YouTube Star Javant Benton Lost 85 Lbs. With Healthy Food Swaps—His Summer Slim-Down Secrets
His plant-based snacks, from cauliflower 'wings' to carrot cake breakfast cookies, are delicious
Key Takeaways
- Javant Benton lost 85 pounds using healthy food swaps, not deprivation.
- Plant-based summer foods like veggie burgers and cauliflower wings satisfy cravings.
- Experts say healthy social habits can make long-term weight loss easier.
Summer means BBQs, potlucks and parties where we gather around family and food. All that fun can foil our best weight-loss intentions. Until now. Bestselling cookbook author Javant Benton found a way to make all of your favorite foods deceptively healthy and keep them delicious. The proof: He lost 85 pounds and has more than 1 million fans enjoying his dishes. His approach is perfect for women who love food, don’t want to feel deprived and want to enjoy summer socializing. Keep reading to learn about Javant’s healthy-food diet plan to lose weight and keep it off long term.
How Javant discovered healthy food swaps to lose weight
Growing up in the South, enjoying his grandma’s fried cooking, Javant became prediabetic, prehypertensive and overweight, like many of his relatives. But when he had a cancer scare, he embraced advice from nutrition pioneer Joel Fuhrman, MD. He swapped his usual heavy fare for plant-based meals. He lost 85 pounds eating nutrient-dense foods and transformed his health.
Inspired, Javant became a certified nutritarian cook and health coach, sharing plant-based recipes online. Now fans can’t get enough of his nostalgic dishes made with a healthy twist, like cauliflower “wings,” carrot cake breakfast cookies and homemade Fig Newtons. Fans also devour his “veggie ground” recipe— it’s like ground beef but made with finely chopped walnuts, cauliflower, onions and spices and works in everything from lasagna to burritos. It’s big on flavor, with zero deprivation.
Woman's World Answers
“If you’re eating the standard American diet, you’re going to have good results switching to healthy vegan dishes,” he promises. “Don’t change what you make—change how you make it!” Javant, the author of Make Your Own, knows firsthand how a healthy diet change requires two things: tweaking recipes and practicing self-care in social situations. Here’s how to master both…
6 tips for making healthy food swaps to lose weight
Ready to transform your summer meals? Here are the healthy eating practices that Javant lives by:
Choose whole, unrefined grains
Swap out rice for millet or quinoa. Bake with nutrient-dense flours made with almond, chickpea or arrowroot. Javant also chooses to avoid ultra-processed wheat since it causes blood-sugar spikes and contains few nutrients.
Focus on fiber
Get it from foods such as fruits, vegetables and legumes. Javant says, “Fiber does wonders for your colon, helping prevent gut imbalances.”
Get healthy fats
Find them in nuts and seeds. Javant also recommends skipping cooking oil. “The healthiest fats on the planet are polyunsaturated fats from nuts and seeds,” he says. “Extracted oils, including olive oil, are absorbed quickly by the body, leading to rapid fat storage.”
Sweeten with dates
To avoid added refined sugar and reduce cravings, he recommends sweetening recipes with medjool dates, which contain healthy antioxidants.
Fill up on nutrients, not empty calories
It’s possible to be a junk-food vegan, relying on processed carbs, Javant says. The real goal: “You want to take in the foods that contain the most micronutrients per calorie,” explains weight-loss expert Dr. Fuhrman. “Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals; they do not contain calories, but they have vital functions in the body.”
You can still eat meat
Not ready to switch to a fully plant-based eating plan? That’s completely okay! Javant wants you to know this approach works for everyone: “There are so many people I love and care about who are never going to be vegan,” Javant says. “Even if you’re a meat eater, you can still improve your health with vegan side dishes and desserts.”
Expert tips for healthy eating in social situations
What we eat is only part of it. “One of the top stumbling blocks is the peer pressure around food,” says Javant. Here’s what the research tells us: Gaining weight is a social activity. We mirror the meal behaviors of our loved ones. A New England Journal of Medicine study shows that if they eat unhealthily, it puts us at a 57 percent increased risk of gaining weight.
The good news: This peer pressure works both ways. When we dine with people who eat healthy, we’re more likely to follow their lean lead, reveals new Swiss research looking at the eating habits of 38 million people. We can positively influence others too.
Javant’s motivation came from a personal place, as he shares: “I had something that was more powerful than peer pressure—‘fear pressure’ of dying.” But rather than let fear control him, he discovered the antidote was self-care. He viewed preparing healthy plant-based dishes like cheesecake, meatless burgers and pineapple kebabs and taking them to gatherings as an act of self love. “When we consistently nourish ourselves with a healthy diet, it not only makes us feel better physically, it also makes us feel better mentally.” In short: more confident!
Why social support matters for weight loss
“In my 25 years as a bariatric surgeon, I’ve realized that I can fix a stomach, but I can’t fix a social circle,” says metabolic surgeon Wiljon Beltre, MD. The good news? You don’t need to “fix” your social circle—you just need a few simple strategies to stay on track while still enjoying time with the people you love.
3 tips to enjoy foodie gatherings while staying on track
- Eat before you go. “Never ever show up to a social event with an empty stomach,” says Dr. Beltre.
- Tweak your talk. “Instead of saying, ‘I cannot have that,’ which makes you sound like a victim, say, ‘I’m good’ or ‘I’m still full from earlier.’ It’s harder for people to argue with you being full than it is for them to argue with your diet.”
- Stay the course. “Once people see your results, they usually stop pushing and start asking for your secret!”
The bottom line about healthy food swaps to lose weight
You have everything you need to feel vibrant, energized and confident—without giving up the foods and gatherings you love. Javant’s journey proves that transformation doesn’t require perfection or deprivation. It simply requires making choices that honor your body and your joy. Start with one simple swap at your next meal and watch how good it feels to nourish yourself.
This story originally appeared in the June 15, 2026, issue of Woman’s World
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