Trying to get healthy trying vegan lifestyle

Taletha

I'm trying to get healthy. I have been reading up on vegan lifestyle and I believe in the benefits. I'm just looking for support for this journey. I'm looking to shred 132 pounds. I give myself 24 months to do so.

_Waffle_

In general adding more rules and restrictions only makes it harder to sustain your eating goals long term.

Debmal77

_Waffle_ wrote: »

In general adding more rules and restrictions only makes it harder to sustain your eating goals long term.

This. Eat the foods you love and stay in the calorie deficit MFP gives you. Do you have a food scale for accuracy in logging?

DaddieCat

_Waffle_ wrote: »

In general adding more rules and restrictions only makes it harder to sustain your eating goals long term.

Speaking as a vegan, this is entirely true. Being vegan isn't a diet, nor a means to lose weight... if it were and it worked, there wouldn't be so many vegans on here looking to lose weight. Eating a plant based diet can assist with weight loss, but only because restriction will assist with creating deficit. Don't get into the habit of restricting something that you don't plan on restricting forever... it's not sustainable.

Additionally, being vegan is not a diet, it's a lifestyle choice made in regards to animal welfare. I highly recommend that, if you don't feel strongly one way or the other, you simply continue eating what you would normally, eat smaller portions, log everything accurately and weigh all of your food, create a healthy and sustainable calorie deficit, have realistic goals and expectations... and you will accomplish your goals without the need for restrictions.

Good luck. If you decide to do the vegan thing, add me and I'll talk to you about it at length... but I don't recommend it unless it's meaningful to you on an emotional and philosophical level. Eat what you want... it will be far more sustainable that way.

forgtmenot

Becoming vegan only works long term if you are doing it for the right reasons. If you really want to be vegan and stay that way, please educate yourself of the ethical side of it. There are lots of great videos on the topic. I recommend 101 reasons to be vegan on YouTube, and cowspiracy on Netflix. Without the ethical motivation you will likely never stick with it. There is so much temptation, but when you have those images in your mind of a baby calf being ripped away from its mother only seconds after being born all so humans can drink the mother's milk, it's not so tempting anymore. Good luck and welcome!

DaddieCat

forgtmenot wrote: »

Becoming vegan only works long term if you are doing it for the right reasons. If you really want to be vegan and stay that way, please educate yourself of the ethical side of it. There are lots of great videos on the topic. I recommend 101 reasons to be vegan on YouTube, and cowspiracy on Netflix. Without the ethical motivation you will likely never stick with it. There is so much temptation, but when you have those images in your mind of a baby calf being ripped away from its mother only seconds after being born all so humans can drink the mother's milk, it's not so tempting anymore. Good luck and welcome!

I was trying to stay away from this kind of graphic imagery. I've never found it to be helpful to any of my goals, never seen it be helpful to any other vegan I've ever met, and only ever seen it create disgust, and an unwillingness to listen on the part of those being proselytized to. I've found that preaching to (more accurately, at) people is never a successful tactic. You cannot encourage a change in any other person who is not willing to change, no matter what graphic, slap in the face tactic you use. This is why people laugh at PETA (who are ridiculous in their own right) and why the old vegan joke is so commonly known... "how do you know if a person is a vegan... don't worry, they'll tell you."

Just my two cents and apologies if it offends.

forgtmenot

BecomingBane wrote: »

forgtmenot wrote: »

Becoming vegan only works long term if you are doing it for the right reasons. If you really want to be vegan and stay that way, please educate yourself of the ethical side of it. There are lots of great videos on the topic. I recommend 101 reasons to be vegan on YouTube, and cowspiracy on Netflix. Without the ethical motivation you will likely never stick with it. There is so much temptation, but when you have those images in your mind of a baby calf being ripped away from its mother only seconds after being born all so humans can drink the mother's milk, it's not so tempting anymore. Good luck and welcome!

I was trying to stay away from this kind of graphic imagery. I've never found it to be helpful to any of my goals, never seen it be helpful to any other vegan I've ever met, and only ever seen it create disgust, and an unwillingness to listen on the part of those being proselytized to. I've found that preaching to (more accurately, at) people is never a successful tactic. You cannot encourage a change in any other person who is not willing to change, no matter what graphic, slap in the face tactic you use. This is why people laugh at PETA (who are ridiculous in their own right) and why the old vegan joke is so commonly known... "how do you know if a person is a vegan... don't worry, they'll tell you."

Just my two cents and apologies if it offends.

Well most of the vegans I know needed to see the "graphic imagery" in order to stop eating it permanently. Maybe you didn't, but many of us need to know exactly why we are doing it in order to change.

vegangela_

forgtmenot wrote: »

Well most of the vegans I know needed to see the "graphic imagery" in order to stop eating it permanently. Maybe you didn't, but many of us need to know exactly why we are doing it in order to change.

I didn't need any graphic imagery to stop causing harm. I tried to watch earthlings once, I threw up a few minutes in.
Although I really think that if people want to consume animal products it's important to have an understanding of the suffering they're causing.

forgtmenot

vegangela_ wrote: »

forgtmenot wrote: »

Well most of the vegans I know needed to see the "graphic imagery" in order to stop eating it permanently. Maybe you didn't, but many of us need to know exactly why we are doing it in order to change.

I didn't need any graphic imagery to stop causing harm. I tried to watch earthlings once, I threw up a few minutes in.
Although I really think that if people want to consume animal products it's important to have an understanding of the suffering they're causing.

I've never watched earthlings, and I really don't want to. 101 reasons to be vegan is pretty tame in comparison to some of the others, he talks most of the time and only 3 minutes is imagery out of the hour long speech. That's all it took for me.

kittygoesvegan

Everyone has their own motivations for being vegan. I use it as a way to be healthy and know that I'm not harming animals or contributing to pollution through my diet. I did need to see some things, like Cowspiracy, to help me avoid temptations. I'm also an "all or nothing" kind of person, so by being vegan, it has helped me to not give in to food cravings. The moral reasons behind veganism are more powerful to me than treating my body well. I'd like that to change, but being at the beginning of my journey, I'm happy to have such a powerful motivator.

MarziPanda95

kittygoesvegan wrote: »

Everyone has their own motivations for being vegan. I use it as a way to be healthy and know that I'm not harming animals or contributing to pollution through my diet. I did need to see some things, like Cowspiracy, to help me avoid temptations. I'm also an "all or nothing" kind of person, so by being vegan, it has helped me to not give in to food cravings. The moral reasons behind veganism are more powerful to me than treating my body well. I'd like that to change, but being at the beginning of my journey, I'm happy to have such a powerful motivator.

Technically, being a vegan is pretty much just as polluting as being an omnivore, unless you eat super local (which is almost impossible in the winter months.)
Like others have said, OP, there are plenty of overweight vegans and it's entirely possible to have unhealthy vegan diets. If you want to be vegan, do it for ethics, not for health. To lose weight, all you have to do is eat less calories.