PART
1

Your Body on Pescetarianism

Look around the world—wherever people eat a pescetarian-style diet, they live longer and healthier. It all goes back to the dramatic impact of lifestyle on health. About 80 percent of heart disease cases, 70 percent of cancer cases, and a whopping 90 percent of cases of type 2 diabetes are caused by poor diet and lack of exercise. On the flip side: Most people could avoid these diseases if they exercised and ate the type of pescetarian-Mediterranean diet I’m recommending in this book.

Here’s how this diet can help you be your healthiest:

1. It helps keep you at a healthy weight and shrinks your belly. This puts you at a huge health advantage. Obesity alone is responsible for up to 30 percent of cancer cases, and having too much visceral fat—the deep “belly fat” that lodges in and around your organs—is a major cause of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

2. It fights aging in every single way. By fending off chronic inflammation, helping keep arteries clear, and dousing you with antioxidants, this diet protects your heart and helps stave off cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even erectile dysfunction.

3. It offers psychological and intellectual benefits. You’ll not only extend your time on this earth, but you’ll enjoy it more when you’re happier and your brain is sharper.

Why is this diet so amazingly good for your body? It’s ultra-nutritious; pretty much every bite you take on this plan infuses you with vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients (health-promoting compounds in plants). Your body is getting what it needs in the right amounts, so it thrives. I’ll fill you in on the amazing powers of foods like extra-virgin olive oil, broccoli, and clams.