Is it possible to get overweight on a vegetarian diet. I need low carb low fat vege recipes. HELP!!!?

Question

I am overweight and 5/6 weeks ago decided to go vegetarian mainly because I cant stand to eat animals anymore but also because I thought it would help my health issues.
Since then I have been diagnosed with a heart condition and the cardiologist said dont eat vegetarian because they eat too many carbs and I will just put on more weight. I must admit I have put on 3 kg since I started . I think that is 6 lbs not sure.
Help!!

My Gp said going vegetarian was the best thing I could possibly do for my health and the cardio said dont. So there you have two health professionals
who cant agree.
Also I tried the atkins diet but I was sooo sick on that I couldnt stop shaking. Carbs were too low.
Im diabetic type 2 as well

Just love all you guys. You have given such good advice. hugs and kisses for all xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

I just luv you guys. What a pleasure to know there are so many caring and well informed people out there wanting to help.
I just found a book yesterday called the "idiots complete guide to vegetarian" and its wonderful, I heartily recommend it.

Answer 1

If you eat more calories than you burn off, you're going to gain weight. And yes, it's possible for veg*ans to be overweight. I don't know what your cardiologist is thinking--after all, Dean Ornish's low-fat, near-vegan diet (you're allowed nonfat dairy and egg whites as the only animal products) has been shown to actually reverse heart disease. I have not actually read his book, but you may want to take a look.

There are good carbs and bad carbs, and you want the good carbs--the whole grains, vegetables, some fruits. Go easy on the nuts as they have a lot of fat. Drink lots of water instead of sugary drinks; to quote the authors of "Skinny B!tch," soda is liquid Satan.

Some vegan sources of omega-3 fatty acids are flax and flax oil (you have to grind flax seeds for them to be bio available). Flax seed must be kept cold--don't ever cook with it, but you can use it in a salad dressing or drizzle it on steamed vegetables. Walnuts, hemp seed and hemp oil are also good sources of omega-3s. The Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org) will probably have a list of foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

And as you can see, there are also good fats and bad fats.

Physicians' Committee For Responsible Medicine (www.pcrm.org) may also have suggestions on how to eat healthily when you have a heart condition and diabetes.

Good luck!

Answer 2

A balanced vegetarian diet will not hurt you. However, the adkins diet has hurt many people. Of all the low-carb high protien diets out there this one has been the most dangerous resulting in many heart problems mainly from cholesterol and fat intake. What are you substituting for meat? If it's high in sugar or too high in protien you can gain weight. As for low-carb, I don't agree with that. Your body needs carbs however they should be consumed mostly in the morning to give you energy and not before you go to bed. This is why people gain weight on carbs is because they eat them before they go to bed when your body rests so you aren't exerting any energy to use them and they just get stored as fat. You're body is like a refridgerator with certain things. If you don't use protien, carbs, sugars, ect your body sort of stores them as left overs. I'd sugest you eat most of your carbs for breakfast, a few for lunch, and none for dinner. Eat lots of leafy greens, vegetables, a variety of fruits, legumes, some grains, and if you want to eat dairy have a small portion of that. Soy is also very good and the American Heart Association has named it as one of the best heart healthy foods. Consuming about 35 grams of soy protien a day can drastically improve your heart condition. Make sure you are getting plenty of exercise too. If you can try walking on your lunch break eat day or get a workout video to do a few times a week and gradually progress to different types of workouts.

Answer 3

The biggest cause of weight gain regardless of how you are eating is excessive calories. Consuming more calories then what you output in exercise.

For the carbs and fat, stop cutting them! You do need a certain amount of carbs for the energy they provide. Carbs are not a bad thing!! As far as fat goes, vegetarian diets are already low fat, so unless you is eating a bunch of junk then fat should not be a problem.

By the way, if you want to improve your cardiovascular health then try consuming more omega fatty acids and atioxidants. There are lots of vegetarian sources for them. The odawla bars are great as is flax oil, flax seeds, hemp, most all berries, rapeseed oil, and walnuts.

Answer 4

If you want to eat truly healthy, lose body fat consistently, normalize your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, prevent cancer, and even boost your brain health and energy levels, you may have heard all over the news that the Paleo Diet has been found to be one of the best methods of achieving all of these benefits compared to any other popular "fad" diets out there. Go here https://bitly.im/aMHM0

The truth is that the Paleo Diet will never be considered a fad because it's just simply the way that humans evolved to eat over approximately 2 million years. And eating in a similar fashion to our ancestors has been proven time and time again to offer amazing health benefits, including prevention of most diseases of civilization such as cancer, heart disease, alzheimers, and other chronic conditions that are mostly caused by poor diet and lifestyle. One of the biggest misunderstandings about the Paleo Diet is that it's a meat-eating diet, or a super low-carb diet. This is not true

Answer 5

If you are having a weight problem on a vegetarian diet and you have a normal metabolic rate, you are probably eating either too many animal products like eggs and cheese or too many refined products like white flour, sugar and oil. If you eat a plant-based diet consisting of mostly *unrefined* carbs, it's really hard to eat enough calories to gain weight because of all the fiber and water. I stopped eating animal products about 10 weeks ago and have lost quite a bit of weight (and I feel great!)

Answer 6

YES- unfortunately I have been overweight my whole life and a vegetarian for 3/4 of that! (cheesecake and bread !)
I eat a lot of vegetables (veggie cream cheese YUM) and grains but I come from a line of fatties (meat eaters all of them.)
I decided to really watch the fats in my diet and switched all oils to olive and safflower only. I had to control my butter intake too- so far I have lost 12 pounds in 3 weeks and I am not feeling starved. I also go for walks every day (arthritis and heart murmur prevent strenous exercise). I am going to keep monitoring my food and weight and see how much weight I can lose by Christmas.
Best of everything to you!

Answer 7

I found the book to be very informative and easy to read.

I've lost 17 pounds in 12 days, I'm just concerned that I'm losing too much weight, too quickly. I will admit I haven't followed the guide exactly. I'm not sticking perfectly to the listed foods and meal plans (but mostly) and doing very little exercise, but the weight keeps flying off.

It clearly works and if I'd followed it exactly I think it would scare the living daylights out of me because of the amount that I'd lose. So thanks again for the information. I've never purchased anything like this before because they are usually full of trash, but 3WD has been a pleasant surprise.

Get started today!

Answer 8

Tropical Fruit Soup with Pineapple SalsaTry Cooking Light! If you don't have papaya, you can substitute mango or just use all pineapple for the salsa. You can find passionfruit nectar in the Latin-food sections of most large supermarkets. Ingredients Salsa: 1/2 cup diced peeled pineapple 1/2 cup diced peeled papaya 2 tablespoons dark rum 2 teaspoons sugar Soup: 3 cups vanilla low-fat yogurt 1 cup passionfruit nectar 1/3 cup pineapple juice 1/4 teaspoon coconut extract 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup flaked sweetened coconut, toasted Preparation To prepare salsa, combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl; set aside. To prepare the soup, combine the yogurt and the next 4 ingredients (yogurt through salt) in a medium bowl, and stir well with a whisk. Cover and chill. Ladle the soup into shallow bowls, and top with the salsa. Sprinkle each serving with toasted coconut. Yield 4 servings (serving size: 1 cup soup, 1/4 cup salsa, and 1 tablespoon coconut) Nutritional Information CALORIES 264(15% from fat); FAT 4.3g (sat 3.2g,mono 0.7g,poly 0.1g); PROTEIN 8.8g; CHOLESTEROL 9mg; CALCIUM 301mg; SODIUM 204mg; FIBER 0.9g; IRON 0.4mg; CARBOHYDRATE 43.3g Cooking Light, AUGUST 2000 This sounds so great, I'm glad you asked this question so I could find this wonderful recipe!

Answer 9

Vegetarians only cut out the meat. That doesn't mean that you couldnt have gained the weight eating too much bread/pasta and sugary/junk foods. I'm ashamed at your doctor for immediatly stereotyping vegetarians, rather then show you ways to make vegetarianism a healthy diet. (i.e. limit carbs, pile on the veggies and fruits, lay of the junk food, sodas, extra butter, salt...) Excercise should also be part of your lifestyle (assuming your heart condition doesnt prevent the exertion) Also, I hope you don'tt think that your heart condition was a result of your new diet. It's more likely that you had developed that problem earlier.

Answer 10

Since you are diabetic, I recommend you look up some books by Neal Barnard, M.D. . .he discusses diabetes a lot in correlation with a veg diet. . .here's a video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4467558552614720815&q=neal+barnard&total=12&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

The only carbs you want to stay away from are refined carbs - meaning white sugar, white bread, white rice, etc. and processed foods. Complex carbs is what our bodies function off of and is the only thing our brains can use as fuel. No matter how many calories you take in, if you're eating no carbs, your body will produce ketones, which is indication that it is well into starving mode. Most doctors, unfortunately, actually haven't had nutrition courses. . .

For the weight issue, I highly recommend this book called "Eat To Live" by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. You go on a six-week plan and, while I still strongly suggest you read the book, the basic six-week plan is:

UNLIMITED (eat as much as you want):
-all raw vegetables, including raw carrots (goal: 1 lb. daily)
cooked green vegetables (goal 1 lb. daily)
-beans, legumes, bean sprouts, or *tofu (minimum 1 cup daily in total of these)
fresh fruit (at least 4 daily).
-eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomato and other non-starchy vegetables, cooked and raw (unlimited)
*Beans should be eaten daily; tofu should be eaten less frequently.

LIMITED (not more than one serving):
-cooked starchy vegetables OR whole grains--Maximum 1 cup per day (butternut or acorn squash, corn, sweet potato, brown rice, cooked carrots, whole grain breads*, whole grain cereals*)
-raw nuts and seeds (1 oz. or 28.5 grams a day) or 2 ounces avocado
-ground flaxseed (1 tablespoon a day)
-soymilk, low-sugar preferred--Maximum 1 cup a day
*avoid breads and cereals as much as possible

OFF-LIMITS:
-dairy products
-animal products
-between meal snacks
-fruit juice, dried fruits


The salad is the main dish. Do you know how much a pound of salad is and he says aim for at LEAST a pound? Add to that at LEAST a pound of cooked veggies and even more raw veggies and at LEAST four servings of fruit and at LEAST a cup of beans. . .that's a crap load of food and you're still destined to lose weight. I did it for a while and avoided starchy things and rice all together. I didn't need to lose a lot, but went from a size 6 to a loose size 4 really fast. You don't need to strain yourself with exercise, but at least try. Do enjoyable things - dance, play with a pet or with kids. . .walk a half hour a day or an hour three days a week. You'll be okay. :)