Vegetarian Weight Loss

To be technical, this vegetarian weight loss section should actually be termed as "fat loss", as the weight attributed to lean muscle should not be an issue. I had already developed somewhat of an interest in dieting before I adopted a vegetarian diet, due to a lifetime of being overweight. I had finished college and decided that I needed to change. I was pretty disillusioned by my job and living situation at the time so I made the conscious choice to take control of something that I felt I had power over. I decided to finally get my weight issue handled.

Kickstart your vegetarian weight loss with this diet plan. (Vegan)

I started with a simple three day a week weight training regiment, and began to research nutrition and dieting. I spent several months following many of the commonly accepted theories of how to eat... grilled chicken, cans of tuna, salad, NO carbs whatsoever. I was just trying to cut as many calories as possible while eating nothing but what I thought was "good protein". Every weekend, my diet would crash, and I would binge. I had the feeling that my plan was not completely healthy, and was not sustainable, but I did lose weight nonetheless.

(If you feel that you have tried and failed at everything, and are seriously considering weight loss surgery: I would suggest that you first check out this collection of patient experiences courtesy of Personal Nutrition Guide)

I thought that I had hit a plateau at that point.* I had lost a decent amount of weight, but I was still carrying around a few extra pounds. I kind of accepted this as a fact due to genetics, or other circumstances out of my control.
*(My friends at easy-weightloss-tips.com have a great article about weight-loss plateaus . I strongly encourage you to take a minute now to check it out.)

When I read about the benefits of a vegan diet (increased energy, stronger immunity, improved mood) I'll admit that weight loss was pretty far down on my list. To my surprise, however, when I cut out the animal products from my food, I broke through that previous plateau, and the fat continued to melt off. Also, for the first time, I was able to eat a volume of food that filled me up, and that made me feel healthy, while still reducing calories. I knew then that vegetarian weight loss methods were sensible, healthy, and easy to apply.

Here is an excellent, and completely free, tool to log the food you consume in a day and discover whether or not you are on track. FitDay.com Have the discipline to actually do this, go on and update your diet daily...be honest with yourself. It's a great start to identify where your diet needs improvement and to kickstart your vegetarian weight loss.

Don't neglect your vitamins!

When people ask me how I've lost nearly 50 pounds in the past two years, I am more than excited to tell them. It was actually quite easy for me, once I made real decisions about what foods I would and would not eat. This of course is rarely the magic pill solution that many of them are looking forward to hearing. The sudden switch from a standard American diet to a healthy plant-based diet may seem 'extreme' to them, but it's really not that way once you begin to educate yourself about it. However, if you are looking to ease into a purely plant based diet, you can try this sample lacto-ovo diet first

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