![Diet Plans and Nutrition [Home]](../images/everydiet4.gif "every Diet [Home]"){kind=small}
Ornish Diet
While many weight loss diets are low-fat, some fall into the category of being very low fat (where only 10-20% of the calories come from fats).
Dr Dean Ornish wrote a book called Eat More, Weigh Less. The diet he prescribed is basically vegetarian.
Dean Ornish’s Diet Outline
Meat, poultry, and fish aren’t recommended. The only dairy allowed is fat-free yogurt, milk, fat free cheeses, and egg whites.
Foods not allowed are; all fats, oils, nuts, seeds, avocados, refined carbohydrates (including sugar, white rice, and white flour).
Other than these ‘banned’ foods, the diet allows you to eat all you want without any weighting or measuring. What’s left is predominantly fruit and vegetables, and grains.
Sample Meal Plan
Breakfast
Whole grain cereal with fat-free yogurt
orange juice
Lunch
Baked potatoes stuffed with fat-free cheese and spinach
Broccoli
Potato salad with fat-free dressing
Green salad and fresh fruit
Dinner
Bread with tomatoes and capers
Wholemeal pasta with vegetables
Peaches in wine
Drinks
Water, tea, coffee, skim milk, juices.
Find other low fat recipes here.
Too Restrictive?
All extreme or restrictive diets are difficult to follow. They also run the risk of depriving the body essential nutrients and minerals. Restricting fish, nuts, and seeds immediately cuts of any source of Essential Fatty Acids such as Omega 3.
It is good to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, but current research into nutrition and causes of obesity is beginning to show us that cutting out all fat is not necessarily the way to go.
User Reviews
April 27th, 2009
This is a “plan,” a lifestyle, and the program does include all five areas: food, exercise, yoga, meditation, support group. There are decades of research results showing that one must include all of these to be truly healthy. Ornish has published many studies verifying this. If a person is truly motivated to be fit, and they still question the efficacy of this program, all they have to do is google Dr. Ornish’s research. I haven’t seen one cardiologiest in office who has a clue what this program is about, or why it requires attention to all five areas. The sad thing is that they are too lazy or disinterested to look up the research. That is why we need to actually read Dr. Ornish’s research for ourselves. If you do, you will understand why “Judy” is totally misinformed.
January 12th, 2009
I’ve been following the Ornish Reversal Diet for over 30 years now, except when I started it in 1978, it was known as The Pritkin Reversal Diet. I was 19 years old then, but inherited bad genes. My total cholesterol was 205 mg/dl. Within 6 weeks on the Pritikin Reversal Diet, my total cholesterol plummeted to 94 mg/dl and I cut almost 2 minutes from my 10K roadrace times as well! All other risk factors improved dramatically as well, but I’ll spare you those details.
In 2006, my son died tragically in a car accident 2 days before his 17th birthday. In the following three years, I increased my intake of alcohol (1-2 glasses/day red wine) and fat and cholesterol - more olive oil, poultry and seafood - the so-called Mediterranean Diet. All else remained the same - exercise, vegetable intake, fiber intake, etc. During a routine physical on Dec 3, 2008, I found that my cholesterol had increased to 195, triglycerides to 315 and glucose to 105. I had become PREDIABETIC! On the Mediterranean Diet!
So, I promptly went back on the Ornish Reversal Diet. As of Jan 8, 2009, just over a month later, my cholesterol had dropped 30% to 137, triglycerides dropped 54% to 146 and glucose dropped 19% to 85. I am super healthy again, thanks to the ultra lowfat, low GI, vegan Ornish diet!
Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking this diet is unsustainable or unhealthy. It’s not only sustainable and healthy but it is clearly the diet homosapiens were designed to be on! From the starch-digesting enzymes in our mouths to our mobile lower jaws to the long, convoluted digestive tract (carnivores and omnivores have short, smooth intestines), we are primarily vegetarian creatures who can tolerate rare intake of animal products, but they must resemble wild game and fish in that they must have a 1:1 or at least 2:1 ratio of omega6/omega3 fatty acids and contain no more than 5-10% fat by calorie, just like our ancestors occasionally consumed.
It is a misnomer that we are hunter-gatherers. Given exhaustive research into existing primitive cultures and studies of coprolites (fossilized homosapien feces), it is clear that we were primarily GATHERERS who also hunted occasionally, primarily when the hunting was easy. Hunting typically requires HUGE expenditures of energy, usually more than what the animals provided when eaten as food. Not only that, but as stated above, the grass-fed wild game consumed had the fatty acid profile of fish - omega6/omega3<2.0. Our domesticated land animals don’t look anything like wild game, with ratios as high as 30 and total fat content 4-8x higher. That’s why people eventually get sick and die in record numbers when they eat them too often!
Not only all that, but the Ornish Reversal Diet is the only plan that has actually MEASURED regression of athersclerosis via precise measurements! Atkins and Mediterranean have NOT done this yet. As Ornish found in his research, not all methods of improving risk profiles resulted in regression at the arterial level! For example, drugs can lower chol as much as the Ornish diet, but don’t result in regression in as many people or the same degree of regression as found on the Ornish diet. Worse yet, a large % of those on the drugs actually get worse, whereas 0% of those on Ornish got worse. They all had regression or stopped progression.
99% of the folks on Ornish Reversal also dramatically lowered LDL and total cholesterol, but even the folks in that 1% who couldn’t get their tot chol below 200 still experienced regression…as long as they followed the diet. No one knows why. According to Framingham, you need to get below 150 to prevent CAD.
So, until someone actually measures what happens at the artery lining on the Atkins and similar plans, I think think it’d be incredibly foolish to go off, half-cocked, and follow them, given the evidence that they actually cause heart disease. In the meantime, the only diet proven to prevent and reverse CAD (as well improve risk profiles for CAD and other diseases) is the ultra-lowfat, low-GI vegan plans like Ornish, Pritikin, McDougall and many others.
June 28th, 2009
I’m just curious how people get enough protein on this diet. Is it from the dairy products? It’s certainly not good to miss out on essential fatty acids, but maybe you could use this diet and take a fatty acid supplement that contains everything you need for the day. Then you would get the benefits of decreasing the fat you don’t need, while still keeping the fat you do. But there are probably lots of important vitamins and minerals you are missing out on as well. And we can’t forget that in order to get the proper amount of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) you need to get enough fat. It just seems to me that on this diet, there might be some nutritional deficiencies, which is never good. Hopefully, Dr. Dean Ornish has considered that, and has a plan to meet the bodies needs. If so, it is not explained here. Please don’t go on any special diet without first seeing a doctor or nutrition councilor, especially if the first time you’ve heard about it was online!