Vegetarian Weight Loss

Like most people, I enjoy following celebrity diet and workout trends. Today’s latest bit of gossip is that Angelina Jolie wasted away on a poorly planned vegan diet…and is now back to eating large steaks instead. I think this is a good case study for a post on “should you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet in order to lose weight?”

Does switching from an animal products diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet provide a weight loss edge?

I think this brings us back to an eternal point of confusion for many people – that losing weight and “eating healthy” automatically mean the same thing. This is really not true, although I can see why it seems it should. I think everyone is raised to believe that healthy food cannot make you gain weight, and that junk food always makes one fat. Its really not true. What makes us fat is eating more calories than we burn.

(If you don’t know how much you should be eating, I recommend reading this post.)

Unhealthy foods typically have a lot more calories (and fewer nutrients) per portion size than healthy foods. This means its relatively easy to eat more calories than one needs without realizing it at all. Likewise, it is assumed that it is next to impossible to overeat relatively low calorie nutritious foods like broccoli. Usually, this is why people find diets – either vegetarian/vegan or low carb diets appealing – they eliminate large categories of foods that are high calorie such as higher fat meats, cheeses, whole fat dairy (ice cream), sugars, pastas, breads, and so on.

Switching your diet to vegetarian or vegan will only work if you have a concept of how much you should be eating for your size and activity levels. Just because you are avoiding meat and/or cheese, milk, and eggs does not mean you will not find some way to replace those calories by consuming french fries, cheese pizza, bread, rice, peanut butter, hummus, olive oil, avocados, nuts, granola bars, and sugar. The increasing abundance of prepackaged vegetarian meals, vegan snack bars, bottled soy smoothies and other treats will make this even easier than you expect.

So in summary, remember that everyone has to think a little bit about what they eat and how much they eat, or weight gain (or at least a lack of meaningful weight loss) will always be a problem.

How to Lose Weight on a Vegetarian Diet

Essentially, everyone needs to plan their weight loss diet the same way. You need to get an idea of how much you should eat relative to how much you move, and then eat a little less (and move a little more.) You also need to eat a balanced diet ranging from 30-40% protein (to prevent muscle loss – aim for 1 gram protein per pound body weight or slightly more), 20-30% fat, and the remainder of calories can be carbohydrates as long as you are under your daily calorie range. Keeping your diet relatively in balance is key to maintaining enough energy to function day to day, feel happy, and regulate hormones that will allow you to burn fat. If anything swings too far out of balance, you may feel fine for a couple weeks, but over the long term people will usually begin to experience problems.

Look for Low Calorie Sources of Protein

During your diet, beans, high protein grains, nuts and cheese need to be eaten in much smaller quantities than you might normally prefer. While all of these foods have a significant protein component, they also have a large proportion of carbohydrates (or in the case of nuts and cheese – fat) – keeping the calorie levels high.

One slice Cheddar/American Cheese has 5 grams protein but 86 calories.

One cup firm tofu has 39.8 grams protein and 365.4 calories.

One cup of black beans has 15.2g protein but also 227 calories.

One half cup dry quinoa, ancient grain “super food” has 11.1 g protein but also 317.9 calories.

Lets use an example of  34 year old 160lb woman who is 5 foot 4 in tall – we will call her “Sally.” Sally would burn approximately 1492 calories per day just to support the basic needs of her body (organ function, breathing, etc.) Lets assume that Sally is not very active – (using the Harris Benedict Equation we will assume our example dieter is “sedentary”) and so we will multiply 1492 by 1.2 for a total number of 1790.4 calories burned per day. (Again if this isn’t making sense, check out this post.) Sally can eat approximately 1790.4 calories per day and stay exactly the same weight she already is. If she eats fewer calories, she will lose weight, if she eats more, she will gain weight. Lets assume Sally decided to eat 1500 calories per day – this is a pretty mild diet that will  result in about a half pound lost per week.

Sally’s protein goals for the day will be approximately 160 grams of protein. The question is, how many high protein grains and beans would she need to eat to get her daily protein requirements? Just to make it simple, lets pretend sally wanted to get all of her protein from tofu. Sally would need to eat four cups to get 159g protein – but this would be 1461 calories or 97% of Sally’s entire daily allotment! That is only 40 calories shy of Sally’s entire daily calorie limit! And there is no way anyone would be content to eat only 4 cups of tofu per day.

Clearly we have a problem. Higher protein carbohydrate sources just cannot meet one’s daily protein needs while dieting (although during regular life when one is not dieting and can eat less protein and more calories overall – they are fine.) So what is the solution? If you are a dairy consuming vegetarian – look to high protein Greek Yogurt and Whey Protein powder. If you are 100% vegan or nondairy look to hemp or vegan protein powders.

Fage Fat Free Greek Yogurt has 20g protein and only 120 calories per 1 cup. Fage was pretty much the first company to offer Greek style yogurt in the United States. These days, its pretty easy to find cheaper brand alternatives at stores like Trader Joes – otherwise Fage is a little expensive. Two cups of yogurt per day would easily provide 25% of Sally’s daily protein requirements at the cost of only 10% of her daily calories.

Designer Whey Vanilla Protein Powder has 18 gram protein at only 100 calories per serving (1 scoop to 8oz water.) Whey is a good protein powder choice as the protein quality is high, the texture is very nice (usually not chalky) and the calories tend to be low (provided the mixture you buy is not full of sugars and oils – for this reason avoid anything labeled “meal replacement.”) Keep in mind some people do have trouble digesting whey protein, so if you have digestive troubles – this may not be your imagination. Other good alternatives can include egg protein powder and of course, any of the vegan option like hemp, rice, or pea protein powder.

If Sally had a protein shake for breakfast and one in the evening after her workout, this would provide another 25% of her daily calorie requirements at the expense of only 13% of her daily calories.

Hemp protein powder is a great vegan option. Ideally you want to find one with the highest protein and the lowest calories. Be sure to read the nutrition label! Many powders offer as little as 7 grams protein per 140 calories! Living Harvest, pictured above, offer 13 g protein per 120 calories. Not perfect, but somewhat close to reasonable considering each can has 15 servings and costs about $12 (all vegan protein powders are more expensive, unfortunately.) Expect to pay close to $24 per container for brands like Manitoba Harvest, which contain more protein.

To sum up – getting enough protein without eating too many calories can be the trickiest part of a vegetarian weight loss diet.

For more great ideas, I recommend you check out Leigh Peele’s Body By Eats Vegetarian/Vegan cookbook. There really are not that many reputable vegetarian weight loss plans on the market these days (especially those with food that tastes good, looks normal, is easy to find, and doesn’t cost and arm and a leg.)

You can get it here.