Here’s a link to a video clip of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewing President Clinton about his recent weight loss due to his plant-based diet.
Clinton says:
I went on essentially a plant-based diet. I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit. I drink a protein supplement every morning—no dairy—I drink almond milk mixed in with fruit and a protein powder so I get the protein for the day when I start the day up. And it changed my whole metabolism and I lost 24 pounds and I got back to basically what I weighed in high school.
He made this drastic dietary change to loose a few pounds but also to improve his cardiovascular health. He mentions heart health pioneer Dean Ormnish and others:
This movement has been led by a doctor named Caldwell Esselstyn
at the Cleveland Clinic, Dean Ornish
who you know out in California, the doctors Campbell (father and son) who wrote The China Study
, and a handful of others. But we now have 25 years of evidence and I thought that, well, since I needed to lose a little weight for Chelsea’s wedding, I’ll become part of this experiment. I’ll see if I can be one of those that can have a self-clearing mechanism—we’ll see…
I consider myself an omnivore, but I do believe that reducing the amount of animal products in our diets is a big step in the right direction as far as cardiovascular health and weight loss or weight maintenance goes. While a vegan diet may not be for everyone making small changes in one meal a day or even one meal a week can have a big impact.Continue reading