Quote from tomdavis:
If you're not insulin resistant, you may do very well on a vegetarian/vegan diet. Doesn't work for me, but it might for great for you.
During my nutrition certification studies, the mass of evidence presented indicated the whole foods plant-based diet to be the most effective at reversing insulin resistance.
Again, although a WFPB is a vegan diet, a vegan diet isn't necessarily a WFPB diet.
Insulin resistance is caused by a buildup of fat inside cells, called intramyocellular lipids. This interferes with your insulin’'s ability to bring glucose into the cells, and this called insulin resistance.
Dr. Neal Barnard, who has been studying at length the effects of a WFPB diet on type II diabetes, warns that when "beginning this kind of diet, some people find that their blood sugars go up for the first few days. If you are very insulin resistant, it will take a little time for that to improve as those fat droplets gradually disappear from your muscle cells."
The time needed to see positive results in the majority of these types of studies was three weeks. If you don't give it at least a full three weeks (without cheating), then you won't really know if the diet can be helpful.
The best way to avoid cheating is to keep a food log of everything you eat, even if it's just a taste of something. Almost everything found in restaurants will have refined ingredients such as oil and white flour, so that alone would be problematic. Also, most prepared foods from the store such as crackers, cookies, dips, chips, frozen dinners and such will have forbidden ingredients.
I definitely agree that no particular diet is perfect for everyone, but there are no known dangers to a WFPB diet as long as you get the minimum requirements for B12, which is only found naturally in healthy soil, unfiltered water, and meat.
What's most important is whether a diet measurably improves your health over time.
