I ate the Blue Zones Diet for 30 days. Here's what happened.

we all want to live longer and increase our well-being while we're alive and to accomplish this we often pay into a massive Wellness industry that promises to do that for us supplements drinks elixirs and non-researched snake oil all promise that if we just consume their magic potion we can achieve the lifespan and health span that we want or we could just submit to our drives for salt sugar and fat and go out early with some exploding taste buds I'm definitely someone who falls prey to this marketing about health wellness and Longevity I am always trying out new products to see if they improve my day-to-day but also deep down to see if I'll live longer if there's one thing that annoys me it's the idea of dying I'm not afraid of it but there's so much I want to do in life that I want to do everything I can to live as long as I can and I wouldn't be surprised if you felt similar and so a few years ago my interest peaked when I heard about these places around the world where people were living to over a hundred and these people are just living to to 100 they were thriving apparently they weren't experiencing the same common lifestyle diseases we experienced here in the U.S they were fit they were mobile and they had their wits about them and it made me think that maybe what we think of as aging isn't just aging maybe it's the accumulation of lifestyle choices throughout time and what really got my attention was when I heard about the island where people forgot to die a large number of people on this island were living to a hundred and they weren't doing anything outrageous they weren't following extreme diets they weren't triathletes or crossfitters they weren't sleeping in cryogenic Chambers they were just living kind of like a simple lifestyle that allowed them to increase their health span and that's when I started digging into the blue zones the blue zones refer to five areas around the world with a large percentage of people who remain healthy past the age of 100. spearheaded by National Geographic contributor and candidate for most handsome Silver Fox in America award Dan buettner the goal of the blue zones project is to learn how the lifestyles of people in these areas influence their ability to live and stay healthy for over a century the five blue zones are designated as icaria Greece Sardinia Italy Okinawa Japan mikoya Costa Rica and Loma Linda California Dan has spent the last few years studying these people and seeing what factors contribute to their health span through travel photography interviews and actually sitting in people's kitchens and writing down what they cooked Dan and the team at the blue zones have put together what they see as the biggest factors in these areas longevity the factors for longevity are moving naturally having a sense of purpose de-stressing in healthy ways eating until you're 80 percent full eating a mostly plant-based diet which they call plant slant having a small amount of wine and belonging to a tightly knit community that you can count on this graphic shows that the blue zones aren't just about food it's an entire lifestyle built around good food good people good times and good mindsets honestly to me this sounded like the ideal lifestyle it doesn't include obsessing over specific nutrients following intense dietary restrictions we're spending hours at the gym each day it really just came down to eating a natural diet and spending time with people you love preferably outside and with some movement involved so it's no wonder why more people haven't heard about these factors for longevity because it's not very profitable for the corporate food machine to push broccoli and enjoying our loved ones on us are you tired of fast food and wasting your life away in front of a screen well then do I have something for you introducing vegetables these Little Miracles will help you live longer get stronger and feel better all for just a few bucks sound too good to be true well it's not with the power of vegetables you can prevent your body from screaming in internal Agony for you to just once give any ounce of nutrition you possibly can before it starts to turn on you and the best part vegetables are all natural vegan gluten free and cheap plus these little guys actually grow out of the dress sound crazy right now you may be wondering how do we actually make money off these well the answer is we we don't really at least not much you know what never mind never mind go back to Burger King eat there we'll find a way to get more cheese in your face we promise gotta meet those quarterly profit goals am I right now to get 10 off your first order of vegetables today using the code how are we funding this after learning about how easy and accessible this was I wanted a piece of this lifestyle if I could Loop to a hundred just by designing my environment and eating certain foods that sounded like the easiest way to longevity for me but I needed to put this model to the test if I lived the blue Zone's way would I feel any better would I look any different or would all of these changes be happening but just like behind the scenes internally and so to find out I did my best to live the blue zones away for 30 days the rules of this challenge were simple rule number one only eat blue Zone's recipes since food appeared to be the main component of the blue zones I wanted to focus most of my energy and attention in this experiment on that Dan likes to throw out stats that people who eat a half cup of beans a day or a cup of cooked greens a day live three to seven years longer than those who don't and so I knew this would be a focus in my experiment especially because food is so linked to health Wellness along gravity I picked up the blue zones cookbook bookmarked their website and loaded up on tons of fresh produce for 30 days I would only be eating recipes that were straight from the blue zones themselves this meant I'd be eating tons of fresh produce snacking on nuts and fruit and eating beans lots and lots of beans but more on that later okay so I have my list of guidelines here for eating in the blue Zone's way specifically so check this out first one is eating 90 to 100 percent Whole Food plant-based already do that so that'll be easy reduce meat Dairy and eggs I don't eat meat I didn't eat meat in a very long time and I don't eat dairy or eggs so this is really good go easy on fish I haven't had fish since I had food poisoning a couple years ago so that's done cup of beans a day I do like beans I eat a lot of beans so I should be able to manage that slash sugar this is going to be hard for me I have a major Sweet Tooth I love having baked goods so I don't know fruit can only do so much right like sometimes you see a nice gooey cookie so we'll see how that goes snack on nuts easy do that uh should be pretty straightforward eat sourdough this is my favorite I love baking sourdough bread so any chance I get an excuse to makeup I will do that rule number two dedicate time every day to walking outside honestly this is something I do anyway so it wasn't that big of a stretch but I did recommit to trying to spend at least an hour a day outside kind of split between morning mid morning when I got home from work and sometimes Under the Stars rule number three focus on friends and family since having a community is such an integral part of the Blue Zone sway I wanted to recommit to my own personal community and so for this challenge that meant lessening my screen time having more Hangouts with gab and our friends I know this doesn't sound like much but we're all busy as young professionals with commitments and full-time jobs and so making time to like see people or even just text them and talk on the phone is a really big factor in our lives nowadays so those are the three rules I followed let's see how it went immediately when I started this challenge I noticed the Simplicity of all the meals I was making even if they didn't look perfect every dish only required a few ingredients and they were all Whole Foods So This truly was a whole food plant-based diet in its purest form okay so it is day one of this blue zones Challenge and I'm just about to meal prep my first meal from The cookbook I'm going to use this for lunch for the next few days and I'm making some chickpea Falafel I'm gonna have some spinach and garlic and couscous on the side so this is a pretty simple recipe you just take all this stuff throw it in a food processor mash it up and then fry up in the pan so I have tried to make plenty of falafel in the past and it's always a pain I never had a food processor and it would always fall apart but with this recipe and the food processor check this out look how perfect these look some oil splattering so yeah it's a little ways away but really really nice I may have spoke too soon they like completely broke apart the pan I also enjoyed trying the different regions I had never considered trying Costa Rican food and the Italian and Greek food was different from what I've had in the past because of these specific regions they were from I did stay away from the recipes in Loma Linda except for breakfast and snacks that's just because they were more familiar and I wanted to try more meals from the regions I knew nothing about okay so I'm into the side making part of this experiment and I'm making some sweet Hawaiian corn cakes and look it kind of looks like the picture a little bit the best part though was having an excuse to bake as much sourdough bread as I wanted [Music] nice red red it's time went on the honeymoon period ended and I began experiencing some bumps in the road the first was eating out this wasn't really mentioned in the blue zones book and obviously restaurants weren't going to have the exact recipes that were in the blue zones book or on their website but also usually when I ate out it was with Gabby or our community so it was one of those things where hanging with friends I think outweighed the food aspect in that sense and I put that as part of the community category my Hunger levels were pretty good throughout this experiment although there was one day where I ran out of food before I thought I would and I didn't have nearly as much as I should have to eat that day and that day was rough so I am almost done with this experiment and I've been meal prepping throughout much of this so I haven't had to make like a new meal every day which is nice but today I kind of ran out of food and I haven't eaten nearly enough so it's one of my final meals I'm gonna make this minestrone which looks incredible I'm gonna do the red sauce version of it in addition I began taking a mid-morning walk in the woods across from my classroom every day and that was a great ritual for me to be able to get out of the school for a moment get away from the screen and just kind of walk in the woods was a great way to just move and refresh and it kind of gave me this extra pep that allowed me to get through the rest of my day of teaching but in spite of these positives there was one big problem that I faced beans so one of the things I'm noticing with the blue zones is just how many beans I am eating um they recommend eating a cup of beans a day and almost every recipe includes some type of beans so my pantry is like totally loaded with these the one thing I did notice though the first week I did not feel good at all I had a lot of stomach aches and it was like hard to digest some food and I think honestly it just came down to the amount of beans I was eating like I always ate a lot of beans I've always ate a lot of fiber but ma'am like it was rough to just digest all of that at once eventually though my stomach got used to this increased intake and I began feeling fine again which allowed me to enjoy more of this nutritious and delicious food so after 30 days I had done it I put down the cookbook and realized that I had done my best to live one of the healthiest lifestyles on the planet for a month so how did I feel and do I still live this way let's start with the positives overall I did feel really good throughout this experience my energy levels were stable and I was able to complete all of my physical training throughout the month I didn't get sick and while it was definitely lethargic on some days it's hard to tell whether that came from the diet or the increased training load I also like the Simplicity of each meal using just a few ingredients I never felt overwhelmed by the need to make dinner and each meal was very easy to put together and it was nice just having food that tasted fresh and real but like any challenge there were some challenges that made this difficult for me first after a while I got board while the meals were tasty and easy to cook sometimes I like making really complex meals that take a lot of effort and combine a lot of different flavors that are necessarily as simple as the blue Zone's meals there are times where gab would plop something down for dinner or I would recommend a meal for a coaching client and think I'm kind of jealous I really want that as soon as this experiment's over also there were some meals that I did have to adjust the seasoning for not that they were bad it's just that they were a little Bland for my taste but by adding extra spices compared to what was recommended in the book that brought the flavors out more and I really did enjoy those dishes still I would have also have liked to have more sauces and fixings for these simple meals sometimes I like to slather things in barbecue sauce or top with avocado or a homemade tahini dressing and so I did top some of my meals with those things because they fit into the blue Zone's philosophy but a lot of those fixed things that kind of Judge up a meal weren't present in the cookbook and again the beans listen I love beans I'm all for them but I just was not used to eating that much and it seemed like every single meal surrounded itself around beans which is cool but also I like a bit more variety in terms of flavor and texture and I mentioned the stomach issues before that took a while to adjust to so I'm still gonna eat a lot of beans but I don't think I'm gonna have as many meals centered around beans as I did throughout this experiment all that being said there are definitely things I'll take from this experience and apply to my daily life I love the mid-morning walk and the weekly friend Meetup those are rituals I've been keeping up with since ending the experiment in addition I think the overall philosophy around food is fantastic it promotes healthy nutritious eating without really stressing about it too much it's truly the definition of a whole food plant-based lifestyle and allows for flexibility if you're not ready to go 100 plant-based meals are simple easy and overall delicious there wasn't a single meal I didn't like even if I did need to adjust some of the seasonings to my taste throughout the experiment I felt full I felt energetic and I just felt good I'm really happy that I did this experiment I can see the appeal behind it because I felt really good for most of the month once my stomach adjusted and it was very little effort the meals were cheap simple delicious easy to make I could see how this could be like a low pressure lifestyle that can lead to better nutrition and potentially Better Health and Longevity depending on your specific situation so should you try living the blue zones way honestly I think it's worth a shot even if it just fills in some nutritional gaps you have it doesn't mean doing everything the blue zones weigh it could just mean implementing one two or three recipes from the blue zones throughout the week or following one of the principles and then adding a second one on the next week and then a third and kind of building up that way adding in more plants and Whole Foods in general really does have a profound impact on our day-to-day life plus recommitting to exercise physical movement and Community are just great ways to enhance our daily existence so if you're thinking of giving the Blue Zone to try though here is what I would recommend head to the blue Zone's website and pick out a big soup that you can make as well as a couple of sides that seem simple to put together then call up a few friends and invite them over for a dinner party when they're over eat this amazing meal that you prepared together with them sharing from the same pot eating the same delicious food and enjoying their company and the conversation you have throughout the course of dinner then after dinner take your friends out on a walk it could be around the block or just to the end of the road but move a little bit outside continue that great conversation with your friends once your friends are gone and the dishes are done take a moment to notice how you feel and that's just how you feel physically after eating that food but how you feel mentally and emotionally after putting together this amazing experience for you and your loved ones the answer to whether or not you should try the blue zones lies in those feelings thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next video

Channel: The Plant Based Teacher

Views: 52,994

Keywords: blue zones, blue zones diet, blue zones lifestyle, dan buettner, blue zones way, blue zones recipes, how to live to 100, how to live longer, plant based, whole food plant based, plant based diet, whole food plant based diet, plant based lifestyle, plant based diet for beginners, how to eat plant based, plant based recipes, vegan, vegan diet, vegan lifestyle, vegan recipes, blue zones review, blue zones kitchen, blue zones cookbook, blue zones cookbook review

Id: XhF8hDsBGa8

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2023