Anyone on vegan low carb? Looking for friends on a similar

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hanabanana2
hanabanana2 Posts: 7 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been experimenting with a low carb (but not ultra low carb) diet and am vegan. I found it a bit of an odd thing to get my head round when I started, but am feeling loads better and am losing weight :-) So, it's going well so far, but I could do with friendly folk to bounce ideas off and share moral support. Anyone in a similar boat? :smile:

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  • vegangirl88
    vegangirl88 Posts: 104 Member
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    Genuinely interested - what are you eating on a low-carb vegan diet? And how low is "low carb"? I'm currently just trying to cut out junk food and reduce portions and that seems to be working for me, but looking back over my diary for the past few days there have been a couple of days where my carbs were only at 100g so I guess it can be done! Saying that, on that day I ate chips for lunch and had a chinese takeaway for dinner so not a particularly healthy day!!!
  • Trishkit
    Trishkit Posts: 290 Member
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    Curious as well -- are we talking all carbs or just the bad, processed stuff?

    Vegan here, too. :smile:
  • lisasays
    lisasays Posts: 142 Member
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    I am vegan, but not low carb. I eat whole carbs like quinoa and brown rice.
    Are you getting your protein from beans and lentils or soy? Too much soy is what landed me in the hospital in anaphylactic shock with my face and lips swollen beyond belief and hives all over my body.
    It was from consuming too much soy. If you are getting your protein from soy, make sure its as close to whole as possible (not processed soy-burgers etc) and you should try and get your protein from beans, nuts, legumes and only consume soy a few times a week.
  • martielou
    martielou Posts: 50 Member
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    Robin Robertson has a great low carb vegan cookbook. I think it's carb conscious vegetarian.
  • hsgreer
    hsgreer Posts: 1 Member
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    I'm a vegetarian of 20 years plus on a low carb diet. I do eat some eggs cheese and fish though -so I have a lot more choice than you. Rose Elliott has a vegetarian low carb cook book with some great vegan recipes. Go the nuts and pulses, good luck :)
  • cobblers88
    cobblers88 Posts: 41
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    I'm a vegetarian of 20 years plus on a low carb diet. I do eat some eggs cheese and fish though

    You're not a vegetarian then.
  • cobblers88
    cobblers88 Posts: 41
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    I'm vegan and trying to go low card. What are your carb goals for the day? I've been fiddling around with the percentages on here, but not sure what constitutes as 'low' for a vegan. I've heard, though, that a vegan version of the Atkins has the same weightloss speed without any of the health risks! But I imagine it's impossible!
  • Zombielicious
    Zombielicious Posts: 246 Member
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    I'm a vegetarian of 20 years plus on a low carb diet. I do eat some eggs cheese and fish though

    You're not a vegetarian then.

    It's true. Pescatarian's eat fish and seafood. What's funny is that more often than not people who eat fish consider themselves (or others consider them) vegetarians. I wonder why that is?
  • cobblers88
    cobblers88 Posts: 41
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    I'm a vegetarian of 20 years plus on a low carb diet. I do eat some eggs cheese and fish though

    You're not a vegetarian then.

    It's true. Pescatarian's eat fish and seafood. What's funny is that more often than not people who eat fish consider themselves (or others consider them) vegetarians. I wonder why that is?

    I find the concept of agreeing not to eat any concious being...except fish...very odd.
  • hanabanana2
    hanabanana2 Posts: 7 Member
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    Thanks to everyone replying :-)

    I'm eating as few processed foods as I can, and have had no pasta or rice since I started. I have had the occasional potato and small amount of naan bread as carb treats, but generally avoid those too. I don't really set myself a daily target for carbs, just try to keep them as low as I can. I've got the Rose Elliot book, but made the mistake of starting the diet before reading very much of the book, so am still reading thro looking for info, recipes and so on.

    Protein is difficult - I do have a lot of tofu and soya products, but I make sure that's not my only source. I eat a lot of nuts and seeds (pumpkin, linseed, sesame) and top up that way.

    Rose Elliot recommends starting an initial sort of detox of around 20g of useable carbs, but I found this incredibly difficult and felt horrible on it. It felt like my muscles just didn't want to work!!! Atkins does have a section for vegetarians and vegans. He says vegans should just start at a higher carb level than meat eaters. I don't know a lot about his plan, except that he recommends vegans start at 50g of carbs.

    When I started, I tried the 20g, but now most days I get around 70 - 100g carbs and I'm still losing. I'm not fanatical about it, I want to find something that suits me long term, rather than just to shift the weight, so figure I'd rather lose slowly than be too strict and fall of the wagon when I'm fed up! So, I avoid the pasta/bread/rice type carbs and try not to have too much of the starchy veg like carrots and so on, but otherwise I don't worry. Oh, and I have dark chocolate almost every day :-)

    I don't know if I'm doing it right, but it seems to be going ok so far. Only problem is I don't know any other vegans or low carbers to share my thoughts with :-s

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