Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: vegetarian weight loss diet

Question:
Has anyone else had any vegetarian weight loss success on a plant-based diet? I don't want to be spammed to death by the Atkins folks, but I was just wondering.

Answer:
I weighed 310 pounds in October of 1995 when I switched to a vegetarian weight loss diet. When I started I ate quite a bit tofu but I stopped eating it when I found out that it contains too much fat and too much protein. Six months later my weight was down to 245 pounds. I slowly lost my resolve to keep fat and fruit sugars out of my diet and during the next 2-1/2 years I gained 14 pounds back. I was eating 4-8 ounces of nuts every week and 10 or more servings of fruit every day. I haven't had any meat (which means no animal flesh of any kind including fish) since October 1995 and no dairy except two or three times. Last week I resolved, with prayers to God for Him to give me strength, to again get back to a low fat vegetarian diet with my fruit intake under control. I have eliminated the nuts and will only eat 3 fruit servings each day and most of those fruit servings will be grapefruit. I also have also cut my whole wheat bread intake from 17 slices a week to 1 slice a week. (We are almost entirely raw food vegetarians. We juice carrots, beets, and kale. We purchase 10-15 pounds of spinach a week. And we buy lots of fresh fruit - less now. The only cooked foods we eat are home made whole wheat bread - we even mill the wheat and beans.) I have a real problem with food and I can rationalize almost any kind of pigging out if I allow myself any leeway. For example, if I gave myself permission to eat A cookie, I would probably eat a dozen. I am 47 and and the weight loss from 310 to 245 (up to 259 last week) was the first sustained weight loss I have ever had. The only thing that has worked for me is to completely deny myself high calorie foods. I have learned that a very low fat vegetarian diet is not just good for weight loss. It is also very healthy. My blood pressure has dropped from 145/95 to 110/70. My total cholesterol is about 170 but this is up from the 150 it was in early 1996.