Vegan lifestyle

First if you're going to go vegan do your research. I am no expert on veganism but I do know there are things you'll be needing to supplement. Think one of them is B12.

My advice tho if you aren't doing it for an ethical reason, you just need to get your eating habits in check. Regardless of what diet you choose its going to be all about tracking your calories. Not saying your are saying this BUT no diet is weight loss wizardry. You can gain weight with any diet and you can lose weight with any diet. Just try diets that you think you can sustain for the rest of your life and if being vegan is one of them, go for it.

Feel free to add me if your vegan, I'm not really but try a lot of vegan stuff since my boyfriend is and I'd like to get to know more vegans ☺☺

I think veganism is great if one is convinced by the ethics of it. I'm not totally, but I feel it's important (for me) to be picky about my sourcing and to cut way down on animal products in my diet, and this is something I'm working on, and I may someday do more than that, so if you want to go vegan I certainly would be supportive and respect that. (I was 100% plant-based for a month this fall to support a friend and because I was curious to try it again -- I enjoyed it when I did it one Lent, and found that I was eating more meat/animal products than I wanted to lately.)

BUT if you struggle with backsliding and your focus is weight loss and health, not the ethics, then think about WHY you keep backsliding and how you think veganism would be helpful. When I lost my weight I found that lean meat and eggs and dairy were actually more helpful than not (which is how I started eating more meat than I personally was comfortable with -- before weight loss I'd been an omnivore but still tended to eat vegetarian maybe about half the time, and with weight loss I was eating meat daily and when I intentionally added in vegetarian days I found I was relying heavily on eggs and dairy -- the reason is protein and these foods are often filling for not that many calories, especially if you enjoy seafood or other kinds of lean meat). From a health perspective, I think veganism can be very healthy, but I think eggs and fish/seafood are probably pretty positive additions and in moderation meat and dairy are at worst neutral (and it depends on what they are replaced by too -- like I said for me they tend to be extremely filling).

That said, I think lots of times when someone switches to a vegan diet they will start eating more vegetables and fruit and nuts and beans and lentils and so on, because you have to eat something, but you can be vegan in healthier and less healthy ways and if you are not already incorporating those foods (especially vegetables!) doing that will improve the diet. It's that, not the cutting out of eggs and dairy and fish and other meat. It also can be challenging to learn to eat plant-based if you aren't already eating vegetarian sometimes (at least), lots of the kinds of foods you would be eating, so on. Maybe big challenges and changes are more motivating and easier for you than small ones, but these are just some things to think about.

Sometimes I think people realize they are eating poorly (and too much) but don't really want to learn about nutrition or how to construct a healthy/calorie-appropriate diet or assume it would be complicated (it is not) and so jump to a big change as a replacement, assuming something extreme will be extra healthy. Often this is I'll go paleo or keto or WFPB or do the potato only diet or some fad or who knows (my own version of this when I was gaining was "maybe I'll go locavore" although I never actually tried it (since I live in Chicago, good, as the winter would be pretty darn challenging). I did briefly try paleo, and am not against experimenting, and like I said before I totally support veganism as an ethical choice, but just some thoughts if your idea is merely that it would make weight loss or eating healthfully easier.

fr33sia12 wrote: »

I no longer wanted to eat cheap cuts of meat pumped full of god knows what which had lived god knows where and eaten god knows what

lol literally not a thing. Also very easy to find out where beef or pork is raised with how many farmers are taking to social media these days.

Cynde023 wrote: »

I have been exploring the plant based diet but what I am finding is that I am adding WAY to Much sugar to my diet in a lot of the recipes. I don't see how this can be good in avoiding becoming diabetic so, trying to use fruits instead of sugar.

I eat plant-based a lot, and pretty much never add sugar to savory meals, so this is certainly not necessary. Are you relying on a particular cook book or something?

I do sometimes cook fruit and eat it as part of a savory meal, and of course eat raw fruit. Nothing wrong with that.

Edited to add (got interrupted, so that's why a long gap): For avoiding diabetes, staying at a healthy weight is probably the #1 thing you can do.

Cynde023 wrote: »

I have been exploring the plant based diet but what I am finding is that I am adding WAY to Much sugar to my diet in a lot of the recipes. I don't see how this can be good in avoiding becoming diabetic so, trying to use fruits instead of sugar.

Fruit has sugar..