Cardiologist Dean Ornish's diet for health and weight loss

Professor Dean Ornish is a cardiologist and family nutritionist for former US President Bill Clinton. Ornish is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and the creator of the author's nutritional system; he worked at the hospital for a long time; his name is known throughout the world. Dr. Ornish's diet allows you to noticeably lose weight, as well as strengthen your heart and blood vessels. The diet gives optimal results in combination with physical activity - exercises, yoga, walking, meditation, breathing exercises. But the basis of everything is proper nutrition and a special set of products.

The combination of this regime and sports training helps to quickly burn fat deposits - you can lose from 4 to 7 kg of excess weight in a month.

Dean Ornish: The Stress Diet and Your Heart

Dr. Dean Ornish's diet has become famous for its proven effectiveness in the fight against heart disease. This is not only a diet, but also a new look at your lifestyle. It includes switching to a vegetarian diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, stress management and constant health care.

The key point is eating behavior. The Ornish diet involves a complete abstinence from animal fats and limiting the consumption of vegetable fats. Excess of these elements, accumulating in the body, provokes excess weight gain, which causes heaviness, lack of strength and problems with the heart and blood vessels. Vegetable foods replace animal fats: vegetables, fruits, legumes.

The second difference between the Ornish diet and modern popular diets is the absence of a calorie deficit. You need to eat often and in small portions. This way the body gets used to the constant supply of food and does not experience hunger. But you don't need to count calories. The principle of the Ornish diet is the quality of dishes, not their volume.

Diets, especially therapeutic ones, are inextricably linked with a healthy lifestyle and exercise. Dr. Dean thinks so too. It is necessary to add physical activity to your diet: daily walks, running, fitness, yoga. Activities are chosen depending on the capabilities of the body.

When transitioning to a new lifestyle, the emotional component is important. The author of the complex suggests engaging in spiritual practice - meditation. With its help, psychological balance and harmony with oneself are achieved. An equally important part is the support of loved ones. Pay more attention to your relationships with your loved ones. Strong relationships are a sure way to stress-free and healthy. It is our loved ones who give us peace and joy, which means there will be no desire to look for these emotions in food.

Ornish diet: reviews and results

The Ornish diet is recognized as the best program for people suffering from coronary artery disease . The doctor conducted a lot of research, his technique was tested by thousands of patients and received incredible results in improving cardiac blood flow within a month, and within a year it was possible to get rid of blockage of the coronary arteries, so the technique received positive reviews from both doctors and the patients themselves:

• Alena, 49 years old: “... They tried to persuade me to lose weight for a long time, and when the excess weight began to interfere too much, shortness of breath , swelling , pain in the legs appeared - I decided to act. I can’t say that the Dean Ornish diet was easy for me, in the first weeks I really wanted sweets, coffee and meat, but the result I got - minus 10 kg in 2 months pleased me, even my doctor noted significant improvements in my health - reduced sugar and blood pressure "
• Katerina, 53 years old: “... When I was diagnosed with diabetes and prescribed a whole list of prohibited foods, I was very upset, but then I learned that this was not a death sentence, everything can be corrected thanks to radical changes in diet. Thanks to this low-fat, almost vegetarian system, I learned to eat my favorite sweets - not with synthetic sugar, but in the form of watermelon, melon, apricot, raspberry, I lost noticeable weight and the endocrinologist noted an improvement in the condition of all organs.”
• Olga, 27 years old: “...I became interested in the Ornisha method after the birth of my child, since for more than a year I could not remove the 16 kg I had gained during pregnancy. I limited myself in fatty, fried, and sweet foods for about six months, tried to supplement the menu with egg whites and milk so that it was not too vegetarian and I had the strength to actively walk and do chores with my child. The result was not long in coming - the weight is gone and is not coming back, and I got so involved that even now I try to avoid red meat, sweets and desserts, and teach my baby to delicious, colorful and healthy food - fruits, berries and vegetables.”

Nutrition rules

Dr. Dean Ornish has developed his own formula for the percentage of BJUs - Proteins, Fats, Carbohydrates in the diet:

• Proteins – 20%
• Fats – 10%
• Carbohydrates – 70%

Advantage is given to complex carbohydrates and fiber. It is forbidden to include simple ones in your diet. Fats are acceptable for consumption, but in extremely small quantities. Protein is the building material of the body. It must be present in the diet, but, like fats, in a small volume. Therefore, the diet can be considered not only vegetarian, but also low-fat.

Another difference from popular diets is that Ornish suggests dividing foods not into 2 lists - allowed and prohibited, but into 3.

What you need to eat:

• Fruits and berries;
• Vegetables and greens;
• Cereals;
• Legumes.

Products allowed in small quantities:

• Low-fat dairy products;
• Eggs, preferably white;
• Low fat cheeses;
• Salt - minimal use.

Products that are prohibited for consumption:

• Fast food;
• Floury and sweet;
• Carbonated drinks and packaged juices;
• Alcohol;
• Fish and seafood;
• Meat;
• Fatty dairy products;
• Egg yolk;
• Olives;
• Caffeine (only green tea is acceptable);
• Nuts and seeds.

If you change your lifestyle, you need to start by quitting smoking and drinking alcohol. These bad habits will not only hinder weight loss, but destroy your health.

It is important to maintain your daily water intake. For an adult, it ranges from 1.5 to 1.8 liters per day. Water starts the body's work, flushes out accumulated toxins and speeds up the metabolic process.

General rules

American cardiologist and Clinton family nutritionist Dean Ornish claims that even our genes can be changed by our lifestyle. A person has the power to overcome excess weight, having a predisposition to obesity, to avoid diabetes , hypertension and other hereditary diseases . Moreover, the scientist has developed a power system that makes it possible to expand the lumen of the coronary vessels, which previously could only be solved with the help of expensive aortic bypass surgery .
It is simply necessary to restore normal blood flow and supply the heart muscle with the oxygen and nutrients it needs. Coronary disease and other heart diseases are the number one problem in human mortality, so you should think about heart health in your youth, fight not only bad habits such as smoking, lack of sleep, but also overeating, which leads to obesity and serious heart problems.

The Ornish diet is primarily a vegetarian program that has no time limits; it is rather not a way to lose weight, but an opportunity to change your life by trying something radically new:

• the basis of the diet is 70% - fruits, berries, vegetables, grains;
• refusal of fish, seafood, any type of meat and meat (sausage) products, fatty fermented milk products and sauces, although if you really want to, you can sometimes consume skim milk, cottage cheese, chicken fillet, light mayonnaise, sour cream;
• the amount of fat in the menu is no more than 10%, which means no fried foods and preferably even olives, nuts, and avocados.

Indications and contraindications

The Ornish diet was developed primarily to combat certain diseases.

Indications for use of the power system:

• Increased cholesterol levels;
• Hypertension;
• Atherosclerosis;
• Heart attack and stroke;
• Cardiac ischemia.

Due to strict dietary restrictions, the body will receive insufficient quantities of some important elements. Because of this, the complex has a number of limitations. The Ornish diet is not recommended for older people and especially children. A weakened or not yet strong body will not be able to fully cope with the deficiency of important fats and proteins, which will lead to the emergence of new diseases and stress. A vegetarian diet is also contraindicated for people suffering from anemia or diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

Advantages and disadvantages

Menu for the week

Monday:

• Breakfast: egg white omelet with vegetables, strawberries and orange juice.
• Lunch: stewed potatoes with tomatoes and broccoli, fresh cabbage salad with carrots.
• Dinner: buckwheat noodles with vegetables, apricots.

Tuesday:

• Breakfast: oatmeal with water or skim milk, grilled tofu and bread.
• Lunch: mushrooms baked with broccoli and tomatoes, chili beans.
• Dinner: salad with arugula, bell pepper and grapefruit, potatoes baked with garlic.

Wednesday:

• Breakfast: zucchini pancakes with low-fat yogurt, apple.
• Lunch: vegetable puree soup with bread, vegetable salad with herbs.
• Dinner: spaghetti with spinach and tomatoes, apple.

Thursday:

• Breakfast: muesli with dried fruits and low-fat yogurt, pomegranate juice.
• Lunch: lobio, vegetable salad with balsamic vinegar.
• Dinner: lentil cutlets, Greek salad, orange.

Friday:

• Breakfast: Banana cinnamon pancakes, fruit salad, green tea.
• Lunch: rice with vegetables, vinaigrette.
• Dinner: stewed cabbage, grilled tofu, bread.

Saturday:

• Breakfast: millet porridge with pumpkin, bread, carrot and apple juice.
• Lunch: baked potatoes with wild mushrooms, fresh vegetables.
• Dinner: salad with red beans and vegetables, plums, low-fat kefir.

Sunday:

• Breakfast: cottage cheese casserole with dried fruits, apple.
• Lunch: chickpeas with baked eggplant, carrot salad with apple.
• Dinner: stewed eggplants with bell peppers, buckwheat porridge, mango.

The three main meals are diluted with snacks of vegetables, fruits, smoothies and light yoghurts. In addition to juices and tea, you can drink compotes without sugar, jelly and always water - at least 1.5 liters per day.

Authorized Products

The vegetarian menu of the Ornish diet consists of:

• whole grain products - viscous porridges and simply cooked in water (oatmeal, rice, millet, wheat, barley, buckwheat);
• greens and vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and even potatoes);
• legumes (red Mexican and navy beans, green peas, lentils);
• soy, for example, tofu;
• egg white;
• any berries and fruits of fruit trees (with the exception of avocados).

Table of permitted products

Is it difficult to comply

This nutritional complex has its drawbacks. The diet is deficient in fat, which may result in a lack of important elements such as vitamin B12, zinc, iron and phosphorus. To compensate for their absence, you will need to constantly take vitamins throughout the diet.

Limiting the consumption of animal protein will cause difficulties for those who have never encountered a vegetarian diet. It will take time to learn how to compensate for the lack of animal protein with a plant-based diet. Going on such a diet is difficult and not always beneficial for the body, since the restrictions are very strict. It is better to take breaks periodically and add missing elements to your diet.

Diet features

Dr. Dean's diet is, first of all, a lifestyle that includes taking care of your health, practicing meditation and yoga, sports, and eating rules. The main condition is the consumption of low-fat foods. You need to count fats, but not calories.

The main goal of the diet is to improve the health of the body. To do this, the scientist believes, it is necessary to exclude all animal fats from the daily diet and limit vegetable fats. Their excess, entering the body with food, leads to excess weight gain, resulting in additional stress on the heart, many heart diseases, and poor health.

The system that Professor Ornish developed can be considered vegetarian, since it contains virtually no animal products. The combination of this regime and sports training helps to quickly burn fat deposits.

The basis of the diet is the consumption of plant foods containing complex carbohydrates and the set of nutrients necessary for the body. Foods high in cholesterol, fat and a large amount of simple carbohydrates, which, without having time to burn, are converted into fats, are prohibited from being included in the diet.

Working on the body and emotions

Diet is one of the components of the complex developed by Dean Ornish. The new food culture requires physical activity and positive emotions. Working on your body does not necessarily mean hard training 4 times a week. Start with daily exercise for 10 – 15 minutes. Add outdoor walks, a swimming pool and yoga classes to it. Such classes are available even for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases, as they do not involve heavy loads. But at the same time, they improve well-being and relieve accumulated tension.

Many diseases and poor health are provoked by constant stress. Therefore, for complete harmony, work on your emotional state. Build relationships with people who matter to you and spend more time with them. Identify activities that bring you pleasure and devote as much free time to them as possible. Meditation practices will help you understand yourself. This may not be as simple as it seems, but it will give results in the future. According to Dr. Ornish, the human body is capable of self-healing, you just need to stop harming it.

Experts' opinion

Dr. Ornish is an American cardiologist who has received recognition from many Western colleagues. He worked for many years as a doctor in American hospitals and worked on the development of a diet that most effectively prevents the development of cardiovascular diseases, primarily coronary heart disease and heart attacks.

The first thing worth mentioning and what is a definite plus: the Ornish nutrition system is only part of complex lifestyle changes. Such changes in this program include increasing aerobic physical activity, practicing yoga, changing diet, breathing practices, reducing stress and organizing support from significant loved ones. In general, this approach is a reflection of the biopsychosocial mechanisms of the development of obesity and allows us to systematically influence the causes of obesity.

If we consider Ornish’s nutritional system in particular, it is built on a strict restriction or complete rejection of dietary fats, especially of animal origin. The percentage of macronutrients in the diet is: fat 10%, protein 15%, carbohydrates 75%. Due to this diet, the caloric content of the diet is significantly reduced, although Ornish's program does not require counting calories - it requires counting fats, including cholesterol. This should lead to a decrease in the content of “harmful” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the blood and stop the development of diseases such as vascular atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

To achieve this, the diet requires an almost complete restriction of animal foods in the diet. You should not eat red meat, fish, high-fat foods at all - sausages, cheeses, white sauces (mayonnaise, sour cream), avocados, olives; You should also not eat foods high in simple carbohydrates, that is, sweets - bread, pastries, sugar, white processed rice. As a rule, these foods are high-calorie, and refusing them automatically reduces the caloric content of the diet, due to which weight loss begins. At the same time, such a strict restriction can lead to an increase in the so-called restrictive appetite, when a strict prohibition ultimately leads to breakdown and overeating. Many people will find it psychologically difficult to adhere to such strict dietary requirements. Also, such a diet may be contraindicated for people with skin diseases (fats are needed for the formation of phospholipids in cell membranes), anemia, and can lead to loss of muscle mass (due to a deficiency of animal protein in the diet) and, as a result, to a decrease in metabolism. But in general, this food system can be considered as a relatively successful example of the formation of a diet and a healthy diet - but only for those who do not like meat or adhere to vegetarian views. This approach is unlikely to suit all meat lovers.

Low-calorie diet (Valley diet, Chinese, Japanese)

Slogan: “Fewer calories, less fat.” The effect of these diets is achieved by sharply restricting calorie intake.

.
It is very difficult to choose low-calorie foods wisely, and therefore those who are losing weight try to reduce the amount of food or, conversely, eat only low-calorie foods. As a result , there is either little food or it is completely tasteless
.

This diet is very difficult to maintain. Some of its varieties require the intake of no more than 500 kilocalories per day, which is why attacks of weakness and depression

- her most frequent companions.
And breakdowns often end in bouts of uncontrollable gluttony. And after a couple of weeks, the body adapts to the calorie restriction and stops burning fat reserves, but when switching to a normal diet, the weight returns at double the speed
. Vitamin deficiency and digestive disorders remain as memories of “hard days”.

Mediterranean type of diet

It is not a fast way to lose weight, so it definitely won’t give quick results, but it has a so-called long-term effect. With the Mediterranean diet, you not only maintain your desired body weight, but also maintain optimal health. In addition, it is much simpler than other types of diets, so its effectiveness is much higher.

Briefly, the essence of the Mediterranean diet is this. Its basis is fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grain products, all types of nuts, legumes, yoghurts and cheeses. They can be consumed every day. However, butter must be replaced with rapeseed or olive oil. Don't completely give up eggs, red meat and sweets, but eat them less often. If you can exclude them completely, it will be even better. You need to eat fish and poultry twice a week. Red wine is allowed in moderation, and you should drink six glasses of water a day. Add moderate physical activity in any form to your diet.

Studies have shown that this method definitely does not produce side effects (provided there are no serious health problems). The lower the calorie content of your daily diet, the faster you will achieve your desired weight loss goals.