PLANT BASED GAINS

WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

 01 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

Making The Change

To A Whole-Foods
Plant-Based Diet
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There’s a big misconception in some quarters that by sim-

ply dropping animal products and eating a vegan diet, we
are automatically going to have great health. This is often
far from the truth. From a nutritionists’ perspective, it’s not
very useful to just use the word “vegan” when describing
someone’s diet. Veganism speaks to their ethical stance.
Yes, it tells me what they don’t eat; dairy, meat and fish,
etc. but it doesn’t tell me what they do eat! You can be ve-
gan and eat crisps, doughnuts and ice cream. This will have
a very different health outcome to someone eating kale,
quinoa and berries! This is why it’s best to use the distinc-
tion ‘whole foods plant-based’ or ‘whole foods vegan diet’
when discussing nutrition.
 02 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

What Foods Should

You Eat/Avoid?
To optimise health and sports performance, we must base
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our meals around the following foods: legumes (chickpeas,

split peas, lentils and beans), whole grains, fruits, vege-
tables, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices. The more of these
foods that we eat, the healthier we will be. All other foods,
animal products and processed junk including vegetable
oils are best avoided as much as possible. Instead of cook-
ing with oil, choose a solid (as opposed to coated) non-stick
pan adding a little water at a time as necessary. In this way,
we can still caramelise our foods.

It may seem strange at first, but by about the third time you
will be used to it. Were you then to be served food cooked
with oil, you will likely find it greasy and distasteful and
notice that you can’t taste the other ingredients as well. If
you have the same experience as me, you’ll be wondering
how on earth you used to eat that way! If anyone tries to
tell you that we need some oil in our diets, ask them how
least healthy item that a vegan can consume. This is for a number of reasons: it’s too ca-
we managed for the other 99+% of human history before
lorically dense; contains few micronutrients; feeds pathogenic gut bacteria; has a higher
we invented the processing of foods into oil. To say oil is
omega 6-3 ratio; the omega 3 will be destroyed by heat; heating oil creates oxygen-free
healthy because it comes from olives, nuts, or seeds is like
radicals; cooking fat/protein-rich foods with oil creates more advanced glycation end
saying that table sugar is healthy because sugar is found
products that accelerate ageing throughout every tissue of the body; cooking starches
in fruit! A totally fallacious statement! To be fair, olive oil is
with oil creates acrylamides (a probable carcinogen, etc. etc.)
healthier than what it would displace - butter - but it comes
with a dozen or more negatives which I believe makes it the
 03 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE
grow muscle, it’s important to em-
phasise the more calorically dense
foods. Legumes, whole grains,
tropical and dried fruits, avocados,
nuts and seeds, plus whole nut and
seeds butters will be your friends!
Although somewhat processed,
tempeh and tofu are great addi-
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tions too and smoothies are also
an excellent strategy to get more
calories in!
For someone trying to lose weight,
this eating pattern is a godsend!
Again, we need to eat the range of
whole plant foods, but this time we
will lean towards adding more low
How Many Calories calorie, water-rich fruits and veg-
etables. In this way, it is quite pos-
sible to stuff yourself silly at each
Should You Be meal and still lose weight. The
BROAD study out of New Zealand
at the end of 2016 showed that
Consuming? people eating ad libitum (as much
as they cared for) of these foods on
average LOST 1lb of excess fat per
Now I will share with you the number one mistake I see people making week. At the same time their blood
when switching from a standard western diet to eating whole foods pressure, cholesterol, and triglyc-
plant-based. Calories! As whole plant foods come with a lot of fibre erides all came down to within the
and water, we have to eat more volume of food for the same amount healthy ranges.
of calories that we’d get from animal products and processed junk!
For someone trying to maintain mass or especially if they are trying to If you want to be more scientif-
ic about it and you don’t yet know
your caloric needs, here’s what
you need to do! Find an online Total
Daily Energy Expenditure (or TDEE)
calculator. It will ask for your vari-
ous stats such as sex, age, height
and weight, etc. If you don’t know
your body fat percentage you can
look up body fat percentage charts
for males or females and compare
yourself with the images on the
chart. It only needs to be a rough
idea. From there, you will be pre-
scribed an amount of calories that
should see you maintain your cur-
rent weight if eaten daily. This is
referred to as you ‘maintenance
calories’. In order to lose weight,
you will need to get yourself into
a slight caloric deficit or, to grow
muscle, a slight surplus. A 500
cal deviation either way from our
maintenance calories will general-
ly see us gain or lose 1lb of body-
weight. By doing a morning weigh-
in once per week after the loo and
before eating or drinking anything,
we can find what’s called our ‘true
weight’. Repeating this weekly, we
can see exactly what this amount
of calories is doing for our bodies
and make any adjustments as nec-
 04 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

How Much Protein

Should You Be
Consuming?
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So we know how many calories to shoot for, but what

should they consist of? The more protein-rich foods consist
of legumes, tempeh, tofu, and whole grains; particularly
amaranth and quinoa. Nuts and seeds have good amounts
of protein and vegetables can be moderately rich. Believe it
or not, even fruit is on average 5% protein. The WHO (World
Health Organisation) sets daily protein requirements for
the average male at 56g and for females 46g. If you’re a
gym-goer, it may be optimal to shoot for 1.62g of protein
per kilogram of fairly lean body weight per day (if you carry
extra body fat you can take in less) or for dieting purposes
nearer 2g may see you retain the most muscle mass. For a
hard training athlete trying to reach their elevated require-
ments, one or two scoops of a protein supplement may be
beneficial. For its quality, digestibility and the fact that it’s
third-party tested for contaminants such as heavy metals. with other foods at each meal. Our body’s store pools of free amino acids, so as long
as we eat the range of different types of whole plant foods, we’ll be golden! While
There is still a lot of nonsense going around about plant- we’re at it, the idea that plant proteins are incomplete is a myth too! All whole plant
based diets and the need to protein combine at each meal. foods contain all essential amino acids. The only incomplete protein in the food chain
While it’s true that plant foods can be lower in certain ami- is gelatin, which is derived from animal carcasses and lacks the amino acid trypto-
no acids, there’s no need to worry about matching them up phan.
 05 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

Healthy Sources of
Carbohydrates
And Sugars
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For carbohydrate sources, there are starch and sugar-rich

foods. For starches, think whole grains and tubers includ-
ing potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams. Many vegetables
and legumes are rich in starch too. And for sugars, there
are fruits. Don’t make the mistake of confusing a sugar in
whole foods form attached to fibre and all the wonderful
micronutrients with processed refined sugar! Health-wise
the former is GREAT, the latter is TERRIBLE! The one way
we can make it unhealthy, is to juice the fruits. Devoid of
fibre, the sugar becomes harmful in the body. So while it’s
perfectly healthy to drink smoothies, it’s best to swerve
fruit juices.
 06 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE
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Healthy Sources of
Fats
Healthy fat sources include nuts and seeds, their whole but-
ters, and avocados. It’s important to include either ground
flax (aka linseeds) or ground chia seeds daily. These are
high in the anti-inflammatory essential fatty acid known as
omega 3. Omega 6, while ALSO being essential for good
health, is actually pro-inflammatory. It’s good to have these
fats roughly in balance, and consume a ratio of no more
than about 3 or 4:1 of Omega 6:Omega 3.
 07
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Micronutrients
and Supplements
To ensure adequate micronutrients (vitamins and minerals)
it’s good to include the range of different whole plant foods.
Fruits and especially vegetables are particularly good! Try
to eat the range of differently coloured produce each day,
as the colours are the antioxidants. It’s good to emphasise
dark green leafy vegetables such as kale and bok choy too.
In terms of fruits, berries are the real superstars so I include
PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE
those daily. As we live in a sanitised world
now, it’s important to supplement with vi-
tamin B12. 39% of Americans are reck-
oned to have sub-optimal B12 levels, so
it’s wise for people of all eating modal-
ities to consider this. There are several
different types of vitamin B12, so dose by
what it says on the bottle.
If you are not getting a decent amount of
sun exposure, then vitamin D needs to be
supplemented too. The vegan version of
this is made from lichen, as opposed to
the standard version which is made from
lanolin; a secretion produced by sheep
to coat their wool. According to the best
available evidence, 2000iu/day is likely
optimal for most adults.
If we’re eating adequately of the plant form
of omega 3 and we don’t have a massive
amount of omega 6 coming in, then we
should be able to manufacture enough
DHA (the long-chain animal form of ome-
ga 3) for ourselves. However, some rare
individuals have genetic defects whereby
this is not possible. For this reason, many
recommend supplementing with 250mg
DHA daily or combined DHA/EPA (anoth-
er animal form of omega 3) daily, just to
be safe. The vegan version of this product
is made from algae oil, rather than fish oil
which is contaminated with toxins.
Any vegan version of B12, D3 or DHA
will do the job.
The last micronutrient I will cau-
tion about is iodine. We need at least
150mcg daily. It is very depleted in soils
now and seaweed is one of the few plant
foods with good amounts. 1 1/2 sheets
of Nori, 1/2 tsp Dulse or Arame flakes,
1/16 tsp kelp, or 1 1/8 tsp of wakame
would do the job. If seaweed is not to
your taste, then an iodine supplement
is recommended.
Lastly - this is less to do with diet and
more to do with exercise and wellbeing
- I am an avid user of CBD. As some-
one who works out regularly, I use CBD
oil to help with post-workout muscle
soreness and recovery. Not only this,
but CBD is excellent for keeping your
endocannabinoid system properly bal-
anced. This essentially helps to reg-
ulate homeostasis by keeping your
sleep pattern, your mood, your energy,
your appetite, your stress-levels, and
much more in check. I personally use
the Honest Hemp CBD products - you
can find a discount code for these at the
end of this eBook.
 08 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

Tracking Your Calories,

Macronutrients, and
Micronutrients
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When first changing your diet, it is worth-

omega 6 have not yet been established,
while to use the free cronometer app to so the recommendations are merely an
help you stay on track. By plugging your average of people mostly eating an un-
foods in, you will see calories, total ma-
healthy standard western diet. Excess
cronutrients, and vitamins and minerals. choline is turned into trimethylamine by
If you’re low on something, it’s easy to pathogenic gut bacteria. Once oxidised in
do a quick search to find the foods most the liver, the resulting TMAO (Trimethyl-
rich in that particular nutrient. Or if you
amine-N-oxide) causes havoc throughout
hover over the nutrient on the screen it’ll
the body. It expedites the deposition of
tell you which foods you are already in- atherosclerosis in the blood vessels and
cluding that contain this nutrient, so you
slows the clearing of cholesterol from
could emphasise those foods more. If, by the bloodstream. It also raises the risk for
the end of the day you end up a little low
certain cancers and increases the risk of
on something, don’t panic. You can sim- developing diabetes. As I alluded to earli-
ply eat a bit more the next day to make er, omega 6 is pro-inflammatory. Excess
it up! can cause pain throughout the body and
sets us up for chronic disease. So long
It’s worth noting that there are two nu- as you are eating a calorically adequate
trients that likely don’t need to be at and diverse whole foods plant-based diet
100% of the RDA/RDI (reference daily in- then you should get adequate quantities
take/ recommended dietary allowance). of both of these nutrients.
The true requirements for choline and
 09 PLANT BASED GAINS WITH HENCH HERBIVORE

Transitioning
Your Diet
Some people may struggle to go from their current un-
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healthy diet straight to eating completely whole foods.

The number one problem is the types of bacteria that
they have invited to live in the colon with their former
unhealthy diet. In order to process the extra fibre, we
need more of the health-promoting prevotella strains
of gut bacteria. These microbes are actually on the
foods, but it takes a little time for them to build up in
the gut. In the interim, it is possible that we can experi-
ence bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhoea and poten-
tially even pain. If you experience these problems and
it is too uncomfortable, it is recommended to spend a
few short weeks slowly transitioning over.

Add more of the new foods and take out some of the
old foods week by week until fully transitioned. It’s
also been postulated that, as we have been eating ex-
ogenous pre-made animal nutrients such as carnitine
and carnosine, our genes may have switched off our
own production of these. We could feel a little bad for
a while until the body recognises what’s happened and
turns their production on.
 HONEST HEMP x HENCH HERBIVORE

Thank You For

Choosing Green!
So there you have it, all you need to know to go
plant-based successfully! For ideas of what to eat
you can check out the “full day of eating” and recipe
playlists over on my YouTube channel. I also have a
cookbook over on my website, should you be
interested.
Email me at henchherbivore@yahoo.co.uk for details.

Don’t forget to use my discount codes when you

buy CBD at Honest Hemp:

PBGEBOOK for 20% off!

And check out Honest Hemp on social media too!

Good luck with your journey. I’m sure that you will be re-
warded well for making this excellent decision!

Yours,

Hench Herbivore