What will happen if I mainly only ate fruit/veg

doIIparts

Up until recently, my eating habits haven't been great. I didn't watch calories and I've always been kind of a carb addict. Lots of pasta and bread and crisps/chips. Add to that mindless eating and snacking. In recent times I put myself on a calorie restriction of 1,200 and have been able to stick to it very easily without feeling deprived, but I haven't seen any results.

Now I want to take control over WHAT I eat. I want to try cutting back drastically on carbs and getting most of my calories from fruit and vegetables. I'm already vegetarian but I'm strongly considering going fully vegan. I will also be incorporating some ab workouts into my life. This would all be a permanent change, not just a diet.

So what would happen if I ate mainly just fruit and vegetables? I'm aware that I'd be deficient in protein, but would I lose fat? My overall goal is to become thin, not muscular or even toned.

gina_nz_

Why would you be deficient in protein? There is protein in vegetables, you just have to eat the right ones.

yarwell

ask Steve Jobs. No, wait...............

But seriously, figure out where all the essential minerals, fats, vitamins and proteins are coming from and you should be OK.

There are proteins and fats you need to eat, you don't want to waste away the muscle that is your heart, for example. Finding enough B vitamins to avoid the vegan shakes seems to be non-trivial too.

dumb_blondes_rock

soy milk is a great way to get some protein, or beans or legumes. I loooove lentils to death!! Also I have read that broccoli has more protein per calorie than steak.

neandermagnon

your body needs the following:

protein (including sufficient quantities of all 8 amino acids)
fat (including essential fatty acids)
carbohydrate
vitamins (including both water soluble and fat soluble vitamins)
minerals
fibre (soluble and insoluble fibre)

There are several different minerals you need and quite a lot of different vitamins, and you need to ensure that the food you eat supplies you with adequate amounts of each. If you're on a vegan diet, getting enough iron, vitamin B12 and vitamin D2 are usually the ones that cause the most difficulty, however supplementation is an option and you can get vegan friendly supplements of these.

If your diet is giving you all those things and you are happy with what you're eating and not feeling deprived, have plenty of energy and are in good health, then eat what you like.

Note that the health benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets are exaggerated and there's some outright lies and pseudoscience used to promote them. Vegan and vegetarian diets are more about ethics, i.e. for people who don't agree with eating animals, or with using them for any kind of food. You can get a healthy, balanced diet if you are vegetarian or vegan (vegans may require some supplementation or foods fortified with B12, D2 etc), so if that's what you want to do, go for it. Additionally, vegetarian and vegan diets don't make it easier for you to lose fat, in fact the difficulty getting enough protein without getting too many carbohydrates (nearly all vegan sources of protein are also high in carbohydrates) makes it more difficult than a meat eating diet, as there are quite a few meat sources of lean protein that are high in protein but low in both fat and carbs (e.g. chicken breast, egg white, many kinds of fish). Some people lose a lot of weight going vegan or vegetarian because they are not careful to get enough protein, and the weight loss comes from loss of lean mass (if you don't eat enough protein, your body will take it from your skeletal muscles), but this can be avoided on a vegan or vegetarian diet if you eat enough protein.

Also, expect the fruit haters to tell you that fructose is BAD and all the rest... tell them to go tell it to the chimpanzees if they really think fruit is that bad for humans. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1123553-should-i-stop-eating-fruit

My advice though, is if your goal is to get lean and lose fat, that a vegan or vegetarian diet isn't going to help you to do that. Like I said, it's more of an ethical choice than a health one (although a vegan and vegetarian diet can be very healthy if you're careful to get enough of all the nutrients you need) and it really isn't an optimal diet for fat loss.

TavistockToad

There are proteins and fats you need to eat, you don't want to waste away the muscle that is your heart, for example.

this!

MyChocolateDiet

You'd go to the bathroom a lot. You might avoid carb headache or withdrawal since you'd still be getting plenty of sugar from fruits. You'd probably lose weight but some of it might be muscle if you didn't get enough protein veg's or legumes. There are plenty of vegetarian sources of protein and a little research will reveal those to you. I"d offer suggestions but it really depends on how veg you are looking to go. Eggs, nut butters, nuts, tofu, and hummus are one's that come to mind off the top. Good luck I think you are getting on the right track and it's good you are asking questions before setting out. BTW I lose weight successfully by eating meat. Even red meat. It can be done.

nessagrace22

My overall goal is to become thin, not muscular or even toned.

Hmm I'm out :huh:

elyelyse

. In recent times I put myself on a calorie restriction of 1,200 and have been able to stick to it very easily without feeling deprived, but I haven't seen any results.

If you think you are eating 1200 calories a day, but you aren't losing weight...something is wrong with the math (unless you are a very small, short, older woman, or have some kind of metabolic condition)
Before going and cutting out major food groups, which is not necessary for weight loss....are you 100% sure that your logging is accurate? Are you weighing/measuring everything you eat and logging it? Are you eating back exercise calories and if so, where are you getting those burn numbers from? The most common answer to why someone eating 1200 calories isn't losing weight is that they are underestimating calories consumed and/or overestimating calories burned.
If you provide us with your stats and open your diary, you'll probably get some good advice.
I have nothing against vegetarianism or veganism...but if you are only making that change for weight loss purposes, I don't think that's the solution to your problem.

toutmonpossible

Sounds like you're swapping one form of unbalanced eating with another. Fruits and vegetables are good, but too much fruit provides too much sugar. We all need some protein, some fat, and some carbs in our diet.

TrainingWithTonya

I highly recommend reading some of the books by Dr. Dean Ornish. He has scientifically studied the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle for heart disease for decades and has written books on how they can be done to safely get all the adequate nutrients you need while losing weight.

RllyGudTweetr

Now I want to take control over WHAT I eat. I want to try cutting back drastically on carbs and getting most of my calories from fruit and vegetables.

Wait, what? Do you think fruits and vegetables are proteins, or fats?

There is no magic food to eat/stop eating in order to spontaneously lose weight, and it sounds a bit like your goals and methods are the product of disordered eating habits. I'm not a doctor, and don't play one on TV, but you might want to consider getting help.

betterrunfaster

Nevermind. I'm loathe to say ED in the works here, but reading between the lines it sure seems like it.

ndj1979

just eat in a calorie deficit an you will lose...

why would you deprive yourself of an entire food group?

more than likely you will have some short term success and then binge on a bunch of carbs and gain all the water weight that you have lost back...

create a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day and eat proteins/carbs/fats...

ndj1979

My overall goal is to become thin, not muscular or even toned.

Hmm I'm out :huh:

hmmm I missed that ...I am out too ..

amy1612

You'd die.

Rai007

If you are interested in losing weight u dont need to do all this.

Eat at a deficit and Exercise
u will be fine.

VoodooAborisha

I'm aware that I'd be deficient in protein, but would I lose fat?

There is no reason to be deficient in protein on a vegan diet, unless you just eat potato chips and salad. The healthiest proteins in the world come from vegetable sources.(ref. "The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health" by Dr. Dean Ornish.)

Assuming you are eating healthy foods and a healthy calorie intake, it only takes the addition of ONE serving of beans to get plenty of protein per day, even for an athlete. (ref. A Diet for a New America by John Robbins, pp. 170 - 202). Vegetables have protein - it's not just meat and dairy etc. that have protein. Oatmeal has protein, and the protein from all your veggie foods, such as spinach etc. DOES add up. (Diet for a New America, p. 182)

The only thing a Vegan has to worry about - as long as they are eating a healthy and varied diet - is Vitamin B12 deficiency. We used to be able to get this from vegetables/greens because there was a bacteria on them that provided this, however due to modern farming practices this is no longer possible and you WILL NEED to take vitamin B12 supplements (ref. "Becoming Vegan" by Davis and Melina p. 128).

I keep referring to the "healthy and varied diet" - get yourself a book on vegan eating, and it will outline very clearly the sources of protein and teach you about whole grains, fruits and veg of all colors, including the dark leafy green ones and the red/orange ones with carotine in, and beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, etc. Variety is the key. To start out, you could read something like "Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet" by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina."

But there are a lot of free Vegan resources on the internet - just do a search. You can find out what the high-protein foods are, such as peanut butter, baked beans, soy milk and other soy products such as tofu and "soy burgers/hotdogs" etc, quinoa, tempeh, seitan, lentils. LOADS of free info on the net out there.

VoodooAborisha

I highly recommend reading some of the books by Dr. Dean Ornish. He has scientifically studied the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle for heart disease for decades and has written books on how they can be done to safely get all the adequate nutrients you need while losing weight.

Yes, he is really one of the leading experts on this. I highly recommend any of his books also.

jonnythan

I'm aware that I'd be deficient in protein, but would I lose fat?

There is no reason to be deficient in protein on a vegan diet, unless you just eat potato chips and salad. The healthiest proteins in the world come from vegetable sources.(ref. "The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health" by Dr. Dean Ornish.)

Assuming you are eating healthy foods and a healthy calorie intake, it only takes the addition of ONE serving of beans to get plenty of protein per day, even for an athlete. (ref. A Diet for a New America by John Robbins, pp. 170 - 202). Vegetables have protein - it's not just meat and dairy etc. that have protein. Oatmeal has protein, and the protein from all your veggie foods, such as spinach etc. DOES add up. (Diet for a New America, p. 182)

The only thing a Vegan has to worry about - as long as they are eating a healthy and varied diet - is Vitamin B12 deficiency. We used to be able to get this from vegetables/greens because there was a bacteria on them that provided this, however due to modern farming practices this is no longer possible and you WILL NEED to take vitamin B12 supplements.

I keep referring to the "healthy and varied diet" - get yourself a book on vegan eating, and it will outline very clearly the sources of protein and teach you about whole grains, fruits and veg of all colors, including the dark leafy green ones and the red/orange ones with carotine in, and beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, etc. Variety is the key. To start out, you could read something like "Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet."

But there are a lot of free Vegan resources on the internet - just do a search. You can find out what the high-protein foods are, such as peanut butter, baked beans, soy milk and other soy products such as tofu and "soy burgers/hotdogs" etc, quinoa, tempeh, seitan, lentis. LOADS of free info on the net out there.

A serving of beans has, like.... 6 grams of protein. That's not going to cut it.

It's very tough to get sufficient quantities of protein on a vegan diet. You have to eat tons of chickpeas or tofu.

The tough part is that while a lot of vegetables and fruits have protein, they have very little protein as a percentage of their calories. So you have to fill your meals up with lots of carbs and fats from those items just to get the protein you need. Black beans have less than a quarter of their calories from protein. Same with chickpeas. Peanut butter is more like 17%. By comparison, whey powder is about 90% with chicken breast and fish are 80+%.

The idea that veganism is healthier is obscene, considering how careful you have to be with your diet just to prevent yourself from dying (and the fact that you literally can't get all the vitamins you need from a vegan diet).

The simple fact that you need a book to tell you how to be a vegan without killing yourself should tell you something.

jennaworksout

My overall goal is to become thin, not muscular or even toned.

Hmm I'm out :huh:

hmmm I missed that ...I am out too ..

???? what? me too lol