Diabetic vegan struggling with the finer points

4estJay

Hi all! Little background. I was initially 396lbs at age 26, and manged to lose down to 180lbs by the age of 28. Unfortunately I seemed to have bounced back and am now sitting at around 225 pretty consistently. I'm just looking for any guidance or help in regards to good, vegan, diabetic friendly foods and learning how to dial in my macro nutritions to make sure I'm as healthy as I can be, percentage wise. I work out 4x a week, roughly 60 to 90 minutes per, and spend the majority of that on weights. Any advice would be welcome!

AnnPT77

I'm not vegan, but I'm vegetarian (and have been for 45 years). My advice would be to gradually dial in improved eating habits. You don't have to fix everything all at once.

I won't try to comment on managing your carbohydrate intake, because I'm not diabetic, but I'll observe that there are omnivore diabetics (and maybe veg ones) on here who are successful without going to the ultra-low carbohydrate levels that can be difficult with a plant-based diet. You might want to go to the "Food & Nutrition" area and ask for experienced folks' help with the diabetic/carb management side of things, unless you feel comfortable with monitoring that on your own.

If weight loss is your major goal, start with getting a calorie goal from MFP for sensibly moderate weight loss (maybe a pound a week, or even half a pound). Figure out how to hit that calorie goal, and stay reasonably satiated.

Next, work on fine-tuning macronutrients, with protein arguably the most important of those (for anyone, especially someone who's losing weight or weight training, not just for us veg types). Review your diary, tweak your eating using foods you enjoy, to hit your goals.

After that, simply getting plenty of daily servings of varied, colorful fruits and veggies will go a long way to getting the micronutrients you need. Personally, I go for 5+ and preferably 10+ daily 80g servings. You may want to monitor and fine-tune some micros that are especially challenging to get when avoiding animal sources, like B12, iron, calcium, etc. Some of these are difficult to monitor via MFP (because product labels don't necessarily list them, let alone other users entering them conscientiously in the crowd-sourced database). However, spot-checking a typical day now and then can give you a feel (or there are other places to log that are more micronutrient-focused).

If this "gradual fine-tuning" approach to eating appeals to you, you can find a more detailed description here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/

Best wishes!

AnnPT77

Oops, meant to add this site (below) as a helpful one for vegan nutrition. It's more evidence-based, less advocacy-oriented, than most. (Sadly, some vegan advocacy sites are willing to spread bad science in order to boost veganism, but that's IMO a dysfunctional way to do it: I think it undermines their credibility overall.)

https://veganhealth.org

fnarrrrrr

Hello, fellow vegan here.

Please please make sure you take a good quality multivitamin which includes all the b vitamins! It doesn’t get absorbed 100% efficiently but it will give you a baseline on which you can build with fruit, veg and fortified foods.

Then find your perfect lentil daal recipe and treasure it always

rheddmobile

fnarrrrrr wrote: »

Hello, fellow vegan here.

Please please make sure you take a good quality multivitamin which includes all the b vitamins! It doesn’t get absorbed 100% efficiently but it will give you a baseline on which you can build with fruit, veg and fortified foods.

Then find your perfect lentil daal recipe and treasure it always

Definitely this - in fact as a diabetic you should be asking to have b12 levels tested regularly, since many have low levels for unknown reasons. Particularly if you are on metformin which interferes with b12 absorption you may need shots rather than oral supplements.

My advice is to test your blood often and find foods which don’t spike you, so that you can rely on them when you need a snack but your levels are high. Hitting specific macros is less important than getting enough protein and eating the amount of carbs that you personally can tolerate, based on timing, exercise, and so on. Exercise a lot, both cardio and strength, which improves insulin resistance - sounds like you’re already doing that.