did you loose weight when you went vegan?

[nj's_mom]

I know that going vegan (just like going veg) doesn't neccessarily equate to weight loss. But I'm wondering if going vegan (and not overloading on vegan junk foods and breads) can or usually means loosing weight?

Here's my deal. I've struggled with binge eating for about a year now. It gets pretty bad. I am very well-read when it comes to all things nutritional- have been on and off several different wagons- was a farmer's market fiend last year and was thin and loving it (also bf'ing new baby) but went junk food and carb crazy over the winter (being locked inside) and have gained about 10-15 pounds I want to loose. I want to be free of food obsession and feel comfy in a swimsuit. Or at least willing to wear one.

I am vegetarian, and want to be vegan. I've also experimented with raw-til-dinner. What gets me are sweets and breads. I usually do good until about 2/3 in the afternoon, and then something leads me into a binge. I was considering going GF but I think it's just too difficult, especially since I want to go dairy free. (Still may eat local ethically-raised chicken eggs.)

anyways, I'm trying to figure out if I am going to GAIN weight in the transition to ovo-vegetarianism (guess it's not really veganism if I might eat an egg here or there, and I eat honey) so I could at least prepare for it.

am also trying to conquer sugar cravings... any ideas??

[Tuesday]

As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder in the past and used to experience cravings AND has recently (and finally) lost 20 pounds I'd had hanging around since my 2nd child's birth - I'd say make sure you are eating enough FAT. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian or eat animal flesh and products - you should consume healthy fats. I dieted in the 1980s when they'd say you should be eating "NO FAT" - and had the worst cravings. I take flax oil supplements and generously consume nuts and oils and have had no issue with cravings, for the most part.

And yes - as soon as i started eating vegan, I started to lose weight. Everyone is different, though. For me, if I watch my wheat and sugar and I cut out meat and dairy (plus daily yoga and meditation), the weight keeps off me.

[catnip]

I gained weight, but that was because I did a lot of experimenting with packaged and homemade vegan junk food at first. It came right back off as soon as I got over the initial shiny-new-must-try-every-single-flavor-of-vegan-ice-cream-and-make-every-recipe-in-VCTOTW phase.

[Trill]

How to lose weight as a vegan

Originally Posted by nj's_mom

I know that going vegan (just like going veg) doesn't neccessarily equate to weight loss. But I'm wondering if going vegan (and not overloading on vegan junk foods and breads) can or usually means loosing weight? ...?

njs_mom -

Here is what you do...

Step 1

Incorporate a green smoothie into your routine FIRST thing in the morning. It is like drinking a cup of coffee and it is full of nutrients. You get such a jolt like you would not believe! This is all I have for breakfast these days. If I miss a day and eat something more traditional like cereal I find myself getting hungry before lunch. With a smoothie I don't have that feeling and they are very, very tasty. Here is a recipe to get you started and you'll need a decent blender:

* 6 oz bag of your favorite mild greens (romaine, spinach...) or 1/2 a head
of romaine
* 1/2 cup of your favorite non dairy milk (soy, oat, nut, hemp, rice, etc...)
* Tablespoon of a raw nut like cashew, almond, pistachio. Cashew is
milky/creamy and is my favorite
* A 1/2 cup of any sweet fruit like strawberries, banana or grapes
* Optional - a tablespoon of either flax powder or chia seeds for those extra
omega 3s

Here is a smoothie recipe link to read more http://www.smoothie-handbook.com/index.html

Step 2

Reduce or eliminate the salt in your cooking. At first things will taste a bit bland but your taste buds will adjust and your family can salt their own food. You'll drop an easy 5 lbs of water weight and bloat in the first two weeks with this one measure alone

Step 3

Eliminate cooking with oil including olive oil. Oil adds 120 calories per tablespoon to everything you make. You can have the taste without all of the added refined fat. I stir fry with orange juice, veggie broths or just plain water. I might add a teaspoon of something like sesame oil for flavor AFTER I've prepared something but usually I don't. You can learn to cook without the oil. I even bake my tofu with flavorful broths but I don't fry it in oil any longer. This has helped my husband and I peel off the weight more than anything else.

Step 4

This is related to step 3. Learn to use whole fats instead of refined ones like oil. I make all of my own salad dressings and I have a basic formula I follow:
A vinegar ( there are tons of flavors besides balsamic!)
A fat ( usually 1/4 cup of some kind of nut or avocado)
A sweet (usually a natural preserve like fig)
Water to get the right consistency for creamy use non dairy milk


I also add nut butters or ground nuts to soup to replace the fat I'm taking away with the oil. This is a much healthier fat for you and it retains some of the other nutrients refined oil strips away.

Step 5

Eat one pound of raw veggies per day and one pound of cooked. I got this idea from Dr. Fuhrman's book "Eat to Live." I'm not always great about this step but if I keep that in the back of my mind I tend to get a raw green salad somewhere in there throughout my day. The smoothie counts towards this goal as well. For your salads the prepackaged salad mixes work well. We have a garden of greens in our back yard but there is no problem using commercial stuff to make your life easier. I also find that Souper Salads (chain restaurant) lets you take a 'To Go' meal off the salad bar that is quite generous for $5 and some change. Every Sunday we make either one casserole or one large soup that we dip into for a few days during the work week. This helps keeps things simple and cuts down on the kitchen time.

Getting the nutrients from all of the green veggie measures I mentioned above will curve your cravings tremendously. I use to have some kind of a candy bar at least once a week. I don't even think about it anymore which is so amazing to me. If you want something sweet than fruit satisfies nicely. For the first time in my life I push food away from me and I typically eat only when I'm hungry. Give a body what it needs and it does the right thing.

Moving towards a healthier whole foods plant based diet is a process and isn't something easily tackled overnight. There is a huge learning curve to making sure you get a healthy balanced diet with this diet. It's best if you have a few good habits and recipes in your arsenal otherwise you may find yourself discouraged and back sliding before you "officially" call yourself a vegan. It is also extremely helpful to find community either online or in person. There are lots of vegetarian/vegan organizations in larger cities that are great for swapping recipes or finding decent restaurants.

Remember it is Progress not Perfection!

Good Health

[Anna06]

Trill thanks for adding the smoothie link.

[alireb]

Wanted to chime in here as someone who tried vegetarianism/vegan over the past year - I gained 10+ pounds and I was eating really healthy - lots of veggies, fruits, beans, fermented soy, etc.

For me and I also tend to binge eat when stressed, sad, etc - I was not getting enough protein and fat to keep me full so I was eating even more carbs than before. It doesn't matter if they're whole grain, they still cause a whole lot of issues including causing your blood sugar to fluctuate and have sweet cravings. All I wanted was sugar and this is from someone who had a really healthy diet before cutting out meat and eggs (was already dairy free from my son). So because a vegan diet is so low in fat (which you need for vitamins and to feel full), I was overeating in other ways - with carbs, etc.

I just caution you because if you think it will cause you to lose weight, it might have the opposite effect. I'm now back to being an omnivore but eating no sugar, no grains, no dairy and feeling great. No cravings, weight slowly coming off and my skin looks great. Vegan diets can work in the short term because of calorie restriction but soon your body revolts. Check out the book The Vegetarian Myth by a former 20 year old vegan for more info and also Good Calories, Bad Calories which talks more about the myths of fat and carbs. GL!

[Sayward]

Personally I think it's a myth that vegan diets are low in fat or calorie-restrictive! I've been vegan for a few years now and I'm definitely eating more fat, and a higher percentage of my diet from fats, than ever before. I eat an avocado a day, I snack on nuts and nut butters, I cook with coconut oil and I dress with olive and sesame oil. I eat a TON of fat without really trying to every day. They're all healthy fats that are good for me, help me stay full, help me absorb essential vitamins and minerals, and unlike animal fats, do not contribute to a slew of health problems.

But OP, 'eating vegan' is as varied as the individual doing it. You can have a low-fat roughage based diet, you can be a fruitarian, you can do it high-protein and low carb, or you can eat Oreos and french fries all day long. Going vegan will only make you lose weight if you eat a vegan diet that is conducive to weight loss - which is by no means inherent in veganism.

[MsVyky]

I absolutely agree with the PP.

If you're looking to veganism as a weight loss plan, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment. I didn't lose any weight when I went from full on omnivore to vegan, in fact over the course of the 6 years I was vegan, I ended up gaining about 30 pounds.


That being said, a vegan diet can be a great choice to make if you're looking to improve your eating skills. But keep in mind that a vegan diet can still include all the poisonous stuff that makes you sluggish- I know a few too many junk food vegans

[bandgeek]

No. I had to change the way I eat completely in order to lose weight. I've lost 18 lbs, but it's not from cutting out animal products. I had to get my over-eating under control. I have to remind myself constantly that I don't NEED those skittles. I've had to learn the differences between refined and whole grains and how they affect my blood sugar levels and how to make carbs work for me. I've had to learn to fit more fruits and veggies into my meals and snacks, which doesn't always come naturally to me.

I think being a strict vegetarian (I'm not completely vegan yet, due to trace ingredients and the occasional egg) has helped in a way because it's that much easier to avoid things like fast food and cheese-filled meals. But if you cut out animal products for the sake of dieting, not because you feel it's the right thing to do, you are more likely to fall off the wagon, IMO. I did this at the beginning and found I was allowing myself pizza "just this once" or ice cream after a meal at a restaurant. Only after I had other reasons to cut that stuff out, was I really able to stick by it. Not to discourage you. If you want to go vegan again, then great! You just gotta make it work for you, and that's not always easy, especially when you are prone to binging.

This mid-afternoon dip you experience? Are you getting enough good carbs and/or fat? That sounds like a blood sugar problem to me. You need to make sure what you will eat will stick with you OR that you allow yourself a snack before you feel like you need to consume everything in sight. I used to have that problem all the time and allowing myself to snack has worked wonders. It actually helps me lose weight to eat more good fat and good carbs when I really need them.

Two good, very motivating books that I've read that have helped me a lot in rethinking my overweight ways have been "Thin people don't clean their plates" and "Ending the food fight". Ending the food fight is geared towards helping kids, but it was wonderfully informative, especially with regards to fats and carbs. It was also veg friendly. I learned a lot from it. Neither are "diet" books really. Everything in them was just down to earth advice I seem to have forgotten over the years.

[smallmama]

No, sadly. I'm a good 70-80 lbs overweight and was hoping it would, but I've been vegan for 6 months now and weigh exactly the same. I do eat more fruits, vegetables and legumes than I used to, which is great, but I need to move away from the "bagel with Earth Balance" for breakfast type of diet I've got going on. Still too much refined flours, sugar, and high-fat foods even if they're not "bad" fats (a LOT of hummus and avocados and olive oil). It takes more than going vegan, it takes moving to a whole foods perspective.

[nj's_mom]

thank you everyone

thank you so much everyone.

I've been trying hard- each day is a new day. my issue is "messing up" on one thing, and falling into a binge. I am used to eating healthy- lost 10 lbs AFTER my baby weight after DD was born from a plant based whole foods way of eating, and willpower. but there is a ton of stress in my enviornment- and my living situation sucks. TONS of junkfood. I mean, people around me eating nightly, heaping bowls of ice cream w/ the works, candy and pies hanging out on counters and in fridge, crackers, cookies and chips being staples. I have an addiction to junk food- so on days when I am doing so good, have been so strong, stuck to my "diet" and eaten well- all is takes sometimes is a bag of Reese's Peices hanging out on the counter, and there I go.

but I've been doing fresh fruit and soaked nuts (or Puffins w/ soy milk) for bfast, and a massive salad w/ avacado, alfalfa sprouts, tofu, beans, the works. I have been using organic ev olive oil- but I am going to cut it out- good idea!! I remember that was part of my "diet" before.

I'm not drinking milk-soymilk instead- and have cut out pretty much all dairy. I'm working on finishing a small block of raw organic sharp cheese (mmm).

dinner is usually sweet potatoe w/ veggies or ww pasta w/ organic tomato sauce.

so if I stuck to this all the time I'd be fine- but I am having constant setbacks ... for instance, Saturday night was s'mores night and I thought I could have "just one"- ended up bingeing on 4 Hersheys bars, ice cream...ugh. I fell into a depression-like funk and sugar daze for the whole weekend. honestly, despite eating well Monday and today, I still am not over the funk.

it's affecting my relationships, my self esteem.... ugh. I am so tired of battling this.

the only thing that I keep constant- thank goodness- is my vegetarianism.

[hteb83]

I lost weight rapidly when I went vegan (my binge eating comfort foods are chocolate and ice cream - vegan versions just aren't the same) but I looked unhealthy and felt terrible so went back to being vegetarian.

The advice in the other posts looks v useful for how to be a healthy vegan - I'm tempted to try again :-)

[alireb]

sounds like you need more protein and fat in your diet. once you eat more protein and fat, a lot of the sugar cravings disappear because you feel more satiated even when eating less calories.