Whole food vegan for a year, can't lose, keep gaining

alexczajka3 · January 2018

I've been vegan for a year and can't lose weight. I tried limiting my calorie intake but it's not working well. Before going vegan last year, I was vegetarian and used to eat a lot of cheese and drink loads of beer, eat out, eat chips for lunch every day, followed by huge dinner at home, eat sweets, crisps and processed food etc. I stopped eating animal products in January 2017 and started eating properly (healthier) in June. I counted calories and lost some weight but I think it was water rather than fat as as soon as I stopped counting, the weight came back. Over the summer I ate a lot of fruit - mostly strawberries and blueberries with occasional higher GI fruit, protein shakes and veg. I don't eat much processed food, and I've cut out all bread completely, I drink alcohol about once a month and it's spirits. My day usually starts with a porridge cooked in water, with banana and cinnamon, sometimes a bit of plant milk and agave syrup to taste. For lunch I usually eat a homemade salad - spinach or romaine lettuce, tomato, cucumber, some chickpeas and recently I add a sweet potato. I dont use much salt anymore. I used to eat a handful of almonds as a snack but swapped them for an apple and clementines or another banana in the afternoon. I dont drink coffee at work anymore, I drink green or mint tea in huge amounts instead. In my vegetarian days i used to love orange juice and drank it almost daily. I don't drink any sugary drinks anymore, just herbal tea or water. When i get home i usually eat a plate of veggies which I cook from frozen, sometimes with a baked potato, brown rice or brown pasta, sometimes I make a curry with lentils or beans. I like to eat a spoon or two of peanut butter for dessert, but not as often as I used to, or a few pieces of 80% chocolate or a hot chocolate made with unsweetened almond milk, I use xylitol instead of sweeteners or sugar. I don't fry in oil and don't add oil to my meals. I stopped eating other fatty foods lile avocados. What am I doing wrong? Why am I gaining and not losing? I started counting calories beginning of this year again but it is annoying and I don't want to do this forever, I tried limiting for two weeks now after NYE which lead me to crave biscuits and chocolate and eating over the daily limit after a week of restricting. I have an office job but walk to work and back (about 40 mins daily), I don't drive. I am 25, 176cm tall and weigh 70kg already (was 65 in July). I am worried I will keep gaining weight. Please can anyone give me some tips?

malibu927 · January 2018

You aren't counting calories. Start doing it again and give yourself time.

lorrpb · January 2018

Have you studied the flow chart?

jgnatca · January 2018

Here's the flow chart.
https://pin.it/orikcm7hjycsfu

In a nutshell, it's not WHAT you eat but HOW MUCH you eat that will determine if you are eating less or more than you did before.

You are currently within a healthy BMI. Any weight loss will be very slow, which is a good thing.

The exercise can help you keep toned and fit, but also does not DIRECTLY contribute to weight loss.

Are you stronger than you were before?

Even though you find calorie counting annoying, it is the only way to know for sure if you are eating more or less than before.

Rickster1967 · January 2018

why do people keep conflating the types of food they eat with the quantity?

aeloine · January 2018

Alatariel75 · January 2018

You counted calories and lost, you stopped and you gained. That should be your biggest indicator. You can have the healthiest diet in the world and not lose weight, or even gain, if you're eating more calories than you burn, which you clearly are. Otherwise people who eat a whole food vegan diet who don't need to lose weight would waste away.

GailLee4 · January 2018

Thanks, Aeoline for the flow chart! Regarding veganism, in and of itself, it's not a weight-loss guarantee. The dessert recipes I've seen online with all the dates for sweetener. . . wow! Calories galore! You can be vegan and lose weight, but you have to measure, weigh, and record everything. It's just the way it is.

HoneyBadger302 · January 2018

Okay, I know that calories in vs calories out is a big factor, BUT, that being said, if you have restricted a nutrient category too much, it CAN cause issues.

For example, my last losses had stagnated and I had no idea why. I was religious about measuring, making my own food, and counting every lick, nibble, and bite, but I stagnated.

I then took a look at my macros and realized I had cut too much (healthy) fat out of my diet. I actually added MORE fat back into my diet (avocados and grapeseed oil were easy sources) and started to lose without any additional calorie cuts or increases in activity.

Seems you may be low in several nutrient categories, so start tracking and take a look at all of the numbers.

kshama2001 · January 2018

There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

alexczajka3 · January 2018

Thanks everyone for your replies! To clarify - when I counted calories, I ate between 1200-1500 and up to 1800 kcal on a bad day. I did not count ovef Christmas but I definitely don't go over 2k even when I don't count. I don't think it's really that much kcal, and it should create some deficit after a few months. I burn about 170 kcal during my walk to work and back, I don't excercise over winter but I do walk a lot in the summer. I used MFP over the summer and tried another app Lose It! after christmas. The macros it calculated were <10% up to 20% fat, same for protein and the rest is carbs

the chart is very useful, thank you!! It's true I was losing over the summer, I felt motivated for 2 months, but I felt constantly hungry, I've read that it could be caused by too small calorie intake. I increased the calorie intake slightly and regained the weight quickly and gave up

Tacklewasher · January 2018

alexczajka3 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies! To clarify - when I count calories, I eat between 1200-1500 and up to 1800 kcal on a bad day. I burn about 170 kcal during my walk to work and back. I used MFP over the summer and tried another app Lose It! after christmas. The macros it calculated were <10% up to 20% fat, same for protein and the rest is carbs the chart is very useful, thank you!! It's true I was losing over the summer, I felt motivated for 2 months, but I felt constantly hungry, I increased the calorie intake slightly and regained the weight quickly.

Not to disagree with what has been said above, but 20% protein seems low to me and may be part of the reason you are hungry. Look to increase your protein (and I have no idea as to how for a vegan). For a lot of people (not all and maybe not you) protein helps them feel full. So low protein = more hunger.

Besides that, I think this is a perfect example for those who think what you eat matters more than how much you eat, that the concept is wrong for weight loss. Go back to counting, while still eating the foods you choose to eat, if you want to see the weight loss.

alexczajka3 · January 2018

Tacklewasher wrote: »

alexczajka3 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies! To clarify - when I count calories, I eat between 1200-1500 and up to 1800 kcal on a bad day. I burn about 170 kcal during my walk to work and back. I used MFP over the summer and tried another app Lose It! after christmas. The macros it calculated were <10% up to 20% fat, same for protein and the rest is carbs the chart is very useful, thank you!! It's true I was losing over the summer, I felt motivated for 2 months, but I felt constantly hungry, I increased the calorie intake slightly and regained the weight quickly.

Not to disagree with what has been said above, but 20% protein seems low to me and may be part of the reason you are hungry. Look to increase your protein (and I have no idea as to how for a vegan). For a lot of people (not all and maybe not you) protein helps them feel full. So low protein = more hunger.

Besides that, I think this is a perfect example for those who think what you eat matters more than how much you eat, that the concept is wrong for weight loss. Go back to counting, while still eating the foods you choose to eat, if you want to see the weight loss.

Thank you, I tried this and I drank up to 3 protein shakes daily, ate a lot of tofu, it did not help and I was hungry. I swapped my morning protein shake for a 50g oats cooked in water and they keep me full until lunch.

It's impossible for vegans to eat this much protein, but I do eat enough protein (we need 0.8-1g protein per kg of weight I think?)

I've not used MFP for a while but see my typical day (but a bit more walking) I've logged recently:

I ate like this for 2 weeks, sometimes less sometimes more but not more than 1800 kcal, I started craving chocolate this week and so I had some, I had some nuts and peanut butter to stop the craving, I now think it could be not enough fat as someone above mentioned!

mom22dogs · January 2018

Did you actually weigh each of those items? Logging can be off by hundreds of points if you don't weigh your solid foods. Like your bananas - they are really calorie dense and can be a lot more than you think - medium is subjective. Weight of food isn't.

alexczajka3 · January 2018

mom22dogs wrote: »

Did you actually weigh each of those items? Logging can be off by hundreds of points if you don't weigh your solid foods. Like your bananas - they are really calorie dense and can be a lot more than you think - medium is subjective. Weight of food isn't.

This might sound stupid, but I never know, should I weight the banana with skin or peeled?

jennifer_417 · January 2018

So, you can put umpteen restrictions that have nothing to do with weight loss on your diet and be just fine, but counting calories is annoying and too much work?

I realize the above question may seem a bit attacking, but I don't mean for it it be. I'm simply trying to point out what seems like a rather interesting inconsistency.

Look, the bottom line is that the ONLY way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn. The reason any diet works is that it achieves this equation. Not everyone has to do it forever. Many people log for a period of time to get a good idea of the calories they are actually eating, then do well enough with estimating.

YogiJear · January 2018

"I drank up to 3 protein shakes daily, ate a lot of tofu, it did not help and I was hungry."
This immediately reminded me of articles I've come across where drinking your calories are less satiating, I forgot the reasons why but worth looking it up and seeing if you can find an alternative solution for your protein.

alexczajka3 · January 2018

jennifer_417 wrote: »

So, you can put umpteen restrictions that have nothing to do with weight loss on your diet and be just fine, but counting calories is annoying and too much work?

Hey, no it's okay I don't take it as an attack, I posted here to get opinions!

what restrictions do you mean? If ditching animal produce, it isn't really restricting in this sense for me, I stopped for ethical and health reasons and find animal products repulsive now! And yeah, I mean counting calories for a few weeks or months is ok, I just can't imagine doing it for the rest of my life if this makes sense. I can already tell how many kcal I eat approximately as I did count calories in the summer, stopped for a while in autumn and started again after christmas!

manwithmustache wrote: »

"I drank up to 3 protein shakes daily, ate a lot of tofu, it did not help and I was hungry."
This immediately reminded me of articles I've come across where drinking your calories are less satiating, I forgot the reasons why but worth looking it up and seeing if you can find an alternative solution for your protein.

I've read a lot about it, and the conclusion is that vegans would struggle to do high protein diets, I've also read that eating high protein can be damaging in long term so I stopped and started eating high carb and try keep the fat low instead... but I would like to know, how much protein would you say I should eat to keep full? With high carb and low fat I don't really feel hungry so much and I can fill up easily on veg, the problem is the chocolate, biscuits and nuts cravings which started after two weeks!

AliceDark · January 2018

You need to give any change 4-8 weeks before you change something again. Log your food as accurately as possible (that means logging everything, including cooking oils and drinks, and using a food scale if possible), try to be as consistent as possible over that time, and see what your weight does. IF, after 4-8 weeks, you're not losing at the rate you'd like, THEN you start looking for things to change.

However, you do need to be honest with yourself about how consistent you were over that time. The beginning stage is just data collection, and then you draw conclusions. If your data isn't good, you can't draw meaningful conclusions.

alexczajka3 · January 2018

AliceDark wrote: »

You need to give any change 4-8 weeks before you change something again. Log your food as accurately as possible (that means logging everything, including cooking oils and drinks, and using a food scale if possible), try to be as consistent as possible over that time, and see what your weight does. IF, after 4-8 weeks, you're not losing at the rate you'd like, THEN you start looking for things to change.

However, you do need to be honest with yourself about how consistent you were over that time. The beginning stage is just data collection, and then you draw conclusions. If your data isn't good, you can't draw meaningful conclusions.

Thank you, I will stay strong and keep logging!

AliceDark · January 2018

alexczajka3 wrote: »

AliceDark wrote: »

You need to give any change 4-8 weeks before you change something again. Log your food as accurately as possible (that means logging everything, including cooking oils and drinks, and using a food scale if possible), try to be as consistent as possible over that time, and see what your weight does. IF, after 4-8 weeks, you're not losing at the rate you'd like, THEN you start looking for things to change.

However, you do need to be honest with yourself about how consistent you were over that time. The beginning stage is just data collection, and then you draw conclusions. If your data isn't good, you can't draw meaningful conclusions.

Thank you, I will stay strong and keep logging!

The beginning part really can be hard -- there's a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to learning how to log accurately. I promise, it's so worth it later! Once you get into the swing of things, it's really easy to make adjustments to your intake based on your results.

Have you found our plant-based group yet? If not, you should definitely check it out: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/45-happy-herbivores

Whole food vegan for a year, can't lose, keep gaining

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