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Nutritionist to the stars, Marco Borges, tells us how he turned Beyoncé vegan…
Based in Miami with his wife, three sons and daughter, Marco Borges has dedicated his life to wellness. Over the past twenty years, he’s worked with some of the world’s biggest celebrities, guiding them towards healthier lifestyles.
Having studied physiology and biology at Florida University, he went on to work as a nutritionist and developed the groundbreaking ‘22 Greenprint Laws‘, which he outlines as the most important diet, exercise, and lifestyle secrets for losing weight, increasing energy, boosting metabolism, and reducing inflammation, not to mention helping minimise your carbon imprint to help the planet. He co-owns plant-based company 22 Days Nutrition with Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
We caught up with him after the launch of his new book, The Greenprint…
Tell us about your work with celebrities like Shakira and J-Lo…
I am incredibly passionate about what I do and have been blessed to be able to work with the people I‘ve worked with. What I have learned along the way is that we‘re all pretty much the same at the core.
Whether you‘re an athlete, celebrity, carpool dad or professional mom, we all wake up daily wanting to live our best lives. What we do from the moment we wake up until we go to bed makes all the difference! Every meal is another opportunity to get closer to or further away from our health goals.
When did you first discover plant-based eating for yourself?
I have been obsessed with human performance since a very early age and because of this I fell in love with scientific data. Once I read the data about all the benefits of a plant-based diet (about 15 years ago), I couldn’t ignore it and immediately went plant-based.
How has it changed you?
Optimum performance and health starts on the inside so I am very conscious of what I put into my body and how it will affect both my performance and my health.
What are the most important things a new vegan should know?
It‘s not about perfection but rather progression. Try not to focus on being perfect, just better than you were yesterday.
You need a quick meal. What do you cook?
I heat up some quinoa and beans that I keep ready in my fridge and steam some veggies to go along with it. Oh, and I top it off with some fresh avocado. Everything is better with avocado.
What’s your new book, The Greenprint, all about?
Our Greenprint is the positive impact we can have on our health and the health of the planet by eating more plant-based meals.
How did Jay-Z and Beyoncé become involved with the book?
Once I shared the benefits of a plant-based diet with them, they found it difficult to ignore and wanted to challenge others as they challenged themselves to move towards a more plant-based lifestyle.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100)
You endorse intermittent fasting. How does this work and what are the benefits?
Intermittent fasting has been proven to help improve health in so many ways (heart health, diabetes prevention, reduces belly fat, Alzheimer‘s prevention, cellular repair, cancer prevention and the list goes on…) and at the core the process is quite simple. When we’re not eating (or trying to digest food we just ate) our bodies are doing ‘housekeeping‘ to take care of any areas we need help in. We‘re all already fasting, it‘s called sleeping. We just need to find ways to increase the window of time we fast daily in order to really see the benefits it has to offer. I recommend fasting 14-16 hours daily.
What foods would you recommend for fighting illness?
A whole food, plant-based diet is the only diet that has been proven to reduce the risk, arrest and even reverse the leading cause of death (heart disease) so, the question shouldn‘t be ‘What diseases does a plant-based diet help prevent‘ but rather, ‘What diseases doesn‘t a whole food plant-based diet help prevent?‘
What’s your vision for the future of our planet?
My vision for the future of our planet is quite simple. The foods we will eat won‘t hurt us. They won‘t hurt animals. They won’t hurt our planet. When we eat consciously, we are able to achieve optimum health and when we are healthy, we are happy. Health is happiness and happiness is peace.
The Greenprint by Marco Borges with an introduction by Jay-Z and Beyoncé is on sale now, published by HQ, HarperCollins in paperback and ebook.
