Take the New Year Health Challenge!

Happy New Year! The holiday season is always a joyous time of year, especially when family and friends fill our homes to celebrate! And of course no holiday festivity would be complete without the many hours of preparing and sharing a delicious meal, making the event even more memorable.

Celebratory meals typically include many rich, calorie-dense foods; resulting in a 5-10 pound weight gain for most. For those that are young, trim and healthy, an occasional treat on special holidays would most likely not have a negative impact on overall health if it was an exception for those that consume an extremely healthy diet the rest of the year. Yet for many, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of a 5-week long feast on disease-promoting foods. Compromising healthful food choices even temporarily, produces adverse and immediate health consequences. In fact, the majority of heart attacks occur during the holiday season.

If you're feeling the ill-effects from over-indulging and are ready to make the transition to a whole-food, plant-based diet, sign up for one or all of the free programs below! After many weeks of feasting on highly addictive foods, taking the first few steps can be the hardest. These programs will walk you through the steps, offer support, and will equip you to meet your health goals for the coming year!

Free Engine 2 Nationwide 28-day Challenge

Rip Esselstyn from the Engine 2 Diet, has combined the basic concepts of plant-based nutrition into a 28-day, Nationwide Engine 2 Challenge.

Sign up for free, download the e-book, and follow along with Rip, as he demonstrates step-by-step, how to overhaul your kitchen by removing disease promoting foods and replacing them with delicious, health-promoting, plant foods. Rip also offers meal planning suggestions, recipes, shopping lists, and a guided grocery store tour. Rip takes the guess work out of switching to a whole-food, nutrient-dense, plant-based diet, making it an easier transition. To begin Rip Esselstyn's 28-Day Engine 2 Diet Challenge, click here.

Free 21-Day Vegan Kick Start Program by PCRM

PCRM (Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine) offers a "21-day Vegan Kick Start Program" that begins the first day of every month. However, you may register for it at any time during the month.

If you're interested in exploring the health benefits of a plant-based diet, it only requires a name and email address to register. For 21 days, you'll receive an email which will include meal plans, grocery lists, shopping guides, celebrity tips, video clips, nutritional guidance, a community forum, and a personal health tracker (which monitors your blood pressure, weight loss, blood tests, etc for the year). However much or little you decide to participate, it's loaded with lots of educational and encouraging information!

To preview the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Program by PCRM, click here. To begin the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart Program by PCRM, click here.

Forks Over Knives Online Cooking Course (tuition)

Beginning January 5, 2016 Forks Over Knives will offer an online class that starts with the basics and works up to over 100 whole-food, plant-based, no-added-oil recipes that will keep you on the delicious path of plant-based health. Over the course of three months, Forks Over Knives presents a nine-unit cooking course led by world-renowned chefs and educators Chad Sarno and Ken Rubin. The online nature of the course allows you to study at your own pace, plus it offers interactive quizzes and instructor-graded activities to provide personalized feedback. This class allows you to earn credits from the American Culinary Federation Education Foundation while developing your ability to cook with "plant-based foods and flavor principles from around the world." To learn more or sign up for the January session, visit their website at forksoverknives.com/cooking-course/. Also, be sure to pick up a copy of the Forks Over Knives Plan to help you and your loved ones transition in a way that is simple, delicious, and sustainable for a lifetime." For additional information, view the Forks Over Knives Documentary.

Free McDougall Program

Dr. John McDougall's free program is the most comprehensive. His website offers educational information covering many topics including genetics, nutritional requirements, and how the standard American diet promotes disease.

"Mary and I have held nothing back in our Free McDougall Program. My program contains all of the information you need to successfully change your diet and lifestyle in order to quickly regain control of your health and appearance. The Free McDougall Program puts recovery from chronic disease and attainment of excellent health within everyone's reach."

For over 40+ years, Dr. McDougall has been studying, writing and speaking about the correlation between nutrition and disease. Dr. McDougall is the most influential and prominent physician of all the nutritional experts who specialize in the prevention and reversal of dietary-induced disease. He founded and serves as the medical director of the McDougall Program, a ten-day residential program located in Santa Rosa, California. Without the use of drugs, Dr. McDougall's program promotes the reversal of many serious illnesses such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes. Decades of extensive research serves as a foundation for which many other physicians follow. He is the author of numerous best-selling books on plant-based nutrition including The Starch Solution. He is also a co-founder of Dr. McDougall's Right Foods Inc. which produces plant-based cuisine which makes it easy to eat on the run. Dr. McDougall offers many resouces, including monthly newsletters and discussion forums. Click here to view Dr. McDougall's Program. 

Additional Resources

Begin your journey today towards optimal health and wellness! Changing life-long eating habits can be challenging and/or difficult at first, but gets easier with time. Depending on the level at which you make changes, impovements in health can be seen in as little as one week. For additional information, see my Getting Started Pinterest board.