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(More customer reviews)Tony Gonzalez, 80% Vegan NFL Player
All Pro Tony Gonzolez and the KC Chief's Nutritionist, Mitzi Dulan collaborated on The All-Pro Diet: Lose Fat, Build Muscle, and Live Like a Champion. For years, Gonzalez ate red meat, pizza, fast food, "whatever was plentiful and convenient." Concerned about his health, Gonzolez changed his diet. The book describes his experiments in creating his new life style, and describes how it improved his already sterling record in the NFL.
His diet emphasizes vegetables and grains, and limits animal protein to omega-3 rich fish, grass-fed chicken and meat, omega-3 enriched eggs, and some low-fat dairy. The authors also recommend a number of plant-based protein supplements.
As a successful adopter of the South Beach life style (loss of 40 pounds and greatly improved blood levels over the past six months), I found the book a useful checklist of healthy foods and a source of new suggestions for improving an already good thing. I've discovered that regularly reading books on nutrition keeps my interest in healthy eating alive, and very importantly helps maintain my weight.
A few of the useful ideas I found in Gonzales's book:
The Top 10 Best Foods (in no particular order); my addenda in brackets:
1. Blueberries [and blackberries]
2. Broccoli [and broccoli sprouts]
3. Legumes [and Beano!]
4. Oats [steel cut oatmeal and/or oat bran]
5. Oranges
6. Spinach [kale and especially Swiss chard]
7. Sweet potatoes
8. Tomatoes
9. Walnuts
10. Wild salmon [and lower on the food chain with less mercury, sardines]
[I would replace oranges with chia seeds on this list, a wonderfully healthy food; Chia: Rediscovering a Forgotten Crop of the Aztecs is a useful introduction to this nutritious food. The Cleveland Clinic publishes a similar list of the 40 "Best" foods for heart health.]
All-Pro Snack Ideas
One whole wheat pita with two tablespoons of hummus
1'4 cup walnuts or almonds
Ten baby carrots [or several celery stalks] with three tablespoons of hummus
1'3 cup guacamole with 12 multi-grain or sweet potato tortilla chips
For folks who don't want to make their own snacks, Gonzales recommends several commercial snacks, including:
Raw Revolution
LÄRABAR
CLIF Nectar
YouBar
Gnu Bar
PURE Bar
Prana Bar
Zing Bar
A couple of cautions: energy bars change their ingredients from time to time; it pays to learn how to read the ingredient list on the energy bar on offer and avoid those bars with high levels of simple sugar which will quickly raise your blood sugar levels and make you hungry in a hour or so. And, as a South Beach devotee, I've been shocked at the list of ingredients on the Kraft South Beach energy bars - they are high in fiber but contain a great deal of sugar - none of them are really "permitted" according to the principles laid out in Dr. Agaston's books.
Gonzales is a believer in smoothies, and one of his favorites is a cup of hemp milk with 3'4 of a frozen banana. A fancier example is called Mizi's Berrylicious Smoothie:
1 cup hemp milk or organic 1% cow's milk
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1 scoop protein powder (hemp or whey)
1 large handful fresh baby spinach
Blend well and enjoy!
Per 16 Ounce Serving: 282 calories, 29 g protein, 41 g carbohydrates, 3 g fat
Gonzales credits Dr. T Colin Campbell and his The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health with inspiring his successful change in his diet. The "China Study" is dense and filled with facts, but a very useful read if you want to understand the science underlying the importance of eating vegan: "people who eat mostly plants have fewer deadly diseases than those who eat animals." "The Wall Street Journal" and the excellent Healthy Happy Long Life blog written by a medical librarian [links in the first comment] provide a tremendous amount of additional information.
This book won't make you one of the highest paid players in the NFL, of course, but anyone who has successfully lost weight knows that keeping that weight off is a major challenge. This is an excellent resource for helping one both lose weight and more importantly keeping it off.
Robert C; Ross 2009
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The All-Pro Diet: Lose Fat, Build Muscle, and Live Like a ChampionA perennial Pro-Bowler, NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez has been an unstoppable force for all of his 12 years in the NFL. But for a long time, he ate like an average American: red meat, pizza, fast food, whatever was plentiful and convenient. Concerned about his long-term, post-career health, Tony decided to change his diet. With the help of Mitzi Dulan, nutritionist for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals, Tony embarked on a revolutionary new clean-eating and exercise regimen that changed his life, elevated his physical and mental performance, and resulted in dramatic, measurable improvements on and off the field. It was this dietary change that led him to break two NFL records—most touchdowns and receptions by any tight end in NFL history—in a single season.
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