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Success! And help?
AmandaPotechko
Posts: 40 Member
First the good news! My blood work came back normal! No deficiencies even though I'm still taking a Vitamin D3 supplement (going to ask my new doctor about a vegan supplement or get her opinion on my combined vegan D3 and B12 supplement. And now for not great news ... Watching sodium intake due to trying to reverse high blood pressure, watching sugar intake to alleviate periodontal disease, and struggling overall to get enough protein in my diet for sustained weight loss. I do eat tofu, dried beans, pick higher protein versions of pasta, many of which happen to be Gluten-free, use tempeh and mushrooms ... I would use more nuts and seeds but they're so expensive and I do have to get raw/unsalted nuts ... I also use salt-free peanut butter and almond butter(I would like to experiment with different nut butters). If I don't get B12 from a supplement, I get it from seaweed, fortified nutritional yeast, and the Bored Cow Animal-free Strawberry Milk, which needs to be a treat as it has a lot of sugar. I also have vegan protein powders and although not my favorite, I can get silken tofu... I also have a decent amount of chia seeds. Yet I hardly ever reach my protein goal here. Sometimes, it is due to too much exercise, but most of the time it's trying to balance between carbs, healthy fats, and protein while still adhering to low sodium low sugar foods. I'm hoping someone has had a similiar experience and can help me adjust accordingly. Thank you! P.S.- I am vegan, not vegetarian.
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How much protein are you getting on average per day? How much do you think you need? How did you determine that this was the right number?
The D3 supplement I get at the co-op is "mostly" vegan. It does have gelatin but the D comes from rice bran oil. Your body absorbs the D3 better if you take it with food, especially food that has some fat and ideally a little protein. I'm sure you can find one that doesn't have gelatin.
The B12 is a tough one. It only comes from animal sources. If you draw the line of what is an "animal" at the microbial level, that can be a non-animal source. Yeast is more closely related to animals than it is to plants, but it's in its own kingdom. A good friend who's been a vegan for decades can no longer absorb it through diet even from supplements. His partner is a naturopath, so she gives him injections on a regular basis.1 -
I just checked my current bag of Anthonys Fortified Nutritional Yeast and their B12 comes from fermentation, not a chem lab and it is vegan. I take it nearly daily as part of my morning oatmeal mix. I bake about 80% of the bread we consume, and I often dose it with nutritional yeast (or plain whey - but you want vegan) for a protein boost. But I use ordinary (but good) wheat flour, so not gluten-free. I usually use a "faux sourdough" approach (mixing live yogurt culture withcommercial bread yeast in a long fermentation) which makes a much-improved loaf than anything in a plastic grocery bag, and with lower glycemic index. If you stick with flat breads, not needing as much of a gluten-enabled rise, you might be able to do the same. I also have a supply of pea protein my wife laid in, but then didn't like, that I am trying to figure out for utilization beyond smoothies. I am thinking baking (like the nutritiional yeast and whey) but also soup bases, especially where a thick soup would do (the pea protein has a slight recognizable pea-ish flavor). 70yo, male, and a big guy; omnivorous, but very plant-forward, so if I weren't also cooking for my wife, I could fully resort to being a vegan as I was for about a decade in my 20s-30s. I understand the constraints and struggles to get a full complement. It is time consuming to plan and prepare. Good luck. By the way, I have recently been trying some of the recipes out on the "Spain on a Fork" youtube channel, pretty tasty and usually fairly easy. Although I could joke, "a 100 ways to use chickpeas," lol. But you will get protein.1
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It would help to know what height/weight you are, what your calorie goal is, what your protein goal is, how fast you're trying to lose weight (or better yet, how fast you're actually losing weight on average over a month or more).
Probably obviously, a key thing that applies to omnivore and vegan alike is not to cut calories super-far for aggressively fast weight loss, because there's no getting minimally adequate protein on too-few calories, no matter how the percents are set. Adequate calories are the foundation of health and fitness, honestly. Yes, we need to reduce them to lose weight. But fast loss has nutritional down-sides, some potentially major.
You mention having more trouble reaching your protein goal when exercise is in the picture. This implies to me that you've been concerned with protein as a percent of calories, which is the default MFP way and also the method used by many dietitians or other expert health sources. However, for those of us in unusual circumstances - such as weight loss - I think it's better to figure out a minimum number of grams of protein we need daily, and use that as a basis.
There are rules of thumb for that, like 0.6 to 0.8g per day per pound of healthy goal weight. There's also a research-based calculator here, that's a bit more tailored:
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/
That site is generally regarded as both scientifically sound and neutral. Last time I read the full guide, they said something similar to what I said above: If substantially overweight, it's OK to use a lighter weight, maybe healthy goal weight, in the calculator. We don't need bunches more protein to maintain our fat mass; it's for maintaining lean mass.
As an aside, the guide at that link has one of the best write-ups I've read on the nuances of getting adequate protein when most or all of one's protein comes from plants. I don't know how long you've been vegan, maybe you know all that stuff, but I'll point it out just in case. Here's a direct link to that section:
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/#qQwW-optimal-daily-protein-intake-for-vegans
Also in case you haven't run across it, I'll link this site about vegan nutrition:
https://veganhealth.org/
There are detailed sections there about vitamins D and B12, summarizing the research as it applies to vegans, and talking about sources.
Frankly, I've found a large fraction of vegan sites to be more about advocacy than accurate about science. The one I just linked is materially better IMO, with evidence-based content from registered dietitians who are themselves vegan.
I'm not vegan, I'm ovo-lacto vegetarian (have been for 50+ years). However, much of my protein comes from plant sources, so I'm familiar with the issues. I also lost from obese to a healthy weight back in 2015-16, and have maintained a healthy weight since, so I've dealt with most of the issues you mention in the same weight loss context.
What helped me increase protein when reducing calories was a process: Regularly reviewing my food diary, looking for foods with relatively many calories but little protein, foods that were not important enough to me for their other nutrition, satiety, or just happiness with eating, for that calorie "cost". I gradually worked at reducing those foods (frequency or portion size), replacing them with other foods I like eating that had at least some protein. Ideally, where possible, I chose sources that were essential amino acid (EAA) complete, but I'm also pretty familiar with combining foods (complementary proteins) to achieve completeness, because I started as a vegetarian when we thought that combining had to happen all in one meal.
Besides the "one big protein per meal" concept, I tried to get at least a bit of protein from beverages, snacks, veggies, grains, breads, and basically any other category, including flavoring ingredients like miso, peanut butter powder and nutritional yeast. Those small added amounts through the day add up. Varying the sources helps with EAA balance to some extent.
Over a period of weeks, I worked at remodeling my typical daily routine eating habits to include more of those protein-rich foods, and was able to reach a point where I was getting what I considered adequate protein grams on reduced calories.
One thing that helped me was this thread:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also
That thread links to a spreadsheet that lists many, many foods in order by most protein for fewest calories. As you'd expect, the top of the list is dominated by meaty/fishy things, but there are plant sources further down the list if we keep scrolling. That helped me find the veggies, fruits, etc., that would help me increase protein.
Personally, while I do eat nuts and seeds, I don't consider them a good protein source. They tend to be high in healthy fats, but the calorie to protein ratio isn't very good at all.
Speaking of which: Another thing that helped me was to define calorie-to-protein rules of thumb that I could easily apply to evaluate foods when grocery shopping for things like grains, breads, maybe even multi-ingredient frozen foods, etc. Since I'm vegetarian, probably my numbers wouldn't work for you, but I'd recommend the concept as helpful. For myself, I consider any individual food that has around 10 or fewer all-source calories per gram of protein to be a pretty good vegetarian protein source, and any multi-ingredient food with 20 or fewer all-source calories per gram of protein as a good choice, maybe up to 30ish calories per protein gram if the food has other pluses. This helps me evaluate foods quickly at the store for protein helpfulness.
With that combination of strategies, I was able to get my protein level to where I wanted it as an active person, both during weight loss and in maintenance. I'm not going to talk about specific foods or recipes, because you already have a good list of main protein sources in your OP, and my choices as a vegetarian would differ anyway.
Best wishes!3 -
I just checked my current bag of Anthonys Fortified Nutritional Yeast and their B12 comes from fermentation, not a chem lab and it is vegan.
Fermentation requires microorganisms. From yeast that makes bread rise and makes beer delicious to the bacteria that ferment sauerkraut, it really just depends on where you draw the line on what is or isn't an animal. Honey isn't an animal; it's essentially partially digested nectar, but most vegans avoid it because of its association with an animal. I don't know that I could be vegan and be healthy. I was a vegetarian for about 30 years though.1 -
Fermentation in purchased foods can be pretty much a chem lab, industrial kind of process. That doesn't make it evil, IMO. Labs and factories can do good things, or evil things.
Fermenting food sources to improve their nutritional quality isn't essentially more evil in a chem lab or factory than it is in my kitchen. Many/most supplements are synthesized in what amount to laboratories or factories.
So what? It certainly doesn't make them inherently non-vegan to be synthetic. What matters is what goes into the process, importantly; and what the process is, to some extent (such as the potential for bone char to be used in making refined sugars).2 -
I just checked my current bag of Anthonys Fortified Nutritional Yeast and their B12 comes from fermentation, not a chem lab and it is vegan.
Fermentation requires microorganisms. From yeast that makes bread rise and makes beer delicious to the bacteria that ferment sauerkraut, it really just depends on where you draw the line on what is or isn't an animal. Honey isn't an animal; it's essentially partially digested nectar, but most vegans avoid it because of its association with an animal. I don't know that I could be vegan and be healthy. I was a vegetarian for about 30 years though.
Agreed. When I did my 1980s vegan decade, I basically drew the line at anything multicellular in "Kingdom Animalia." And their products (honey, dairy, etc.). I knew others who were more strict. For me, the journey took about 2 months from inception; seafood was the last to "go" and the first to "come back." Nowadays, I'm not doctrinaire, especially after a fully omnivorous midlife. I'm "plant-forward" as I like to say. I recently watched a documentary on Arnold Schwartzeneggar; he calls himself "mostly vegetarian" now, except that he tucks into a T-bone etc. when he wants. I'm sorta the same, except that I'm more likely to tuck into a grilled salmon than a beefsteak, LOL.
Anyways, Anthony's yeast calls itself "vegan," although, as you say, that can be a fluid definition.
Pertinent to @AmandaPotechko 's concerns, I didn't go vegan ... correctly ... back in the 80s. I really flubbed in my macros and required micronutrients, and it took some good advisors to right my ship. It's not an easy path. And, contributing to my reversion to omnivore status was the need to interact in a traditional business setting of the era once I was up a few rungs on the corporate ladder. Now retired, I'm free of such external concerns. Plus, the world is in a different place now too. I do on-again/off-again rigorous counting in MFP to keep track of my macros and numbers and trends mostly to keep myself "centered," but, really, the numbers that matter are on the bathroom scale and results of blood tests.
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It would help to know ...
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/#qQwW-optimal-daily-protein-intake-for-vegans
https://veganhealth.org/
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also
Best wishes!
Good links, thanks!
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I have been vegan since April 18th, 2024 , so not even a whole year. The Vitamin D has to be 50 mcg and not any higher . I had a Vitamin D deficiency before becoming vegan and it was up a few months after I got blood work from the doctor from 20 mcg to 50 mcg... I also had a B12 deficiency before becoming vegan and apparently my blood doesn't make enough so I'm not worried about getting too much ... I've been doing well with seaweed and nutritional yeast concerning B12. I have a goal to weigh myself every Thursday morning.... Right now, I weigh 273.4 and am trying to get down to 190 pounds and am not very active due to being a part-time college student. Right now, I am on Spring Break but I also had 3 days where I barely ate anything because I was recovering from a tooth extraction. The current protein goal I have on here is 86 grams of protein. I am currently working on a concurrent goal of getting at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. I do know that I have 2 hour-long classes at the gym tomorrow morning and that I will be doing some supply and grocery shopping tomorrow as well.1
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I would also like to get back up to moderately active but right now I'm more concerned about protein intake so I don't overeat since my tracking has identified this as the main problem losing weight and it's no longer deficiency-related.0
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P.S. - Fiber is also way way over the recommended limit but I feel like that's to be expected.0
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Oh I am 5 foot 6 and this current goal weight is my standard plateau weight... I tried to go lower than 2 pounds a week and set a higher weight loss but was warned about how dangerous it was by the app.0
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According to PCP and overall body composition, end goal is between 155- 175 pounds... Standard BMI says 115-155 pounds 🤯 I'm so grateful body structure was taken into account!1
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@AmandaPotechko
Most likely your goal of 86 grams of protein is reasonable. How far are you from that goal normally? The MFP fiber goal probably should just be seen as a minimum. It's probably not bad to go over, especially if you're eating a mix of soluble and insoluble fiber. And I am not a dietician, so take anything I suggest with a grain or so of sodium chloride.
@mjbnj0001
It seems like we have similar diets. I eat mostly plants, but I will "tuck in" to a steak every now and then. Things from the ocean are more common.
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@mtaratoot Between 42-48 grams away from protein goal ... Today with slightly over 30 minutes of exercise, I got 60 out of 90 grams of protein... So 35 away from goal.
My fiber is always over unless I am sick or recovering from illness/surgery... I've been from 5 grams over to 41 grams over yesterday (when I fully recovered from tooth removal) and 35 grams over today.0 -
AmandaPotechko wrote: »@mtaratoot Between 42-48 grams away from protein goal ... Today with slightly over 30 minutes of exercise, I got 60 out of 90 grams of protein... So 35 away from goal.
My fiber is always over unless I am sick or recovering from illness/surgery... I've been from 5 grams over to 41 grams over yesterday (when I fully recovered from tooth removal) and 35 grams over today.
I'd suggest working on increasing protein, if possible. For myself, I prefer to focus on changing routine eating patterns somewhat gradually, rather than looking at it as micromanaging each individual day.
If anything, we need more protein when our protein sources are plant based, because so many of our sources are incomplete in essential amino acids, or less bioavailable. How much more, if any, depends on the specific protein sources' characteristics.2 -
@mtaratoot From 03 March … (some sort of quoting problem prevents direct link):
It seems like we have similar diets. I eat mostly plants, but I will "tuck in" to a steak every now and then. Things from the ocean are more common.
Ans: possibly; i've seen a lot of congruence in our posts. What I do is sorta this:
- I won't pretend or proclaim vegetarian/vegan. I can say, "vegetables-forward," in the current slang. This also applies to other types of plants - beans, squash, grains, nuts, what have you. I have lessened my fruit consumption a bit, as part of my sugar avoidance.
- I can go long periods wholly plant-based (with maybe cheese as a constant temptation lol), but my wife can't take that path with me. Thus I do regularly consume poultry, seafood, dairy, etc.; beef a bit less often; pork rarely (although I do like beef and pork); lamb and other meats … well, it's been a while - no reason to avoid, no reason to search out. Summer's coming; outdoor grilling season with it - thus, likely to uptick on items like beef burgers, etc., on the grill. I also do a lot of plants grilled.
- I try and cook as much as possible, from fresh, frozen and whole ingredients, and avoid as much as possible packaged or "highly processed." You'll probably see that most of the plates that I post in this thread tend towards simplicity. I like fancy stuff, too, on occasion, but as a mainstay, I'm pretty straightforward. Oh, I'm the main cook - retired a few years back, and my wife still works a bit, so the kitchen is more my domain. And I try some "experimental" things consistent with my overall direction.
- Going out to restaurants is a treat, not a routine.
- With being "veg-forward," I also try the "eat the rainbow" approach, trying to vary the meals. I try and maintain more than 7-10 different plants per day, 30 per week. Mostly I do it. I spend a lot of time and budget in the produce aisles of the grocery, hardly any in the "inner aisles" of packaged items. There's a diet-and-health-management company, "Zoe," that I don't actually subscribe membership in, but I do follow a lot of their youtube advice, that goes along this general path. They happen to include spices, herbs and condiments in the 10/d 30/wk counting, but I'm not always sure a dash of paprika is a nutrient-significant portion. LOL.
- Sugar avoidance (added sugar, etc.) plays a big role. I also limit foods containing a lot of simple carbs and sugars. I probably have a 6-pack of soda (pop) a year. Not diabetic, but overweight thus maybe borderline pre-d, and don't want to go over that border. At 70yo, I don't want to hop onto that train in my sunset years. I also have either a genetic gift or the high veg consumption helps out - I have historically low cholesterol and lipids results. So, while I have some 70yo's physical issues, some I have thus far avoided.
- I use MFP for logging, occasionally being very thorough for spurts, but mostly for long-term baselining and general monitoring. My bathroom scale, physician's testing and general health are my main signposts. I can't really diet my way to low weight (by itself, in any sort of "normal" lifestyle), I need to exercise, too. My preferences here are cycling and swimming. So between the meal planning and activities, I have been mostly keeping myself better than I might have otherwise. It's a continual work effort, some months more successful than others, but hopefully all going to the same destination.
Sorry for rambling on, @mtaratoot , but I got the sense that you might welcome a share of my approach from your comment. I could ramble on, but that's the basic drift.
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@mjbnj0001 - By all means, please ramble on!
Back to the original question about protein - yes, it's sometimes tough to get 86 grams from plants. I love to cook dried beans, and they can pack the protein, but they come with plenty of calories. Same with nuts. Keep experimenting. I don't think anyone has posted a link to this resource in this thread; you may find it useful:
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This is the dinner I made this evening after writing that last post above. Baked salsa chicken thigh, blanched asperagus, chop salad. Sorry it doesn't correspond to the OP question on veg approach.
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I was looking at my "ramble" posting above, and Amanda's original questions … I neglected to emphasize I bake about 80%+ of the bread we consume. I use a "faux sourdough" approach blending commercial baking yeast and live yogurt or kefir cultures in a long fermentation (12 hrs average, countertop room temp) to produce my bread. Most often, the bread is only flour, water, yeast/critters and a dash of salt (I go low with salt in all my cooking - it's an adapted taste and supports my wife's needs). However, I do take the opportunity to dose the bread with additions (usu. whey, but can be a plant protein, such as pea isolate, chickpea powder, etc.) for an extra gram or two per slice of protein (too much more than that impacts the bake quality). I note that Amanda is going the vegan route, and I think some of the non-dairy yogurts use the same or similar cultures as their milk counterparts (I dissolve the yogurt in a cup of the dough water before adding so that it is evenly distributed). I also note that Amanda mentioned gluten; we have no gluten issues so I use normal - but organic and nonbleached - flour (often mixing whole wheat and bread flour), so I can't really chime in with gluten-free experiences. My bread macro numbers compare favorably with commercial "diet" breads, and IMHO, is much better. Further, there is research saying freezing bread will transform some of the simple carb to resistant starch, and, further, toasting the thawed bread further decreases the glycemic index. This is true of all the tested breads, so starting with a healthier loaf is even better, LOL. So … a bit more protein, less carbs with lower glycemic index in a more natural loaf. Could be a component of a diet plan, not a home run. I often bake several loaves at one time, freezing the surplus till needed, thus making a more efficient use of the oven (and my time), and in general, baking at home is less expensive than commercial breads. Hope this helps.
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