How to eat less carbs - Vegetarian

NaRmI10

Hi... I am struggling with this. I am a vegetarian and finding it difficult to cut down carbs and lately I am always hungry.
I have been overweight for past 8 years and struggling to lose at least 35lbs.
any tips?

JoeyFrappuccino

I'm vegan and about 55% of my calories come from carbs. That's relatively high but any plant-based diet will likely be high in carbs. Fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, and just about any plant is going to have more carbs than someone who's restricting them may be comfortable with. You may consider tracking net carbs instead, as they'll be significantly lower. About 20% of my carbs are fiber which is considered inert. I really only eat two foods regularly which could be considered low-carb, peanut butter and tofu, and that's only because they've been processed and the fiber has been stripped from them.

To be honest I don't consider low-carb to be compatible with a plant-based diet as they usually heavily consist of meats. Low-carb isn't really necessary unless you're insulin resistant, though, so unless that's the case I would focus more on adding fats and proteins and letting the carbs fall in line.

Pritree

Bump - I'm in the same boat. Starting to increase my use of protein shakes - hopefully that will do the trick.

grimendale

The trick is to look for higher-protein options and work those in. Boca vegan burgers are 13g protein for 80 calories. Tofurky brats are about 30g protein for 280 calories. Gardein has a number of high protein options. I usually don't have any trouble hitting my protein minimum in a day without too much effort. Whey protein can be a way to up protein, but I prefer to eat my food to drinking it, personally, so I usually only use this during high cardio periods (such as Insanity). As a previous poster said, low-carb is difficult as a veg*n, but it is totally possible to get enough protein (~0.8g protein per lbs lean body mass is what I usually shoot for).