Hungry Vegan

What is your rate of loss? For somebody only looking to lose about 24 pounds, you might want to consider setting a 0.5 lb/week. That will allow you to eat more food.

cdudley628 wrote: »

What is your rate of loss? For somebody only looking to lose about 24 pounds, you might want to consider setting a 0.5 lb/week. That will allow you to eat more food.

This, definitely. Since you’re on the shorter side, though, you may not get a ton more calories with a slower pace of loss.

Additionally, I’m not sure how olive oil “helps” unless you aren’t getting enough dietary fat. Oil is very calorie dense and many people do not find it filling. If you’re getting enough fat, there’s no reason to add oil unless you just want to.

It sounds like you’re getting very little protein. Protein helps many people feel full and is required for health. Hummus isn’t a particularly good source of protein per calorie. I would add more low calorie protein dense foods, such as tofu or TVP/soy curls.

angeleswine wrote: »

I absolutely should but I'm just so tired of all this weight. It doesn't seem like a lot but on my small frame it is. I want to feel good about how I look for the summer.

I think when we're losing weight we think of our end goal as when we start feeling good. But that's not true for so many of us. I started in the 150s and I began feeling better about myself in the 140s. I could tell a difference in how I looked and how my clothes fit. It took about seven months for me to reach my goal, but it was a time when I was feeling good about how I looked just about every week because every month was a concrete improvement over the month before.

So even if you started now with a reasonable goal, chances are high that you'll feel good about how you look for the summer even if you still aren't completely to your goal.

angeleswine wrote: »

I absolutely should but I'm just so tired of all this weight. It doesn't seem like a lot but on my small frame it is. I want to feel good about how I look for the summer.

Wellll. . . if it's difficult or unpleasant to stick with the calorie level needed for an aggressively fast weight loss rate, such that you semi-regularly over-eat your goal, you might actual lose more weight in a shorter calendar time by adopting a less aggressive weight loss rate target you can happily stick with the overwhelming majority of the time (for steady loss) vs. a more aggressive goal that's only met in fits and starts (so that weight goes up and down, or down then stalls repeatedly).

Also, trying to lose too fast can lead to counterproductive fatigue (tired = move less, burn fewer calories), and more confusing water-weight fluctuations that mask progress on the scale.

As far as eating, there are some very minimal cooking things I sometimes eat that might be examples of easy things to consider:

* Ezekiel tortilla, smoked tofu, vegan cheese - microwave to warm, then add some fresh veggies or sauerkraut and eat.
* Dry soy noodles of some sort (just boil in water), sauce of peanut butter powder/soy sauce/Asian chile sauce/rice vinegar mixed together in pretty much any proportions (or a commercial vegan sriracha or something), mixed with microwaved frozen veggies or stir-fried fresh ones.
* Refried beans or black beans with vegan cheese and salsa, heated in microwave.
* Canned beans with canned tomatoes plus some nutritional yeast for soup (I like some chopped sweet onions on top).

Simple cooking is pretty achievable, along those lines.

Best wishes!

Hi @angeleswine,

I empathize with your post! We have almost the same stats. I'm 5'1 and in November of 2018 I set out the lose 30-35 pounds. I started at 150 pounds. I'm currently at 117 pounds. I've been vegan for a decade.

I highly recommend you consider the advice given around your rate of loss. In 2015, I started at 140 pounds and wanted to lose 20 pounds. I chose an agressive rate of loss, 1.5 - 2 pounds a week. I lost about 10 pounds back then, but was always so hungry and I was so frustrated at the first plateau, so I gave up altogether. Fast forward to 2018 and I had gained all the weight back plus an extra 10 pounds. What I learned was that being hungry all the time and feeling deprived just to get to my goal weight faster was a recipe for failure. I also wasn't getting much activity then which kept my calorie bank at 1200.

What I did differently this time is recognize that I needed to learn how to lose weight sustainably so that I could eventually keep it off. I didn't want to suffer or feel deprived AND I wanted to ensure I got to my goal. But how to do both? The answer: in order to have it both ways, I realized the factor I needed to change was TIME. Rather than race to the finish when I hadn't even learned how to walk per se, I changed my mindset: life was going to happen and time was going to pass either way, so I might as well not suffer and just "get there when I get there." What's the rush anyway?

So, this time with 30 pounds to lose, I chose a deficit of 0.5 pounds per week. I accepted it might take a year. And it took me exactly a year to get to my current weight (with a few diet breaks and vacations in between where I practiced maintenance). I also walked A LOT (I started slow, like 4k steps a day, then very slowly got up to 10-12k a day) which gave me between 200-300 more calories to eat.

It has been totally worth it because at no point did I feel deprived. Along the way I learned what kinds of foods made me feel full (higher volume foods, more fat and protein). The best part is that I actually got to my goal and learned how to eat to keep the weight off for good.

I don't enjoy cooking either (for me, it's just that having to do it often is exhausting). Prepping one pot meals or casserole style meals helped a lot in the beginning. Soups are easy and satisfying. I made a a different kind of soup or chili (each with beans, legumes) every Sunday all winter long so that I would have lunch taken care of throughout the week. 30-60 minutes in the kitchen once a week was a small sacrifice for eventually getting to my goal. I made a casserole dish for dinner every Monday night so that I would have 4-5 days worth of dinners every week. This way I only had to cook 2 times a week and rarely had to think about what to eat. It took so much of the pressure off of figuring out what to eat. It made adhereing to my defecit easy. I followed recipes so it would be easy to do and so I would have variety/not get bored. Sometimes I would buy the vegetables for the soup pre-cut so that I wouldn't have to spend long in the kitchen. On the weekends, one block of tofu for tofu scramble easily makes two high protein breakfasts. Whenever I was on the go, I ate a Clif Builder bar to get 20g protein easily without a lot of calories. For months that builder bar was just called "breakfast."

You can do this. Don't rush and don't make something that is already hard to do even harder. Society says that fast weight loss is "the only way," that being ready for "this summer" is more important than setting yourself up to be ready for all the other summers in your future. You have permission to take your time. Make it easy, convenient, and doable without suffering your way through and the habits will stick. Getting there eventually is better than the risk you take of not getting there at all.

bathsheba_c wrote: »

I just finished a 3-session vegan cooking course taught by a non-vegan clinical dietitian. I hate to say this, but you need to learn to cook. There are lots of things you can do to make it less painful (canned beans instead of dried, frozen precut vegetables, cut your vegetables for the week in advance all at once), but you need to learn to cook some. Even if it’s just heating up beans in jarred tomato sauce and then serving it with whole wheat toast. Or making a stir-fry with tofu and shredded vegetables from a bag served with brown rice.

We learned that a *balanced* vegan diet has tons of vegetables with some fruit, a lot of whole grains, a moderate amount of legumes and leafy greens, and a small amount of fats and oils from sources like nuts, olives, avocados, etc.

I don't really eat a lot of whole grains and I eat a lot of legumes and leafy greens. I rarely eat fruit. According to my tracking, my vegan diet is balanced. I'm not convinced the template that RD gave you is the only way to achieve a balanced vegan diet. It also doesn't mention foods like tofu, tempeh, and seitan, which can be great contributions to the balanced vegan diet. I also believe the evidence shows there can be healthful vegan diet patterns that include more than a small amount of fat.

Sakura_Tree wrote: »

In my past experience, it is impossible to achieve your nutrition requirements on a vegan diet with a goal of 1200 calories. I would eat 2000 calories and still no be getting enough protein/calcium etc.. would always be hungry. Now i eat mostly animal based and reach my nutrition goals way easier and feel satiated and happy.

Happily, most people aren't limited to just 1,200 calories. That's only an appropriate goal for a small number of people.

I was easily able to meet my goals on around 1,400 calories as a vegan. I think I would struggle to meet some micronutrient goals while eating mostly animal products. There are so many nutrient-rich plant foods.