Cutting Question

Not exactly? What are your questions?

When losing weight, I did cut calories while lifting and rowing/cycling, aiming to preserve both muscle mass and athletic performance, as someone who'd been vegetarian for around 41 years at the time, and an athlete for around a dozen years at that point, on-water and machine rower primarily. (I'm ovo-lacto, but I don't think that makes a huge difference vs. other forms of vegetarianism or even veganism, in how one would go about it - just food choices differ.)

I felt pretty good about the results: My rowing race pace, which is strength dependent, stayed about the same pre- and post-loss, even though lightweight rowers tend to be a bit slower than heavyweights and I previously competed as a heavyweight but now am a lightweight. I wasn't and am not super fast in the abstract, but am not silly-slow in my demographic (W 60-69 lwt).

When you cut as an omnivore, what calorie and protein goals did you use? Those might not be different now, all other things equal, with the exception that you might need more protein to the extent that your vegetarian sources are less complete in essential amino acids (EAAs) or lower bioavailability.

Obviously, other nutrition matters, too, but as a vegetarian you may have more or less concern about those depending on your food choices. I'm talking about things like vitamins D, B12, iron, calcium, etc. If you eat dairy or eggs, some of those would potentially be well-covered, for example. Details about food choices matter.

You'll probably get some other lifters - omnivores - responding with advice that vegetarians need more protein grams at any given calorie level for best results. I've seen some recommend 20% more as a generality. That's possibly true, but I think it's a little broad brush, and for some can be overkill. It matters how EAA complete and bioavailable your specific protein sources are.

Maybe you're already tuned into this stuff, but in case not, one of the more nuanced sources I've seen about vegan/vegetarian protein goals is in Examine.com's protein guide, in this section:

https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/#qQwW-optimal-daily-protein-intake-for-vegans

That's obviously aimed at vegans, but the same concepts apply to protein we vegetarians get from plant sources.

For the other nutritional issues, I'll link another source I think is pretty good, also aimed at vegans but with useful info for us, too:

https://veganhealth.org/

They have better than average info about the micronutrient side of things, including - if you use the search on the site - some specifics for weight lifters/body builders. The site's content is from registered dietitians who are themselves vegan, and it's much more science-based than some of the silly advocacy sites out in the blogosphere.

If you're not supplementing creatine, which you may be, I'd consider that more strongly as a vegetarian and of course even a lot of omnivores make that choice. There are other supplements that may be useful, off the top of my head L-carnitine which I don't supplement myself, but that varies, too.

I don't know whether that helps, or whether it has credibility since I'm definitely not a bodybuilder, though I do care about strength and performance for various reasons, and have been vegetarian for a heckuva long time. If you have specific questions you think I might be able to answer, please ask.