Marco Borges - The Greenprint

‘I sank into a dark place – something I wouldn’t wish on anyone – because I was so obese. It was certainly no secret how big I was!’ Sauce said. ‘People in my industry were dying all around me, and I knew I had to address my weight. I reached out to Jay-Z, a good friend of mine – we grew up together – for help. Jay-Z had gone vegan, and he put me in touch with Marco.’

“PLANT-BASED EATING IS THE MOST POWERFUL, MOST EFFECTIVE AND EASIEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT – AND KEEP IT OFF.

I worked very closely with Sauce, teaching him how to eat clean, plant-based foods. I knew he could do it because of his rise to prominence in the music world. I began seeing him as a lean, energetic guy and musician – someone proud of how he looked. I immediately put him on my eating plan. As with any lifestyle change, it was tough at first, but Sauce persevered – a mental discipline he learned in his college fraternity.

Sauce kept his diet simple: lots of beans, quinoa and salads. Sure, there were a few bumps in the road, but he stuck to it like a champ. Over about two-and-a-half years, Sauce lost 90 kilos, and kept it off through his vegan lifestyle and working out five to six times a week with swimming, high-intensity cardio and weight training. He no longer has any pain in his knees. He can now stand and continue to work very long hours. Let me add that the very first change he noticed – and it happened in a matter of days – was that his complexion cleared up dramatically and he was super energetic for the first time in a long time.

Sauce told me that going plant-based was ‘the best thing I have ever done’.

Sauce made his health a main priority. And now he believes if he can drop kilos, you can, too. In my most recent conversation with him, the rap star offered these words of encouragement:

‘Simplify your diet. Begin by eating clean, whole foods: fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans. Do the best you can.

‘Become positively addicted to how great you feel. The longer you stay on a plant-based diet, the better you’ll feel. It’s like a wonder drug. You won’t want to go back to your old ways. You can’t “unknow” what you now know and feel. Keep going forward; the future is full of possibilities.

‘Get support from people who will never give up on you. For me, that was Jay-Z and Marco. They took the time to educate me. I owe them my life.

‘Change your mind-set: You have to want to live longer and better than eat bad.’

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Sauce! As he discovered, by following a plant-based diet you will control your weight, satisfy your hunger and feel comfortably full after every meal. In fact, you can eat more to lose weight!

I know this law sounds like a dream come true if you’ve been shackled to restrictive diets that leave you feeling ravenous. Even though ‘eat less’ is the mantra of the weight-loss industry, slimming down does not have to be about deprivation and hunger.

Plant-based eating is the most powerful, most effective and easiest way to lose weight – and keep it off. And there’s plenty of proof.

Following a plant-based diet fights fat around the waistline, for example. After tracking nearly eighty thousand healthy adults for ten years, American Cancer Society researchers found that men and women who ate nineteen or more servings of vegetables a week did not develop abdominal obesity – that is, they didn’t get muffin tops or love handles – while those who ate meat more than seven times a week did! Gaining fat around the waist, or developing what’s known as an ‘apple’ shape, has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

This isn’t the only study showing the power of plants as fat fighters. In a study conducted at the University of South Carolina and reported on the website of the Vegetarian Resource Group, fifty overweight adults were randomly assigned to one of five diets: a non-vegetarian diet, a semi-vegetarian diet (red meat once a week, poultry no more than five times a week), a pesco-vegetarian diet, a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet or a vegan diet. They followed their assigned diet for two months and were not required to limit their caloric intake. After the initial trial, researchers encouraged the dieters to stick to their assigned diet for another four months.

All the dieters lost weight, but the vegan group lost the most – exactly what we found in our Holy Name study. After six months, the vegan eaters had shed an average of 7.5 per cent of their starting weight. The way I see it, the exciting results of this study and others like it offer proof that a plant-based diet is an effective way to lose weight. I love all this great scientific evidence, but I’m not surprised. When clients come to me, most of them want to get slimmer and fitter. The first thing I do is show them how to incorporate more plants into their diets – and hopefully get them to go plant-based for life. At the same time, I encourage them to cut out the overprocessed foods that are slowly poisoning their bodies. Once they get on a true plant-based diet, I see them drop anywhere from 4.5 to 45 kilos (or more), as their excess fat melts away and they catapult themselves into a world of energy and vitality. All along, they are eating more food than ever before. They are not hungry, and they are shedding excess weight. Many people can lose up to a pound a day eating plants! Of course, as they’re knocking off the pounds, they are simultaneously reversing and preventing lifestyle diseases.

A few years ago, I bumped into a friend at my kids’ school. He casually mentioned that he had some friends who had switched to a plant-based diet following my dietary protocols, and that the results were amazing. I interpreted his remarks to be code for ‘I want to try it’. At the time, he was tipping the scales at 136 kilos, on a six-feet-five frame.

I thanked him for his kind words and said that I’d be happy to guide him along the way if he was willing to give it a try. That very day, he was ready to jump in. He had one reservation, however: ‘I’m Cuban, like you are, and I love Cuban foods.’ I reminded him that a lot of Cuban food is plant-based: black beans, rice, corn, yuca, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and plantains. In fact, the original Cuban diet was mostly vegetarian until the Spaniards, who ruled Cuba until the turn of the century, imported beef and pork and put meat into the cuisine. My friend was sold.

After a full day of eating plant-based, he called me.

‘Bro, you do know that I’m trying to lose weight, right?’

‘Yes, I know, why?’

‘Dude, if I eat all the food you recommended, I’m definitely going to gain weight.’ I started to laugh, then explained to him that plant foods are much denser in nutrients but lighter in calories – the essence of Law #2. For example, a 450-gram bag of spinach may be around 100 calories, while 450 grams of animal protein might be ten times that (around 1,000 calories) with zero fibre! You’ll wind up eating more but taking in fewer calories and getting a lot more fibre.

My friend sighed loudly. ‘I get to eat, I won’t be hungry, and I’m going to lose weight? I’m all in.’

Only a few months later, he had dropped more than 36 kilos, without feeling hungry at all.

Plain and simple: Plant-based eating gets results for every person I have ever worked with.

Why? What’s the secret?

Well, one of the big secrets is fibre.

Fibre is funny stuff. We eat it, but we can’t digest it, so it passes through the digestive tract, doing a bunch of amazing things for weight control and overall health along the way. As I mentioned earlier, 97 per cent of Americans are deficient in fibre. In fact, we are so deficient in fibre that it has been listed as a nutrient of concern in the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines. That’s a problem we really need to work on!