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Switching to veggie for health benefits

Posts: 208 Member
edited December 2024 in Food and Nutrition
I have, for years, suffered from an extremely lazy bowel. I have never found a root cause....I do restrict my calorie intake a lot and often wonder if this could be a reason. I get very bloated and uncomfortable.

I have also found over the years that I enjoy eating more vegetarian food over a lot of meats.

Has anyone ever changed to a vegetarian diet and noticed a benefit in health and well-being?

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Replies

  • Posts: 3,882 Member
    Have you been able to narrow down any trigger foods for your issue, or is it just in general that you're dealing with it? Perhaps eating vegetarian will at least help you determine if it was meat that was doing it.
  • Posts: 208 Member
    Have you been able to narrow down any trigger foods for your issue, or is it just in general that you're dealing with it? Perhaps eating vegetarian will at least help you determine if it was meat that was doing it.

    No I have never been able to pin point any foods that help or hinder me. I do wonder if I am too restrictive. Sometimes if I chill out a bit on a Saturday night and have a good meal along with a drink or 2 I notice that on a Sunday morning I have no tummy issues.

    I don’t eat a huge amount of fairly products either. I guess giving it a go will give me the answer. I just wondered if anyone else had experience?
  • Posts: 5,283 Member
    edited April 2019
    Spitspot81 wrote: »
    I have, for years, suffered from an extremely lazy bowel. I have never found a root cause....I do restrict my calorie intake a lot and often wonder if this could be a reason. I get very bloated and uncomfortable.

    I have also found over the years that I enjoy eating more vegetarian food over a lot of meats.

    Has anyone ever changed to a vegetarian diet and noticed a benefit in health and well-being?

    It's correlation in my case. I never had any tests done. I never even saw a doctor to get a diagnosis on the condition. It could've been eczema (I've had it on other parts of me) or dandruff or psoriasis. Probably not that last, since it's not exactly curable but whatever. I had "scabs on my scalp". You couldn't see them to look at me; my hair hid them, but if I reached up to scratch my head, they were there.

    I cut meat, fish, and poultry out of my diet and the condition cleared up completely. In the 28-odd years since I've gone veg, I've had maybe one mild (lasted less than a week) flare up.

    Now, maybe I've got a mild allergy to one of the above three animal proteins. Maybe it's something more specific, like beef/chicken/tuna. I don't know; I never experimented. Maybe it would have gone away on its own, even if I hadn't gone veg. Like I said, never saw a doctor, never had a diagnosis.

    But I don't have that condition anymore either.
  • Posts: 2,360 Member
    Does this happen more when you are restricting your food intake?
    It's possible that you are restricting your fat intake too much. Too little fat causes less movement in the bowels. You state that after a good meal, you feel better. It may be increased fat intake.
    Try adding some fat to your diet too see if that helps.
  • Posts: 28 Member
    Whole plant based diets have proven beneficial for many diseases. A couple of books you may find helpful, China Study and How not to Die. It has helped me tremendously, and I am believer it will help others as well. Read the book, or listen to it as I did. Its worth the $7, or even better, get a free trial on audible and try it.

    If you have a public library card, you can often get audiobooks using the libby app.
  • Posts: 25,763 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »

    Vegans and vegetarians are pretty under-represented in the population overall; I'm not sure they're more under-represented among the obese.

    Several studies, including some larger ones, have found that vegans tend to have a lower BMI than non-vegans.

    https://veganhealth.org/cardiovascular-disease-markers-in-vegans/#bmi

    This, of course, doesn't tell us anything about what will happen to *individuals* who choose to go vegan. I would still recommend that people who want to lose weight focus on what matters (calories), because it would be very easy to go vegan and still not reduce the number of calories one is consuming overall. Anecdotally, I've heard dozens and dozens of stories from people who went vegan and didn't lose weight and even people who gained weight.

  • Posts: 8,940 Member

    Do you have any statistics and/or source?

    My personal experience is that vegetarians and vegans are way underrepresented in terms of being overweight or obese (not counting those who are overweight and obese and go vegan after to stifle it, which will skew the numbers). Losing weight is all about creating a calorie deficit, and going vegetarian/vegan is an easy way to change your diet in a direction that will almost naturally create a calorie deficit due to the low calorier/volume ratio of vegetarian food.

    I'll agree with you though, most vegetarians and definitely most vegans I meet do it for ethical reasons.

    Unless you just manage to do it intuitively there is a learning curve to vegetarianism and veganism so that you know how to get proper nutrition. I have seen some jump into it without this knowledge that ended up quite ill.

    I don't think it is far-fetched to say that many people gain weight because they don't understand their nutritional needs so it stands to reason that people who study it may be less at risk. That doesn't exclude a person from eating too much for a number of other reasons though.

  • Posts: 289 Member
    I'm not 100% vegetarian, but I eat far less meat than the average omnivore because I don't like it all that much. I eat more meat now because I find it hard to eat enough protein without animal sources. I was morbidly obese and the top 5 contributors to my calories were 100% plant based (and no, not ultra processed "junk"). Calorie dense foods that are easy to overeat exist in every single diet.

    If you think "eating more vegetables" will help you control your weight, you can do that on the vast majority of diets without going full on vegetarian.

    "How Not to Die" is one of the most overreaching books I have ever read. Cherry picks, extrapolates results that aren't there, makes up stuff, all in order to say "animal based foods are the source of every human ailment".

    To OP:
    When you relax your eating, do you eat more fat? Do you eat a bigger volume? When you restrict, do you eat too few calories?

    If you don't think you are getting enough protein as a Vegan, then you may not be eating right. Are you getting in Quinoa, Lentils, Beans, Pea Protein, etc? You can easily get protein being Vegan. Just an fyi...
  • Posts: 289 Member

    I know I can, but it's not the most efficient way for me. Most of my calories would need to be dedicated to protein given that the highest source of plant protein I have is beans. I eat them, but I also like eating other things. Getting protein from animal sources gets it out of the way and allows me to eat whatever I want beyond that.

    What exactly are you trying to do, gain muscle? lose weight? what do you weigh and how much protein are you trying to get?
  • Posts: 7,887 Member
    edited April 2019

    The thing about veganism (in my experience) is that you're cutting down a lot of opportunities for eating (the cookies a co-worker brings into work, adding dessert to your dinner at most restaurants, etc), but it's not that difficult to still eat excess calories either due to making stuff yourself or (for many people now) through specially made vegan options. I had absolutely zero problems becoming overweight as a vegan, it was attention to calories that reversed that.

    So reducing impulse eating, there is certainly an impact. If I want, say, a milkshake, it's going to take a bit more effort than it would if I was non-vegan. So many times, I'm just going to skip it. But veganism isn't going to do anything to stop me from taking extra servings of dinner or doubling my french fry order when I'm going out to eat. I've still got to do that myself.

    Yeah, that's basically what I was thinking. It's not that vegan food isn't high cal; there are plenty of examples of high cal vegan food. But the high cal food you happen to get offered or see when stuck at an airport (my life lately!) and the like is unlikely to be vegan, and for those who have in the past fallen into bad habits about that kind of stuff, it can be helpful for a time. But it's still possible to buy a pint of vegan ice cream and eat it all. ;-)

    (That said, I ate a stupid amount of salted nuts in the airport not that long ago.)
  • Posts: 10,330 Member
    jflongo wrote: »

    What exactly are you trying to do, gain muscle? lose weight? what do you weigh and how much protein are you trying to get?

    Lose weight while maintaining muscle. My allowance is not that high compared to recommendations. I'm even slightly lower than I need to be for sustainability reasons. I try to eat at least 80 grams of it daily. Even with a good serving of beans, I don't get anywhere near that unless I have multiple servings of plant proteins, and I don't feel like eating beans every day. A typical day for me without focusing on protein ends up at about 40 grams at most.
  • Posts: 289 Member

    Lose weight while maintaining muscle. My allowance is not that high compared to recommendations. I'm even slightly lower than I need to be for sustainability reasons. I try to eat at least 80 grams of it daily. Even with a good serving of beans, I don't get anywhere near that unless I have multiple servings of plant proteins, and I don't feel like eating beans every day. A typical day for me without focusing on protein ends up at about 40 grams at most.

    I make up a 10 serving meal in my instant pot every week, with Quinoa, Lentils, Beans, Brown Rice, Tofu, Veggies, Veg Broth, and spices. It usually has about 40g+ of carbs, around 10g or less of fat, and a little over 30g protein per server. I eat one of those per day. I also have 1 smoothie per day with 2 scoops of plant protein with strawberries and bananas, which has a little over 40g protein in it.

    Just those 2 alone, put me close to 80g protein, please other stuff I eat during the day. I find it very easy doing this to get a little over 100g protein per day, I shoot for 120g and I'm 190 lbs.

    I have been losing weight and gaining a little bit of muscle and strength.
  • Posts: 289 Member

    It's good that you found what works for you. A diet focused on protein is not sustainable for me, let alone one that needs extra effort to achieve. I don't see myself dedicating time, effort, and calories to something that I can get easily elsewhere. As I said, the highest source of plant protein I have access to is kidney beans. That's 1200 calories for 80 grams. I do much better eating whatever I have an appetite for. I tried a protein focused diet in the beginning and it was too stressful and not sustainable at all. I basically eat whatever, while incorporating protein wherever I can without stressing too much about it, then by the end of the day if I need more I'll just open a can of tuna, boil half a chicken breast, or have a protein shake.

    I don't focus my diet on protein, I was just letting you know how I get it easily. I have been eating 100% plant based for a little over 2 months now. As far as dedicating time, the meal I make in the instant pot, takes me about 10 - 15 minutes to prep, then I let it go for 30 minutes in the instant pot, i then turn it off and let it sit for another 30 minutes. I add all the ingredients and create a meal in my fitness pal, and then weigh the entire meal which usually comes out to 4000 - 4500 grams total. I then divide that by 10, and put it into contains to make it easier to log and eat. So for about 30 minutes of work every 7 - 10 days, that takes care of 10 serving pretty easy.

    The smoothie I make every day takes me about 5 minutes to make, plus another couple of minutes rinsing out the blender.

    I used to eat meat and always followed the myth of around 0.8 - 1g+ of protein per pound of body weight. After doing a lot more research about being Vegan and protein, I have dropped that down to about 0.5 - 0.6g per lb of body weight. I am still maintaining strength and muscle doing this, and losing about 0.5 lbs of weight per week.
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