Maybe a totally plant-based diet is just not for you. Maybe later. Maybe never. This book is written for everyone, however many plant-based meals you choose to eat each day or week.

      ‘Not only does it help me on the court, but I feel like I’m doing the right thing for me. It definitely changed my whole life. It changed everything.’

      Serena Williams – World Class Tennis Player – on adopting a plant-based diet

      THE BOSH! STORY.

       The worst of times.

      In 2014, we were both in a bad place. Henry had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday. He woke up with ‘the fear’, having forgotten everything about the night before, and tried to work out what had happened. Luckily, save for embarrassing himself, no real damage was done. But he was also a work-hard-play-hard kind of guy, and food and alcohol were taking a toll on his life. That was the wake-up call he needed.

      Around a similar time, Ian was looking and feeling under the weather, and had been for a while. Carrying a little more weight than he wanted, and inbetween jobs, he had lost all motivation. He denied that anything was wrong, but he was spending far too much time eating junk food and drinking, and not enough time looking after his body. And he was doing absolutely zero exercise. No running, no stretching, no cycling, no weights, not much walking. Nothing.

      Both of us were making bad life choices. And these poor choices were making us unhealthy, unfit and unhappy.

      As January approached, Ian decided to give up alcohol as a personal challenge. He found it easier than he expected, so decided to up the ante and give up meat, too. As part of that process, he started reading up on meat production, and watching veggie and vegan YouTube videos. And he decided to go vegan.

      We lived together (and still do) and shortly after Ian decided to go vegan, we watched the film Cowspiracy. On discovering the environmental, health and ethical impact of animal agriculture, Henry joined Ian and went vegan overnight too.

      Almost instantly, we both felt amazing. We lost a bit of weight. Our energy levels improved. We felt generally lighter, as our digestive systems were less strained. Our hair got thicker and we slept better. Henry’s hayfever pretty much disappeared. We felt fitter and healthier than ever. Despite the fact that it was harder to find food (in 2014 there wasn’t as much choice for vegans), we felt more satisfied and more fulfilled by our choices. The overall positivity of the vegan experience was intoxicating, and so we set up BOSH! to share our love of vegan food with the world.

      The rest is vegan history. Within months we had millions of views of our videos. Within a year, billions.

      However, there was a downside. While we were eating plant-based foods – which are, inherently, healthy – the sheer amount of food we were cooking and testing was causing us problems. We’re incredibly proud of the food in our BOSH! books, but, put simply, we were eating too much! Particularly for Henry, those repeated tests to make the perfect lasagne or burger resulted in him piling on the pounds he had initially lost.

      When you immerse yourself in the vegan world, you realise just how easy it is to make vegan versions of almost anything. This is a great thing, as it shows that vegan food doesn’t need to be about abstinence. But, as any dietician, or medium- to long-term vegan or vegetarian will tell you, it’s easy to be an unhealthy vegan, or to just be eating the wrong things. After all, salad is vegan – but so are chips!

      We found that cutting meat out of our diet was a great thing to do – it helped us eat less saturated fat, and encouraged us to bring more fibre and nutrients into our diet. A plant-based diet reduces your impact on the planet and you know that what you eat doesn’t contribute to poor animal welfare – but if you’re not careful, you can easily end up low in key nutrients.

      As well as the over-eating, our increasingly busy lives negatively affected our work-life СКАЧАТЬ