Chubby Vegan - time to take control!

MamaSunflowers
MamaSunflowers Posts: 231 Member
edited February 2018 in Introduce Yourself
Hello all!

I am not new to myfitnesspal, but i am new to the forums - long time lurker, first time poster.
I decided to give myself some extra accountability and motivation on my weight loss journey this time by getting involved with the community on here. I am sure my friends and family are bored to death with boring stories of me needing to lose weight, so i don't want to put the burden on them, so instead i am reaching to the internet!

I was vegetarian for 10 years, but went vegan 2 years ago, and contrary to my other vegan friends, i ended up gaining about 10kgs! I was clearly doing this wrong, but as my reasons for going vegan weren't for weight loss, so i merely watched the scales in mild horror but didn't change what i was eating. I've never been a slim person, but this extra 10kgs is just too much.

This year my work schedule has become crazy and my "working week" is about 65-70 hours, which doesn't leave much time for going to the gym, and i definitely didn't have the motivation. I was exhausted and stressed. I would much rather meet my friends in the pub on a Friday night for a few (too many) beers than go running.
I know i will often overeat, and eat in any mini breaks from working - even if i wasn't hungry - just because i worried about being low on energy and not being able to teach properly if i didn't.

Last Monday i stepped on the scales and said 77.6kgs - the highest weight i have seen. I felt awful, and knew things had to change. Yesterday, i returned from a trip to visit my long distance boyfriend (who i will be moving country to live with in July) and we had the awkward (and upsetting) discussion that my weight gain worries him and lessens his attraction to me. It's bad enough knowing these things in your mind, but to hear it from the person you love really hits home..

This weight loss needs to be for me. For my happiness. For my mental and physical health.

I have decided to take positive action!
I will be weighing and tracking my food meticulously, cutting back on carbs (oh bread and hummus... i love you, but we mustn't meet in such huge quantities..), and definitely cutting back on the alcohol at weekends.
I have also started working with a personal trainer (as often as i can make the time, twice a week ideally), plus doing C25K.

I would like to have lost at least 10kgs by the time i move, but i know i must be patient and consistent.

30 years old
5ft4"
SW today: 75Kgs
GW: 57Kgs

If anyone would like to be friends on here for motivation, support, advice.. anything, please feel free to add me!

Replies

  • SelenaMariaStewart
    SelenaMariaStewart Posts: 112 Member
    Chubby vegan over here too! Carbs and bread were life! Just wanted to welcome you to the forum (I’m new too), and say that you aren’t alone in your journey :) I don’t know how to friend people yet but feel free to add me. 27 year old vegan mommy of two standing at a whopping 5ft 3 and like 173 lbs!! ( I still die inside at that number)
  • sueami1
    sueami1 Posts: 15 Member
    Welcome! I'm new here too. Not vegan (a carefully sourced carnivore, I suppose), but needing to lose about the same amount of weight (if my on-the-fly metric conversion is accurate.)

    I'm getting some really good insights as I wander through the forums. I'm particularly loving the calm, rational, self-compassionate, small-steps-make-the-journey-doable voices on here. This particular post from Momepro was so inspiring for me because I think the journey to a healthy body requires getting to know myself intimately and dropping an old habit of doing everything 110 percent or failing/quitting, which of course was the eventual outcome of that approach:


    Momepro wrote: »
    In my case? Excercise more to give yourself a few more calories to play with.
    I also suggest logging for a while, even before making any serious changes to your diet.
    Weigh (with a scale is best) everything you eat, and write why you are eating it (i.e, lunchtime, hungry, kind of bored, out with friends, watching tv) and how you are feeling right before, right after and an hour after (hungry, comfortable, normal, full, very full bloated, drowsy).
    This gives you a baseline pattern for your normal habits and routine. From there, it's just a matter of experimenting. Are you very full after dinner? Cut back on a few things. Does lunch leave you bloated and gassy after an hour, try less or no mayo, and see if there's something you don't mind dropping each meal (fries, or cheese, or maybe only 2 tacos instead of 3).It's amazing how quickly these small and easily sustainable changes will add up to big calorie cuts. Only cut one or two things at a time, until they become habit instead if trying to do everything at once. That way they become individual habits instead of one big "diet". So when you backslide you won't drop everything at once, just one or two habits, that you can fix again more easily.


    And then I wrote how much I appreciated her advice and where I was thinking of taking it:

    I love this entire thought process! I have an internal war between my impatient/frightened thinking and my deeper wisdom that knows I need to make changes that last and are both sustainable and effective.

    I think I am going to sit down and make a list of all the small changes I have made already, partly to acknowledge what I've done so far, but I will also rate them according to how hard or easy they have felt to me, so that when I hit my weight loss goal, I know what I can easily keep as maintenance habits and what I can let go of as a harder-to-maintain "diet-phase" restriction.


    Good luck with your journey and I hope you can find time to slow down and be kind to yourself often. It sounds like a grueling lifestyle right now and perhaps worth questioning closely whether all of it needs to be done now/done ever. I have some drill-sergeant must-do voices in my head that are frankly completely insane but they ran my life for many years, until I realized how much joy and passion and creativity and fun they had sucked out of it.

  • sarahtiffany23
    sarahtiffany23 Posts: 13 Member
    I'm a chubby vegan too! I've only been vegan since November, so I'm still learning what works for me and what doesn't. I haven't gained any weight since being vegan, but I haven't lost any either. I would love to connect and share recipes back and forth! And the support from another vegan attempting to loose weight would be awesome! My omnivore husband isn't keen on the vegan idea!
  • sstuart5
    sstuart5 Posts: 7 Member
    Working toward that vegan life! I cut out meat in November (except fish/seafood). And working to cut out dairy next. Even cheese ☹️ this week will hopefully be my last week with dairy since this is my last week using the blue apron meal service. They love putting cheese, butter, and heavy cream into the recipe to make it taste good.
  • gennienedison
    gennienedison Posts: 1 Member
    I also gained weight being vegan.... so I cut out the bread added as much protein as I could. I read about the blood type diet and I lost 10 lbs the first week
  • blackopal93
    blackopal93 Posts: 6 Member
    Hi! I just joined this community yesterday! I'm 41 years old and I've been vegetarian and then vegan for years. It hasn't influenced my weight but going to the pub and eating out too often certainly did. And eating every time I felt too stressed or anxious did some damage. Now I'm much more in control but it's a long journey. Happy to share the journey with you!
  • zeresthiel
    zeresthiel Posts: 1 Member
    Hello, here's another vegan. Not so much chubby, more like actually properly fat. ;-)

    I just joined this site.

    I've been mostly vegan (there have been incidents with honey at the beginning) for about 14 years, vegetarian for longer. It's not the veganism that makes me gain weight; it's my passion baking for cakes and eating them.

    I'm motivated to lose weight mostly because I'm getting really awful heartburn.

    I also moved countries to be with my long-distance boyfriend (now husband), but that was almost twelve years ago. He wouldn't dare comment on my weight. I'd just sit on him if he did. ;-)
  • bmfagan
    bmfagan Posts: 1 Member
    Newly Vegan (and long time lurker) here too! Vegetarian for 1 year 2 mos now... and recently vegan (2 mos). I am most definitely past the chubby state, and ready to commit to making a change - and really focusing on my intake through tracking (accountability) and understanding what works/doesn't work for my body.
    My motivation is for better overall health: more energy, improving my mood, physical endurance, and self-care.
    I'm so pleased to see there is a strong vegan/vegetarian community here - and am happy to provide any support (tips, recipes etc) that may be helpful.
    I'm excited to share this journey will you all - and looking forward to following your success stories!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Hi! I was a chubby vegan when I started here in 2015. I lost over 40 pounds counting calories and I've been maintaining that weight loss ever since.

    Measuring your food accurately really helps and it sounds like you've already identified some of the major calorie sources in your diet (I can identify with a love for bread, beer, and hummus!).

    Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I've been vegan for ten years and I've logged every day since I started in 2015, so I'll be happy to help if I can.

    Good luck!
  • hicim705
    hicim705 Posts: 5,945 Member
    We have a new Challenge starting in a few short weeks. Come and join us:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/members/146243-2024-s-5-spring-community-team-plz-join-us

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