Vegan -- Can't Lose Weight!

How are you measuring & tracking your foods?

Weigh your food. I can lose weight, maintain, and gain weight, all on a 100% vegan diet. It depends on how much I eat

It's simple. Eat less calories than you burn. I'm vegan and need to count calories, log food, etc. It isn't magic and I've found, since going vegan, I have to be more careful than ever since the calories in lean turkey were easy to calculate and the alternatives are often higher in calories.

Without information about how many calories you're eating and what those macros are, it's hard to give any advice. Vegan food tends to be very heavy in fats - eat an extra handful of cashews every day and there goes any hope of weight loss.

I had the same exact problem. If you're anything like me, my guess is you're overdoing it on the fats. Track your macros and look to see what percentage of your calories are coming from fat: you may not be getting enough carbs (especially if you're still carb-phobic from your paleo days) and protein, and fat (though it is important yadda ya) doesn't fill you up nearly as much as other macros. It's also really easy to eat an extra few hundred calories from fat, while it's harder to do so with other macros. It's hard to overeat broccoli, or rice and beans, or bread with hummus, or mushrooms, or potatoes... but if you are a bit heavy handed with the olive oil, or if you're eating peanut butter out of the jar (what? me? never! *hides jar with spoon in it*) you'll find yourself going over pretty darn easily.

Also, track your calories in general. Being vegan is NOT the same as volumetric eating, though it might look like it from the marketing.

Lastly, in general, "slow metabolism" is a myth: some people are more active during their day than others, but unless you have signs of malnutrition/malabsorption/hypothyroidism (such as unexplained tiredness, weight fluctuation unexplained by diet, digestive problems, hair loss, etc) your metabolism is probably fine. I'm speaking as someone who has trouble losing weight: I KNOW why I struggle to lose weight: inconsistent/inaccurate tracking, exercising less than I think I am, eating too much fat... It's a process. I'm also petite so I do burn less than normal-sized humans. But it's no fault of my metabolism. That's not to say that I know everything about your metabolism; I don't. But please rule out other factors before you chalk it up to a slow metabolism.

ugofatcat wrote: »

evileen99 wrote: »

lindaharvey320 wrote: »

Well - I can't lose either - I have a slow metabolism!
But I cheat - saying I will eat this now and get back on food plan tomorrow.
Then I have got into the habit of eyeballing the measurements. It all is a struggle to change.

I used to do metabolic testing in a hospital, and unless you have a real, diagnosed metabolic disease, you *don't* have a slow metabolism. I saw hundreds of disappointed people, who had convinced themselves they couldn't lose weight because of their metabolism, actually find out that because of their weight, their BMR was higher than a thin person's and their problem was how much they were eating.

This makes no sense to me. Why would you be disappointed you don't have a metabolic disease? The test means they can lose weight (if they eat less). Where they disappointed because they realized they now had to take responsibility and no longer had any excuses?

There is nothing to place blame on their being overweight other their own habits. Some like finding excuses for why they cannot lose weight and get disappointed when they cannot blame it on xx condition.