The holidays are here which means indulging in all of your favorite foods. It can also mean your jeans are bit more snug come New Years. Seattle Magazine has stumbled across a new healthy-diet phenomenon sweeping the residents of Vashon Island. And though we understand that pie is king, ending the holiday season with one less pound to lose might be a great, great thing.

Most people agree dieting is easier when you do it with a buddy. If you live on Vashon Island, diet buddies are everywhere. That’s because a new diet plan—called the “TQI Diet” (“to quiet inflammation”)—has become so popular on the island that an estimated 15 percent of the adults there have signed up for diet classes. Several restaurants offer TQI Diet–based dishes on their menus, and grocery stores stock special shelves with TQI Diet–friendly items.

The diet—created by Vashon resident Kathy Abascal and based on the idea that certain foods cause inflammation in the body—has been gaining fame and followers because, apparently, it really works. “It’s pretty much saved my life,” says Rex Morris, a 64-year-old Vashon Islander. “And it’s unbelievably easy to stay on it. I never feel deprived, I never feel hungry. If I want something, I have it, but I balance it out. The longer I’m on it, the better I feel.”

Until last year, Morris struggled with numerous health challenges: obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and a serious lung disease. He couldn’t walk more than five minutes without feeling winded. Then he discovered the TQI Diet. In the year since he’s adopted the plan, he’s slimmed down 70 pounds from his original 300, kicked his insulin, and seen his cholesterol plunge and his lung capacity expand. He now routinely works outside four hours at a stretch and has energy to burn. His previously frozen shoulders now move much more easily.

The diet is based on the principle that certain groups of food can cause inflammation within the body, causing or worsening everything from arthritis to migraines, while other foods, mostly of the whole, unadulterated variety, can reduce or halt that inflammation, lessening all kinds of aches, pains and maladies, and boosting energy.

The most important thing to understand, Morris says, is that the plan isn’t a diet per se; something you endure for a while until you’ve lost weight. Rather, it’s a way of life that embraces whole foods eaten in abundance, with a heavy emphasis on vegetables and fruits.

Plenty of other diets are based on this premise, but few also make a claim to helping with so many medical issues. Proponents say the diet certainly helps adherents lose weight or maintain healthy weights, but it also helps them ease all kinds of joint pains and problems by eating foods rich in anti-inflammatory properties.

To keep reading about the Vashon Island Diet plan click here.

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