Vegetarian/vegan diet?
 

I just started the program and have been stuck on day 2 for weeks. The trouble is that I can't find a vegetarian/vegan diet that's reasonable and meets my (somewhat unusual) needs.

The trouble is that I am only rarely able to prepare meals for myself. I live and work at a retreat center where we are served 3 meals a day most of the time. Fortunately these meals are somewhat buffet-style, the entrees are usually vegan and pretty healthy, and there are always healthy options like a plain whole grain, plain tofu, and salad. Yet I'm still having trouble dieting because I tend to binge eat at night (leftover food or stuff I buy at a convenience store). Having a structured approached to eating would be really helpful, but I can't really count calories because I don't know what amounts of oils, etc. go into all the meals I'm eating.

I went to see a nutritionist last week, hoping she could help me with my problem, but she was anti-vegetarianism and very, very unhelpful. Not to mention my insurance won't cover a nutritionist unless I have a life-threatening illness (which, fortunately, I don't).

So now I'm looking for a "reasonable" vegan or vegetarian diet book or program (I can't eat eggs, so anything that requires eggs like a paleo or low-carb approach won't work). I also tried McDougall diet and Fuhrman's Eat to Live, but I found the total ban on fats and oils far too restrictive. I've been thinking about the Zenhabits plant-based diet (it won't let me link but it's easy to find by Googling). I'm wondering if it's strict enough to help me lose a little weight. I'm not trying to shed a whole lot of weight since I'm only a few pounds overweight, but I'd like to get into better eating habits and find some healthy way I can eat for the rest of my life, so I'm hoping a simple but not too restrictive diet, in combination with the skills I'll learn from Beck's book, will be enough to get me on the right track.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.

Have you seen the No S Diet? Basically, it is No sweets, snacks or seconds. Except for Sometimes on Saturday/Sunday or Special Days. For you, that would be serving yourself 1 reasonable portion from your buffet 3x per day. No snacks, except for special occasions, would just plain eliminate your late night eating!

Of course, it is not really a book or program. It is just a framework that you would have to decide to limit yourself to. But I know some people who have used it successfully to drop 10-20 lbs and it is the way I would love to eat, as it could work whether you are vegan or paleo!

Anyway, here is the website

HTH!

Perfect!!! This is just what I'm looking for!

Glad it was helpful! :)

Hi,
I just ordered the BDS book again (I say "again" because I did read it quite a few years ago but didn't do the work needed to make it work for me) so I'm not quite doing the strategies yet. But I am also a vegan and I eat pretty much like the Zenhabits website suggests.

Like you, I tried the McDougall/Fuhrman-type diets but they were too restrictive with the no-oil-no-fat-added approach and I found I kept breaking them to binge eat. I do find that a plan that is still relatively low in fat (about 15%-20%) but doesn't ban all fats works for me for a longer period of time. When I do that, the reasons why I binge are more related to my emotional eating (which I'm working on for 2015) and not because the eating plan I have created for myself is restrictive.

Djuna