Vegetarian diet

You go vegetarian for ethical/moral reasons rather than an aid to lose weight. - sorry if this sounds *****y but choosing vegetarian/vegan means seeing a bigger picture than just weightloss.

You can lose weight by maintaining your calorie deficit and tone up by exercising.

People who go veggie/vegan as a weight loss tool are less likely to stay on it long term.
My friend has been vegetarian as many years as we have been friends, and even more before we met. It's something deeply rooter in her, and that she's passionate for. I know if I did it for weight loss, I would stick to it probably a week, and then jump back into what's comfortable for me.

i did a really nice chana daal fry the other night and at about 80 calories a serve (add that to the rice for a dinner at around 200cals) it was fantastic and I will be doing it again.

There's a really really cool indian website, and making those authentic flavours isn't actually hard!

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/chana-dal-recipe-chana-dal/

I spent 10 years completely vegetarian, and currently eat meat about once a week on average. Aaaaand when I started MFP I was obese in spite of my very active lifestyle and vegetarian diet. Vegetarianism is in no way a magic weight loss charm. What made me fat is that I ate a lot of high-calorie things that aren't meat, and I ate a lot. French fries, cookies, pasta, all those are vegetarian. Don't mean they're healthy.

Those studies that show vegetarians have a lower BMI than meat-eaters, etc? Personally I think that's because most vegetarians pay more attention to what goes in their mouth than the average omnivore. Just the fact that you are careful about reading ingredients and cook more at home means you are more likely to make healthy choices than the average American. But if you're already paying attention to your diet I doubt going veg will make a big difference.

Let's all stop knocking this person and be helpful.

Get off your soap boxes and give her ideas!

We are being helpful by honestly answering the question. OP did not say "I'm vegetarian, can I lose weight?" OP asked "will going vegetarian help me lose weight?" The answer is no.

No soap boxes here. If someone wants to eat vegetarian that's great, and I'll give them recipes and support! And I don't question people on their motivations for it, that's up to them. But it will not help the OP achieve their goal. So if weight loss is the only motivation why waste so much effort on something that won't get results?

I don't think this is an optimal strategy.

Unless the food you consume that's causing you to miss you weight goals is of animal origin, it won't help much.

A Mars bar is vegetarian.
Fries are vegetarian.
A coconut milk curry portion can have 600 calories (and be delicious).
Hummus has about 500 cals. per cup, depending on the amount of tahini.

My wife is vegetarian and 75% of the food we consume is so. I supplement with lean meats and similar. I still find it hard to lose weight, mostly from portion control!

Sure, if your problem is eating too many cheeseburgers it might help. But otherwise, if you substitute eating one of this for a salad without going fully vegetarian you'd still get benefits.

I went vegan (for animals) and put on weight lol, but before that was vegetarian and lost 25kgs.
It all depends on whether you're tracking i think, as i haven't been in ages. Maybe i ate too many cashews.

Sorry, becoming a vegetarian does not guarantee that you will lose weight. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, a carnivore, it's the amount that you put in your body that counts. I was a vegetarian for 10 years, but honestly all that meant was that I didn't eat meat. I ate lots of crap, mostly breads, and I was overweight that whole time. Right now I am on a vegan diet, and have lost weight, but it's not because I've gone vegan. It's because I count every calorie that goes in my body, and I exercise almost every day so I can eat more calories and enjoy food instead of feeling deprived. I think being a vegetarian is a great thing. It is definitely my personal preference, and I think it's great if it's something you would like to try, but that alone will not guarantee the scale will go down. Whatever you do decide, good luck in your weight loss journey! It gets really exciting once you get going. :flowerforyou:

You can lose weight on either a meaty or a vegan/vegetarian diet.

That being said, you will be healthier and live longer if you eat a vegetarian or vegan diet. About 2 months ago the University of Southern California completed an 18-year-long study which reported that eating meat was as bad for us as smoking. This upsets a lot of meat eaters, and a lot of blogs have been written about why this is false etc. because in today's society people think that opinion equals fact (Even a blog or magazine article written by a medical expert does not carry any weight in the academic community. It has to be a proper, long-term study done in a clinical setting through a university or research hospital and published in a respectable medical journal, such as this 18-year-long study.) However medical experts take these kind of studies such as this 18 year long study by USC as fact, or at least the best information we have, even when average laypeople do not understand their significance. It often takes a generation or two for this type of information to be accepted by the public. A similar study was done in the 1960's by the surgeon general and they found that smoking caused cancer. Most people believe that now, however at the time there were stragglers who refused to believe it.

This is not the first major academic study to conclude that eating meat will kill you. In the 1990's, Dr. Dean Ornish devised a diet that was nearly vegan, except it allowed fat free dairy, eggs, and fish for people who did not already have heart problems. This was the first diet in the history of medical science which was able to halt, and in some cases, reverse heart disease. His research has been covered on major news networks, most recently of which was a program called 20/20 which concluded that, with this information, heart attacks were completely a choice, based on diet.

Before this was the China Study by Campbell and Schurman, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, who had the same findings, that animal products such as meat or dairy were responsible for the "diseases of affluence" of western society, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arterioscelerosis etc. etc.

In the 90's, the American Journal of Medicine said that Vegetarians live 7 years longer, on average, than meat eaters, and that 97% of heart attacks are caused by eating animal products. There are many other studies as well if you want more academic references - I have loads.

I used to be a vegan (now vegetarian) for purely ethical reasons however science also supports this as being the right choice for health. That being said, you do not have to be veg to lose weight.

Let's all stop knocking this person and be helpful.

Get off your soap boxes and give her ideas!

Good idea, now take your own advice.

You can lose weight on either a meaty or a vegan/vegetarian diet.

That being said, you will be healthier and live longer if you eat a vegetarian or vegan diet. About 2 months ago the University of Southern California completed an 18-year-long study which reported that eating meat was as bad for us as smoking. This upsets a lot of meat eaters, and a lot of blogs have been written about why this is false etc. because in today's society people think that opinion equals fact (Even a blog or magazine article written by a medical expert does not carry any weight in the academic community. It has to be a proper, long-term study done in a clinical setting through a university or research hospital and published in a respectable medical journal, such as this 18-year-long study.) However medical experts take these kind of studies such as this 18 year long study by USC as fact, or at least the best information we have, even when average laypeople do not understand their significance. It often takes a generation or two for this type of information to be accepted by the public. A similar study was done in the 1960's by the surgeon general and they found that smoking caused cancer. Most people believe that now, however at the time there were stragglers who refused to believe it.

This is not the first major academic study to conclude that eating meat will kill you. In the 1990's, Dr. Dean Ornish devised a diet that was nearly vegan, except it allowed fat free dairy, eggs, and fish for people who did not already have heart problems. This was the first diet in the history of medical science which was able to halt, and in some cases, reverse heart disease. His research has been covered on major news networks, most recently of which was a program called 20/20 which concluded that, with this information, heart attacks were completely a choice, based on diet.

Before this was the China Study by Campbell and Schurman, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, who had the same findings, that animal products such as meat or dairy were responsible for the "diseases of affluence" of western society, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arterioscelerosis etc. etc.

In the 90's, the American Journal of Medicine said that Vegetarians live 7 years longer, on average, than meat eaters, and that 97% of heart attacks are caused by eating animal products. There are many other studies as well if you want more academic references - I have loads.

I used to be a vegan (now vegetarian) for purely ethical reasons however science also supports this as being the right choice for health. That being said, you do not have to be veg to lose weight.

Thankfully gullibility doesn't inflict all vegetarian/vegans.

I went from vegetarian to vegan and dropped 6kg (14lbs) in a month. I have lost 16kg in total since the end of January as a vegetarian and then vegan. I eat a mostly whole food diet. I don't eat vegan 'cheese', or much fake 'meat'. I occasionally eat veggie hotdogs, apart from that it's pulses and nuts and green veggies for protein. I also don't add sugar or artificial sweeteners and just drink water and herbal tea, no caffeine. It works for me, I have tons of energy, feel great and have seen a dramatic improvement in my skin tone and texture.

Let's all stop knocking this person and be helpful.

Get off your soap boxes and give her ideas!

Nobody's on a soap box. The OP asked if anyone had considered vegetarianism as a strategy for weightloss. As a very fat vegetarian (I've been a vege for 30 years) I'd agree with previous posters - it isn't a strategy for weightloss.

It obviously helps to eat more plant based food, but vegetarianism per se is not a weightloss strategy.

The OP didn't actually ask for recipe tips, but no-one got stroppy about your previous post. I'm unclear why you decided to take offence to everyone else's helpful and on topic responses.

I disagree with the first poster who said you become a vegetarian for ethical reasons. I haven't eaten meat in about 7.5 years and I couldn't care less about the ethics behind it.

That said, it isn't how you eat, but what you eat. If you give up meat only to replace it with bread and pasta, you won't lose weight. If you give up meat and triple your intake of vegetables, you very well might.

Feel free to add me if you want some meal ideas.

Depends what kind of vegetarian you are. I was veggie for 10 years and lived on pizza and ready meal, so not very healthy and I actually put on weight. I gave up vegetarianism when I got pregnant, as baby decided it wanted meat so who was I to argue lol. If you eat healthy food with the correct calorie deficit it is irrelevant whether you are veggie or not.