This is a guide of how I eat vegan and keep weight off, because I hate cooking and want food preparation to take the least amount of time possible. I also hate exercising. AKA how to live a sedentary life but still be thin and healthy.
I've had blood tests. My blood pressure, cholesterol levels, all of it are off-the-charts awesome. If they gave me a fitness test, I'm sure I'd fail endurance very quick, but because my blood is clean and clear, I won't be dying of heart disease anytime soon. People don't die from lack of exercise, they die from the crappy substances they put into their mouth: bad food, smoking, drugs, alcohol.
I've been vegan myself for 3 years now.
I wanted to lose weight after I graduated college and didn't have anything better to do. :P
So I started researching how to lose weight...because clearly exercise and diet pills don't do anything. People always tell you to "eat less, exercise more", but it doesn't seem to work because I knew tons of heavy people who exercised their butt off all the time.....and took diet pills as well, but were still extremely heavy.
After researching, I quickly realized the only thing that makes people lose weight is changing the food, it isn't exercise. And I very quickly noticed animal products were high in calories and other nasty things like chemicals and cholesterol.
So I ended up going vegan very quickly because I saw it as a method of weight loss that actually yielded long-term healthy results, unlike dieting and exercising.
I also studied abroad in Japan for a few months in college and noticed almost all of Japanese society is thin and healthy compared to USA, where 70% or more of the population is overweight. Clearly, the Japanese were doing something right. And they live mainly on veggies & rice, not giant bloody steaks and burgers.
It only took me about 6 months to go vegan. Cheese was the last thing to go. Cheese took about 2-3 months. I was a cheesaholic. I used to eat an entire cheese pizza daily. I've been overweight my entire life because I ate proccessed foods all the time. But on a vegan diet, I lost 80lbs in just a year and I've kept the weight off.
Old menu: kraft cheese slices, lunch meat, club crackers, white bread, peanut butter, grape jelly, boxed kraft macaroni and cheese, frozen cheese pizza, fast food burgers, french fries, ice cream.
I think the only time I had veggies was when I went out to eat at restaurant buffet and ate their
oil-soaked, buttered veggies on the buffet. Because dumping butter, oil, and animal fat onto veggies is something ALL restaurants do in general...because its the only way to make it "taste good" to the average American.
I ate fruit when mom brought it to the house. I'm shocked I was only 80lbs overweight, given my habits. But my weight was slowly increasing each year, so I'm certain I would have been morbidly obese by the time I was 40 years old. Many adult friends I know are morbidly obese, but in pictures of their youth, they were gorgeously thin. Metabolism slows down as you age, so don't ever put off weight loss for "later".
New Menu: FRESH, WHOLE apples, oranges, bananas, kiwifruit, peaches, pears, plums. frozen mixed veggies, frozen broccoli, canned veggie soups, canned artichoke hearts, fresh asparagus, bagged baby carrots, salad bars at restaurants.
baked potatoes, baked oil-less french fries!! brown rice, spaghetti squash, whole-wheat pasta, canned tomato sauce.
Treats: fat-free popsicles or sorbet
I used to eat veggie burgers and other "fake foods", and I encourage those foods for "transition" to a veggie-lifestyle. But you probably don't want to eat those kinds of foods forever. I severely restricted calories for the first TWO years, but in the past year I couldn't take it anymore and started eating normal amounts again and stopped calorie-counting. So I gained back about 20lbs. However, I started look for something more maintainable and discovered HCLF-vegan
aka Freelee the Banana Girl, High Carb Hannah, The Starch Solution, etc.
High-carb-low-fat (HCLF) vegan really does work. My weight is going back down very slowly, but I'm not starving, so I know this weight loss is maintainable without counting calories and using restriction all the time.
----RULES:----
1. I never drink anything but water. No alcohol, tea, coffee, fruit juice.
Japanese Green-tea and 100% fruit juice are ok-ish, but if you're someone like me who struggles to lose weight, I don't recommend drinking anything but water. Flavor the water with lemon/lime if needed.
Coffee, alcohol, high caffeine teas are bad for you in general.. regardless of weight gain or loss.
2. WHOLE foods. Try to avoid cans, frozen is fine. I do eat canned soups because I'm lazy. But I try to have frozen or fresh as much as possible. Make sure you read the labels on canned and packaged stuff. They LOVE to slip milk, eggs, animal fats, and animal proteins into these products!
3. KEEP THE FAT AS LOW AS POSSIBLE!
That's why I say avoid veggie burgers and other "fake foods" because they are always high in fat....and they're extremely processed. If a product has 5g or higher fat, I don't buy it. Some of my canned soups have 2-3g fat because they've added plant oil. ugh...
Store-bought hummus also has a lot of fat in it because they've added oil. I did find a fat-free brand at a local health food store, but it's slightly more expensive. Either find a fat-free brand of hummus or make your own at home. As far as I can tell, they stick these oils in the food either to preserve the shelf life longer or to make it taste more addictive. It tastes just fine without oil.
Recognize that whenever you go out to restaurants, they are for sure dumping a ton of oil or butter onto your food. And even if you argue with them, they aren't going to change it for you.... unless it's an extremely high-end restaurant where the chef actually cares about his customer's requests.
4. Eat potatoes, bananas, rice, and spaghetti squash to your heart's desire. Go easy on pasta and bread. I still eat them occasionally, but they are highly processed if you're buying them from a store/restaurant, and I don't lose weight as easily when eating bread/pasta. (I eat 100% whole wheat pasta/bread, but it's still highly processed, otherwise you wouldn't find it sitting on a shelf in a store.)
5. Don't go crazy and eat nothing but potatoes or bananas or a single high-carb food item. You need to have veggies in there too. The body craves nutrients, and you can eat an entire barrel of potatoes and still feel hungry because you're missing a nutrient you would have gotten from eating some veggies.
I've personally done both extremes. I've eaten a low-carb diet where I tried to survive on veggies alone (thinking it would accelerate weight loss). And although I had lots of nutrients in my system, I was tired all the time because I needed some carbs from potatoes, bananas, rice.
And when I brought the carbs back into my life, I went crazy eating potatoes, bananas, etc. And I would just eat and eat and never be satisfied because I was missing the nutrients from veggies.
So don't try to survive on ONE food group alone. You need a complete set of food groups: veggies + high-carbs (potatoes or fruit).
6. Protein: I generally don't worry about it. There's a ton of protein in potatoes and small amounts in fruits and veggies. If you're eating a variety of foods, then you're getting enough protein automatically. Occasionally, I will crave beans or peas. So I take that as a sign I need a little more protein and I eat the beans. Just pay attention to what you're craving and then go eat it. Your body knows what it needs. (obviously I am excluding unhealthy
addiction cravings like potato chips, meat, cheese, pizza, coke, alcohol, caffeine, etc. Those are addictions, not a nutrient. The same way a smoker craves his cigarettes. These addictions will completely fade away given time.)
7. I eat ketchup, salt, real maple syrup, spices, seasonings. ABSOLUTELY no oils and no fats! And I don't care if a processed food is "fat-free", it's still highly processed, so just stay away from it.
8. I do try to avoid HFCS and eat products with real sugar instead. But the difference is minimal in my mind. If you're eating processed foods, then HFCS vs Sugar isn't the issue you should be worried about. Worry about the fact that you're eating processed foods. Since store-bought ketchup is the main processed food I buy, I just try to find HFCS-free ketchup. Walmart sells it.
I do recommend to STAY AWAY from artificial sweeteners like aspartame. Those fake sweeteners are much more dangerous than HFCS. So don't buy products that claim to be "sugar-free" because that means it is using an artificial sweetener. I like popsicles, so I make sure not to buy the "sugar-free" popsicles. I'd rather eat HFCS than aspartame. Of course, if you have the free time or strength of will, then make your own popsicles and avoid the problem altogether.
9. I do eat out at restaurants a lot. I try to go to places like indian, chinese, japanese, thai, mexican because ethnic food always has more veggie-based options. And of course, there's always the traditional salad bar at most restaurants. But salad bars get really freaking boring after a while. I do eat veggie burgers, french fries, and other high-fat items at restaurants since that's often the only choice on the menu. But I just try not to eat out
too often. If you're struggling to lose weight, then stop eating out as frequently. It will help.
Even "vegan" restaurants are often high-fat because they love to use nuts like cashew sauces and avocado, so watch out! Fat tastes really good and even the vegan restaurants know that, so they will use it to their advantage to make things tasty for the meat-eating-visitors and other processed-food-vegans who aren't used to HCLF-vegan-diet.
10. RAW vs non-RAW vegan diets: eh, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter. I say eating a variety of raw and non-raw foods is best. If you want to eat raw, that's fine, but it will take a lot more work, and I'm not sure there's really any super-awesome-advantage in most cases.
There's research that shows some foods are best when eaten raw and also shows some other foods are better when cooked. So that's why I say the best option is a mixture of raw and non-raw foods.
I do believe Adam and Eve were eating RAW in the Garden of Eden, but I don't think we can return to that now. Sin and pollution has decayed nutrition too much. For example, we can't run around naked like Adam and Eve either. Extreme temperature changes, germs, and human lust put a stop to that.
Genesis 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
Genesis 1:30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Isaiah 65:25 "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither hunt nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD.
11. You're going to have to stop counting calories and restricting yourself all the time. But you've also got to commit to HCLF vegan fully, no fat-laden desserts or cheats on the side. (I was guilty of this.)
If you're counting calories like I was, you start mentally messing with your body's natural signals because instead of just listening to your signals without judgement, you're saying to yourself "oh my cal-count is low today, I need to eat more, even tho I’m not really hungry right now." or "oh I've already eaten too many calories today, I need to stop and restrict until tomorrow."
Just forget counting and start listening to hunger cues. As long as you truly eat 100% HCLF vegan and follow the rules I wrote above, you're not going to gain weight. You might gain a little weight in the beginning because of water-weight and food-weight, but it will go back down quickly.
HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GAIN WEIGHT EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT COUNTING CALORIES:
11a. It was hard to stop calorie-counting since I had been counting obsessively for TWO FULL YEARS! But I slowly weaned myself off of it. It's ok to still imagine a proper food portion in your mind, just don't write it down. You
should judge how much food you're actually hungry for at that moment, portion-size-wise, but not restrict yourself by thinking about an overall daily calorie limit. There will be days you are really hungry and you eat more. Other days you won't be hungry at all and will eat very little. But the point is your body knows what is best and will tell you, if you listen to its signals and stop counting every calorie.
11b. Make sure you eat BOTH food groups! (veggies + high carb (potatoes/fruit))
--If you eat only veggies, you'll be tired all the time because its low-carb. And you might not lose weight very fast because your body is starving. Your brain runs exclusively on carbs. You need carbs for brain energy. (Conclusion: full, but sluggish and tired)
--If you eat only high carbs (potatoes/fruit), you won't lose weight and you'll be ravenously hungry all the time because you don't have the nutrients from the veggies. (Conclusion: lots of energy, but always hungry and agitated)
--- veggies + high carbs ( nutrients + energy) = perfection
11c. If you think you're eating out of boredom instead of true hunger, then distract yourself. Go for a walk or read a book etc. If you're still hungry later on, then eat something small. Wait awhile, then see if you're still hungry.
11d. I generally eat 3 meals a day. But its not unusual to be in that "grey zone" where you're not quite sure if you're truly hungry or not. You can either (A) wait awhile and see if the feeling changes or (B) eat something small and see if that does the trick.
11e.
Always stop when you're not hungry anymore! I don't care how good it tastes, or if its wasteful to stop. JUST STOP EATING IF YOU'RE NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE. I had a terrible habit of wanting to clear my plate or not have any leftovers, so I would eat past hunger. You need to stop when you are comfortably full. "Comfortably full" means you are satisfied, but could still get up and go for a long walk outside if you wanted to. If you feel sleepy, your stomach is hurting because you're stuffed, or you feel too heavy to go for a nice, easy walk, then you probably ate way too much. You don't want to be "stuffed to bursting", you want to be satisfied and not hungry.
Also, don't undereat. If you're still hungry, you should eat a little more. Eat slowly and savor the food. If you shovel it in really fast, you might eat more than you mean to because the body needs 20min to signal its had enough food.
There's a huge psychological aspect to this. I was used to eating fast like I thought the food might disappear and never come back. I have to constantly remind myself that the food isn't going anywhere and if I get hungry later, I can always eat more. You don't have to force yourself into eating 3 meals a day. You don't have to clear your plate or eat a certain amount just because food might go to waste. Let it waste away. You can always make more later when you're actually hungry. Just go by your hunger cues and do what's right for you on that particular day.
11f. Make sure you get a full 8 hours sleep. I'm terrible about this, but lack of sleep will definitely make you feel hungry when you're not.
Using the above techniques, I don't have to count calories anymore.
12. You don't have to exercise. That's totally up to you. Exercise lessens depression and suppresses hunger, so psychologically-speaking I think it might help with weight loss, but it's not a strict requirement. You will lose weight regardless. The HCLF vegan diet is what makes you lose weight, not exercise. If you want muscles, you will have to exercise. I didn't exercise at all for my 80lb weight loss, so even tho I became thin, I had very little muscle mass. Without muscles, I
look fine, but ask me to run several laps or do several pushups and you'll realize how weak I am. XD But I'm too lazy and geeky to care about being strong.
My Vegan Eating Guide (based on 3 years + weight loss)
