Vegetarian tips

Beans, legumes, chickpeas, soybeans, etc. Seriously, you have to work up your tolerance, but they are low in fat and high in protein..

Tofu is my favorite thing ever. Just sautee that stuff in the pan with some soy sauce and stevia (I like sweet and salty). Simplest thing ever.

I also eat a WHOLE lot of BEANS! Taco salads with faux meat and red kidney beans? Yum!

Oh, and breakfast for dinner is a fave. Eggs, eggs, eggs!

Just about anything put out by The Minimalist Baker. Super yummy, easy foods, and most of it is very healthy. Having biscuits and gravy today for breakfast, a double serving, for only 500 calories.

I'm also a big fan of chickpea salad (like mock chicken or tuna salads). Plop that on some bread with some lettuce, onion, and tomatoes. Best sandwich of all time.

I've been ovo-lacto vegetarian for 41 years, since age 18. I have no brief way to answer your question!

Snacks: Puppodums (an odd cracker-y thing from Indian food that's made with chickpea flour, low calorie, kinda protein-y, can be microwaved dry, but typically very salty). Dry-roasted edamame. Nuts in reasonable portions. One of my favorite light lunches is a whole apple, quartered, with peanut butter.

Pepitas as a salad topper. Any and every bean - make dips for veggies, stuffings for veggie rolls or lasagna-like things made with veggies (i.e., inside rolled eggplant slices, baked between zucchini slices, etc.), as a sandwich filling if you eat bread, as a protein ingredient in salads. Roasted veggies - different, richer flavor than raw/steamed. Some veg (broccoli, for example) have surprising amounts of protein. Tempeh. Edamame.

Personally, I think the fake meat products are icky: Not good tasting, often long lists of processed ingredients. There are a few burger-like things that are grain/bean and not as horrifying . . . but *why*?

Check out veggie-rich ethnic cuisines like Indian, middle eastern, some African, Mexican. There are lots of good web sites, books, magazines, resources about vegetarian cooking, but I can't suggest any as the ones I've most relied on are probably long out of print. Now it's just a habit.

The biggest breakthrough for me (decades ago) was escaping the idea of meals as protein-plus-sides. Just eat food, making sure protein sources are woven throughout - much more interesting & satisfying.