Vegan Diet...?
Posted by diro1982 on Oct 28, 2009 · Member since Mar 2009 · 3 posts
So, I turned from vegetarian (of one year) to vegan about 6 months ago. I lost a few pounds initially but, then discovered all the yummy vegan recipes and junk food out there & now have gained five pounds on top of my original weight :(
I was wondering if anyone has some good resources for cookbooks, healthy low-cal vegan recipes etc. I'd prefer web resources simply because I'm monetarily poor :P But, if there's a great must-read book I'm surely capable of picking it up (already read skinny b*tch...shared it...never got it back).
Btw...passing on the raw diet (lotta work & lotta monies)
Any advice appreciated...MUAH! :)>>>
well, there are quite a few low cal recipes here. what do you currently eat? maybe if you gave us an idea of your current diet we could help you better modify it and make you happy :).
also, do you exercise and has that been consistent?
and you can do raw cheap, i'm transitioning to raw right now and have very very very little extra money so food money is tight. you just have to pass on the superfoods and eat lots of fruit (bananas! oranges! whatever is on sale!) and greens and some other veggies maybe. a little bit of seeds here and there. But it's a commitment!
Gosh...what do I eat? Breakfast is usually on the run so it's a Clif bar or bagel w/ "cream cheese" sometimes some frozen waffles (horrible I know). But, I did just find a recipe for a great breakfast shake!
Lunch is usually hummus & pita bread, avocado tacos, salad, or sometimes jus a good ol' pb&j sammich.
Dinner is usually a nice serving of rice w/ veggies, pasta, vegan chili, WF's pad thai or an Amy's meal.
I definitely know that I need to do more salads. But, hot meals are a pre-req in my life :) Raised in a Hispanic household where most of my relatives don't even know what a vegan is, lol. So, needless to say this is a big transformation for me. Living in Chicago, being vegan is very convenient w/ Whole Foods, great restaurants and prepared foods (that I tend to rely on) bad I know.
I just started excersizing again...cardio 30 min. weights 30 min. 3-4 times a week.
well, do you like smoothies for breakfast?
something that is super easy and fills you up for a while (at least fills me up for a while) is a green smoothie. I like banana, orange (just throw the whole, peeled, orange into the blender for fresh orange juice), hemp seeds + water to make a "milk" in the blender or use a pre-made one, some kind of frozen fruit (i love mangos), and greens! spinach is the best green for beginners. try adding as much as you can and still make it tolerable. i like a lot of greens, but usually if you are just starting you won't want as much.
you don't snack or eat dessert?
it honestly doesn't seem to me that you eat all that much, but i would suggest cutting out as much processed stuff as you can. do you have any extra time to cook some things from scratch? this way you can make them as healthy (or unhealthy ;)) as you would like... add whole grains, reduce fat, etc., etc.
maybe try eating a piece of fruit or salad before each meal. it'll help fill you up and get you good, unprocessed, nutrition with minimal calories.
oh, it also looks like a lot of your grains are refined, if you try to up your whole grains that might help satiate you more (even though it really doesn't look like you eat too much, but i'm not seeing portion sizes or anything).
exercise will help, too!
Hi!
You are welcome to check out my blog: www.rhiw.blogspot.com as I post recipes & healthy tips there. I'll also add your great topic to my list of ideas to blog about soon. I was over 40 lbs overweight for most of my 20s (WAY too much decadent vegan food!) & do weight loss coaching...so I'll blog about this sometime soon as it's an important topic! Also watch for a book giveaway soon on my blog (I wrote a book with lots of tips & tools for weight loss)--maybe you'll win!
And everyone already has great suggestions. VegWeb is a super resource! Exercise & lots of veggies go a long way, too!
Thank you hespedal, I really like the breakfast smoothie/shake idea. I'm gonna start that ASAP!
Quintess...I already bookmarked your site...TY!
Oh desserts...forgot about those :-) Purely Decadent is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE vegan ice-cream yums! So i maybe buy a lil' container of that once a month or every two months. Other than that I do love making vegan desserts from scratch but that happens just as often.
But, if there's a great must-read book I'm surely capable of picking it up (already read skinny b*tch...shared it...never got it back).
That happened to me too! I let my mum and sister borrow it and never saw it again.
:(
My advice would be to eat lots of healthy homemade soups loaded up with veggies and legumes and serve with whole grains. When I need to shed some extra poundage I live off soup for a bit and try to eat healthy in general. Soups are usually pretty cheap to make and you can propably find lots of recipes here. I've also found several on RecipeZaar searching their vegan recipes.
I've been going through this too and what has helped me is exercise, and cutting out things like oil, margarine, nuts, seeds, avacados, coconut and processed foods as much as possible. I mean, I will still eat nuts or a spoonful of nutbutter once or twice a week, but I try to cut out that fat wherever I can until I get down to a healthier weight range.
There are free ebooks online, here are a few I've saved
vitalita.com
I haven't dowloaded this one yet....
Veggie Works Vegan Cookbook, is over 10 dollars at Amazon and has 21 reviews and five stars, seems like a really informative book and its' free here at FreeBookSpot.in
I'm also just going to throw in that the things you do to lose weight should be things that you are willing to make lifestyle changes, not just a diet, or else you'll gain back the weight.
www.fatfreevegan.com
It's a recipe site/blog and it's stellar!!
I was going to recommend VegWeb and it's thousands of recipes and fatfreevegan.com but y'all beat me to it.