The years pile on, and so too, do those unhealthy pounds. And more stealthily, cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, blood sugar start creeping into the danger zone.

It even happens to a guy whos been running marathons for over 30 years and running, period, for over 40. That guy would be Mark Bittman, better known for his food columns in the New York Times and New York Times Magazine, and for the 13 cookbooks hes written.

His latest book is VB6, or in long form, Vegan Before 6. Simply put, its about his nearly-vegan or flexitarian diet with some one important rule: eating like a vegan diet before 6 p.m. and after that, like Count Dracula, he can sinks his teeth into animal flesh. (Or animal products.) Half the book is about the science of the vegan diet and half is a cookbook to guide you through a VB6 way of eating.

The idea is intriguing enough to have put the book at the top of the New York Times Advice and How-To bestseller book list.

Interviewed in Vancouver last Monday, Bittman looked fit and energetic and certainly not overweight. A conventional doctor, he says, would have put him on a low-fat diet and put him on a cholesterol lowering drug. His doctor, however, suggested a vegan diet. Instead of going cold turkey (pardon the inappropriate metaphor), Bittman decided to become an almost-vegan, freeing himself to eat meat and dairy for dinner. Why dinner? Because thats the most social meal and the one where hed be most likely say, fudge it, and cheat if restricted to a vegan meal. It was pragmatic. It made sense, he says.

He began his VB6 diet six years ago when his doctor read him the riot act. Bittman was 40 pounds overweight, hed been eating whatever the heck he wanted, he was pre-diabetic, had sleep apnea and his cholesterol and blood sugar were in the danger zone. His knees were complaining about the extra load it had to carry.

One month into the VB6 diet, hed lost 15 pounds. Two months into it, his cholesterol and blood sugar levels had normalized and his sleep apnea disappeared. In four months, he had shed 35 pounds I went into it thinking, Lets see what happens and it worked.

Another rule he set for himself was to avoid all processed foods and empty calories. The more processed food is, the less nutritious and the less green it is. A can of soda pop offers no nutrients and requires an average 2,200 calories to make; a typical TV dinner requires about 1,500 calories to make. Manufactured foods take at be least 10 times as much energy to produce than plants. None of that is calculated, he said.

The book, he says, is an entirely personal journey that worked. The fact that ramping up on vegan food benefits the environment livestock production is one of the worst culprits for greenhouse gas emissions and pollutes land and water, Bittman says is a bonus.

Read more here:
Turning almost vegan