Vegetarian diet:
“The Macrobiotic Diet”

Madonna, Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow use this vegetarian diet for weight loss. Macrobiotic diet menu.

The Macrobiotic Diet is followed by Celebrities and Hollywood's Stars to lose weight. This diet is born in Japan. The macrobiotic diet makes weight loss but also is very healthy for the organism. The philosophy of the macrobiotic diet is that food and food quality powerfully affect health, well-being, and happiness.

According to the macrobiotic diet, it's possible to fight any illness of the organism and mind, stopping eating “poisons” that are in food (saturated fat, sugar, salt, tobacco, alcohol and drugs). The macrobiotic diet is an extreme form of vegetarianism. The macrobiotic approach suggests choosing food that is less processed and chew food thoroughly before swallowing.

Weight loss: up to 6 lbs per week.
Diet duration: unlimited.


Diet not recommended for kids, adolescents, pregnant women and people under continuing medical treatment, because the menu is poor in iron, calcium and vitamins.

Macrobiotic Diet Program: Food list classified in 2 categories

Macrobiotic food follows the principle of balance (called yin and yang).

Ying food (stimulating food)
Eat just a few food of this list, because it's energy overstimulate and can exhaust the body and mind.
Sugar, honey, alcohol, food processed, coffee, chocolate, refined flour products (white bread), hot spices, drugs, preservatives, chemical products, milk and dairy (yogurt, cheese) and tropical fruits (banana, kiwi, papaya, pineapple, watermelon, plum).

Yang food (strengthening food - but stagnating effects if over-consumed)
This is necessary food, because is full of energy. Eat daily:
Cereals whole grains (wheat, rye, corn, oats, nuts), seeds, fruits, vegetables, sea algae, and sometimes fish. It's very important to cook food with steamed and with sea salt.

Observation: this classification lacks some sense from a scientific point of view.

Macrobiotic Diet Menu: Diet Meals Plan

Breakfast:
1 cup of tea.
1 cream of rice sesame with cinnamon and grapes.
Rice cookies with sesame or vegetables.

Lunch:
1 soup of vegetables with algae and soy sauce.
1 dish of boiled brown rice with algae and vegetable protein (tofu, gluten of wheat, soya cheese).
1 cooked apple, or cereals (corn or wheat) with fruit gelatin made with algae.
1 cup of tea.

Snack:
1 tea
Rice cookies with jam.

Dinner:
1 vegetable soup with shitake (Japanese mushroom).
Rice or few fish.

Macrobiotic Diet: Essentials of the Diet Menu

Followers of the macrobiotic diet have to cross 10 levels of dietary restriction. At the end, they eat only cereals.

The macrobiotic diet consists on a series of 10 diets that go from less three (-3) to more seven (+7).
The five first ones (-3 to +2) include decreasing quantities of food from animal origin.
The remaining ones are exclusively vegetarians and they contain increasing quantities of wheat grains. The diet 7 consists only of eating cereals.

The philosophy of the macrobiotic diet is:
- lose weight eating healthy food (no processed food)
- find happiness and liberate the mind.

The word “macrobiotic” means “long life” in Greek.

How to Eat the Macrobiotic Food?

1. Suppress from your diet all industrial food, sugar, conserves, colorings, and eggs not fertilized.
2. Cook food with vegetal oil or water, and use sea salt not refined.
3. Eat only organic fruits and organic vegetables (without chemical treatment).
4. Avoid food proceeding from remote countries from you live.
5. Eat preferably vegetables from the season you are.
6. Avoid Yin vegetables, as potatoes, eggplants and tomatoes.
7. Don't eat spices, or chemical ingredients.
8. Coffee is prohibited; it's only admitted to drink natural Chinese tea and Japanese tea.
9. Cereals are highly recommended: brown rice, wheat, rye, corn, barley, millet (stewed, raw, boiled, baked or in cream).
10. It's necessary to limit to the maximum the ingestion of liquids.
11. The food has to be chewed thoroughly before swallowing (at least 30 times).

Risks of the Macrobiotic Diet

The macrobiotic diet is very unbalanced when is composed exclusively with cereals (+3 to +7).
The reduction of water can generate dehydration and renal insufficiency.
Eat so few proteins increase the risk of suffering anemia and undernourishment.

As you noticed, many of the food are difficult to obtain for being of Japanese origin (millet, soy, algae, tofu, etc.). Maybe, it could limit your social life and familiar and end up by surrounding with only macrobiotic friends.

If you decide to follow the macrobiotic diet, it's important to do periodically a medical supervision to have under control your levels of iron and vitamin B12.

Before starting a diet, please consult your nutritionist, she help you lose weight in good health.