Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

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EquALLity
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by EquALLity »

Animus wrote:'lo, first post here. :!:

Vegan Atheist, your diet seems overall very solid. I don't know if you buy hummus from the store or make it yourself. Hummus from stores tends to have high amounts of oil and sodium. Sometimes 50%+ of its cals will come from oil, so I prefer to just make it myself. If I did the math right, the mock meat you linked to also gets more than 33% of its cals from fat. I don't know how much salt you consume, but that's also something to watch out for since it will cause water retention in your body and make it look like you're carrying excess fat when you really aren't.
Oh, welcome!

You should make an intro! :)
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by brimstoneSalad »

garrethdsouza wrote: Why is it that you're apparently opposed to fruit?
I'm not opposed to fruit, I'm opposed to the very sweet fruits in unrestricted quantity. They can easily surpass your daily caloric needs without providing enough macro nutrients (as can white/brown rice).
garrethdsouza wrote:Is this intuition or else What scientific studies is this based on?
Just the fact of the calorie vs. macro-nutrient content.

I'm very pro blackberries, tomatoes, and other lower calorie fruits.
garrethdsouza wrote:Berries are a great source of antioxidants too
They are, yes. And I recommend berries in moderation. Blackberries don't need to be moderated, because they have a good macro nutrient profile. Other berries should be moderated, and eaten in proportion to other foods that are higher in protein.

The reason I don't agree with sweet fruit consumption is because it's not foolproof. Blackberries and tomatoes are pretty much foolproof. You can't get 2,000 calories of them without getting enough protein.
There are too many fools out there, so I like to focus most on foolproof foods.
garrethdsouza wrote:Tomatoes are a fruit too but you're treating it apparently as a vegetable.
No, I'm treating it as a fruit with a low calorie to macro-nutrient ratio.
As with blackberries.
garrethdsouza wrote: Also red rice is better than black rice by some metrics, not the other way around:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/brown-r ... lack-rice/
That may or may not be the case, I didn't look up red rice info, so I said maybe. I don't like deferring to others without fact checking.
Looking now, I can't even seem to find reliable nutrition info for red rice. From what I have found, the macro nutrient profile doesn't look much better than brown.

I could recommend a 50 - 50 mix of black(or wild) and red rice. But I would not recommend red rice on its own. Only as a mix.

The nice thing about rice is it's pretty easy to buy and mix in a bin, so you don't have to trouble about the ratios later when you're cooking.
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garrethdsouza
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by garrethdsouza »

Wouldn't that mean one should monitor ones intake of such foods calorie wise rather than call for abandoning their consumption as they do have important and diverse phytonutrients that one may not get by limiting diversity of foods. Cronometer is a good resource for keeping tabs such that one isn't overeating.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by brimstoneSalad »

garrethdsouza wrote:Wouldn't that mean one should monitor ones intake of such foods calorie wise rather than call for abandoning their consumption as they do have important and diverse phytonutrients that one may not get by limiting diversity of foods. Cronometer is a good resource for keeping tabs such that one isn't overeating.
In an ideal world, maybe yes. But people are bad at math, and bad at measuring things in practice, particularly when they're eating. Cronometer might help, but it's useless if people aren't imputing values accurately because they're picking at things and guesstimating. It's also tedious, and people can easily fall out of the habit of using it to track everything they eat; a practice which does not result in compliance is not a good recommendation.

Avoiding the foods entirely is more "fool proof", which is why I recommend it. People are remarkably good at following a binary "yes or no" diet. Very bad at moderating portions.

In terms of phytonutrients, I don't believe that's the case for two reasons:

1. Most importantly, there are cases of exceptional foods in these groups of foods, like blackberries, which pack a punch of phytonutrients, and should offer anything the others do.
2. It's fine to pre-mix them. Like I mentioned, a 50-50 mix of black and red rice would be acceptable. That's on the menu. But red rice would not be. A cranberry (or strawberry)-soy yogurt (with no extra added sugar) might be fine too, as an example (you have to look at the nutritional profile for the whole thing, not avoid it because of one ingredient). They need to be inseparably mixed at certain ratios prior to the state they might reach the end consumer/table. Nobody is going to pick out the red rice from the black and manage to become malnourished because of that -- it becomes functionally foolproof.

I suggest that it is usually better to stick with #1, because more well-rounded foods will typically be better foods, foods exceptionally high in sugar or starch are usually not just low in protein, but low in everything else by comparison.
In the case of mixing foods, I would only recommend that if there's a very compelling reason to eat something, since it introduces a complication. For brown rice, there isn't. For red rice, there may be due to antioxidants. There should be a good reason to go through the trouble of including the food.

I've noticed that strawberries are close to the right numbers. There may be some cultivars that have a good ratio and would be on the menu.
Blueberries and cranberries are way off (needing some 4,000 calories a day for enough protein).
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by PrincessPeach »

TheVeganAtheist wrote:im interested in this topic as I too have had some issues with lowering my BMI. Im 193cm and 240lbs, however I do carry around quite a bit of muscle. I go to the gym every second day and work out on all muscle groups with compound excerises and free weights.
My weight gain started a few years back when I injured a few of my hip and leg muscles, which caused me as a result to be less active. Im much better today, however even now I cannot run or walk super quickly as I will re-injure some of my hip and leg muscles.

A few questions come up from reading the responses above.
What are your thoughts on the following foods I eat on a daily basis (keeping in mind that I do want to continue to build strength at the gym, but want to loose body fat).

Breakfast:
On gym days (blended shake) (I make twice the portion and have one for breakfast and one for an evening snake after dinner):
- frozen blueberries
- fresh strawberries
- banana
- vegan protein powder (mixture of rice/pea/hemp and soy protein)
- mango (sometimes added)
- nectarines (sometimes added)
- raw lacianto kale (sometimes added)
- blackberries (sometimes added)

On off days:
- Oatmeal (rolled oats)
- banana
-strawberries
- frozen blueberries
- unsweetened almond milk
- blackberries (sometimes added)

Lunch:
- 1/2 avocado
- bread ( this in particular: http://www.foodforlife.com/about_us/genesis-129 )
- Gardein mock meats ( http://gardein.com/products/seven-grain ... tenders-2/ )
Mixed green salad
- slice of dill pickel
- olives
- tomato
- hummus
- carrot
- green onions
- radish
- sprinkling of iodized salt

Dinner (a lot of variety during the week):
- rice dishes with mixed veggies and some form of protein (sometimes beans, sometimes vegan mock meats, sometimes tofu)
- whole wheat pasta with vegetable stew sauce (same variety of protein as above)
- tofu scramble (daiya cheese, veggies)
- sweet potatoes from the oven and mix veggies
- Plus much much more to list.

Snacks:
- some fruit (usually bananas, nectarines, or mango)

Any suggestions of what I should remove or include?
Going gluten free has made a world of difference for my partner he always struggled with fluctuating weight gain that I didn't understand because I cooked us the same foods and he'd gain weight while I didn't.. We cut out gluten a year ago & no joke he has a flat belly all year round with out trying.. I never cared that his weight went up down I didn't even notice until I realized that he wasn't just 'sympathy' eating with me while I was pregnant and that something in our diet was making him gain weight and not me... It was the gluten!
You should eat 3 tablespoons of hempseeds every morning any way you like in a smoothie or my favorite in oat meal :-)...
Using seeds for protein is much better than powders.. Also cheaper.
Soaking flax and chia together is also another very good combo to through in but soak them until they gel and soak them together to make a balanced protein.. Hemp is balanced so you don't have to worry about hemp.
I say get rid of the faux meats only eat them once a week..
Switch to corn pasta...
Rice for lunch with lentils or split peas..
and Potatoes should always be served at dinner time with more fibrous beans like kidney, lima, black bean ect..
Honestly add more seeds in your diet and cut out gluten!
Don't be a waste of molecules
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Jebus
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by Jebus »

brimstoneSalad wrote:Just the fact of the calorie vs. macro-nutrient content.
I don't get this. Isn't the priority to get as many vital vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as possible out of each calorie? Do you perhaps mean that you are looking for a certain balance of fats to protein to carbs in the foods. If so, what balance are you looking for?
PrincessPeach wrote:and Potatoes should always be served at dinner time with more fibrous beans like kidney, lima, black bean ect.
Why would it matter what time you eat the potatoes?
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PrincessPeach
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by PrincessPeach »

Jebus wrote: Why would it matter what time you eat the potatoes?
Because they make you sleepy during the day :-)

White potatoes raise your blood sugar like crazy but sweet potato's are slow acting carb's and they will help maintain blood sugar through-out sleep.


Again I will push the gluten free diet as well!

30% of people that wear latex gloves every day will develop an allergy to the latex protein.
If you worked in a field and you had a choice of wearing non latex gloves or latex gloves what would you choose?
We now know that over ex-poser of latex in the medical field, police, food, entertainment ect is the cause of people that never had an allergy to latex to develop an allergy to latex..
Why run the risk of eating a food that with continuous exposure may or may not give you, celicac disease or wheat intolerance or wheat allergy?
Google latex allergy and gluten allergy they go hand in hand.

Plus some people will lose weight, and wheat raises your blood sugar more than actual sugar.

Think of where the word 'gluten' was derived from..
The word glue.
Don't be a waste of molecules
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Jebus wrote: I don't get this. Isn't the priority to get as many vital vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as possible out of each calorie? Do you perhaps mean that you are looking for a certain balance of fats to protein to carbs in the foods. If so, what balance are you looking for?
In general, in terms of whole plant food, protein to calorie ratio reflects the content of vitamins and minerals. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb.

Calorie content usually increases due to a surplus of sugar/starch, or fat. In seeds, these are used as energy stores in small amount, but in terms of human cultivation (and selective breeding that has been going on for a long time driven by monkeys and birds) these high energy density nutrients have been increased disproportionately to nutrient content. The thing is, when those increase, you don't typically see a respective increase in other nutrients, vitamins, or minerals along with them.

Compare wild rice to brown rice, as an example (although this is a new cultivar, it's easier to find numbers on this).
Wild bananas to modern ones could be another example.

I am of course not saying it's unhealthy because it's "unnatural", but rather that the breeding of plants due to intuitive eating was bullshit. Monkeys and birds can be stupid about eating too, just like humans are, and select for less nutritious foods due to being gluttons for fat and sugar.

We HAVE also bred plants to be more nutritious, and there are many examples of that too. But the high sugar fruits are examples of rather foolish breeding on our part, and on the parts of our monkey and bird compatriots, to gratify an instinctual sweet tooth (or beak) that isn't exactly conducive to good health.
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by Dream Sphere »

Okay, so it took me a bit, but I just found that this thread was the one I was talking about; the one where I was planning to share what my diet is usually like. Now, I haven't done an exact recording of what I've eaten any time recently, so I'll just try to recall what I can the best I can for now. To get a more accurate picture, I think I will start recording exactly what I'm eating for the next week or so starting tomorrow and maybe share that here later once the week's over.

I guess I'm most curious about which nutrients I'm probably missing, since my diet gets quite skewed onto certain foods which together likely aren't full of nutritional variety, and this focus has seemed to change between certain dietary staples from time to time by varying degrees.


Recently these are some foods I've often been consuming on a daily basis.

-Unsweetened Cashew Milk - (almost always at least one cup, usually two, sometimes three)

-Orange Juice - (usually one cup a day, sometimes two, rarer are three times or not at all. I know it's not good for really anything I can't get elsewhere and just provides quite a bit of sugar fueled calories, though as I said I've been a bit lazy around my diet recently and will be making a number of changes soon.)

-Whole Grain Pitas - (I may have about two to four of them per day.)

-Flax Seed Hummus - (prepackaged, with three one serving size containers of approx. 48 grams, the flax seeds are separated from the hummus in the containers, but I dip my pitas into the hummus and use that to pick up the flax seed onto the piece of pita for eating. The packages usually stay in the fridge for one to three days before being finished, and I'd say I eat two servings per day on average. I'm curious since I've heard some things about flax seeds, that, what may be the likelihood of them spoiling in these containers in my fridge? I'm also wondering that even though I'm recycling them, whether eating from these small plastic containers so often may be worse for the environment, and whether it may be worth buying larger tubs of hummus, and flax seeds separately. Plus, where can I get flax seeds separately? I may just be ignorant and they might be available at my local grocery stores, but I've never seen them for sale by themselves, I'll look into it though. Also, are there any methods to keep them from spoiling, or should I buy them in small quantities more often, so that they don't go to waste?)

-Chick Peas/Romano Beans/Black Beans etc. with Rice - (This is a staple of mine like the pitas/hummus, except I haven't been having it quite as often recently. Most often when I have it, I have it with quickly microwaved, prepackaged brown rice which isn't ideal I've come to understand. More recently I've had it with boiled wild rice about three or four times and it's been great in terms of taste, I just need to get acquainted with the process so that it doesn't feel so time consuming. Something I've thought of is making larger amounts of the wild rice than I would want in one serving, and storing the extra servings in glass containers and put those inside the fridge, so that I don't have to spend an hour+ waiting for the rice to be done every time.)

-Walnuts - (for a while there I was making sure I ate at least 50 grams a day, though it's varied more recently and I've been eating probably somewhere from 15 to 80 grams some days.)

-Baby Carrots - (my consumption of them has dwindled a little more recently, but for a while there I ate about 90 grams per day, whereas more recently it might be 50 grams some days, 20 grams others, or some days not at all. Recently they've been eaten raw.)

-Yam/Sweet Potato Fries - (When I have them, I probably eat quite too much, probably upwards of 200 grams. These are store bought and not home made, so they likely have quite a bit of canola/vegetable oil on them unfortunately. I tend to have them one to two times per week. I also tend to have too much ketchup when I have them, and the biggest concern from the ketchup is probably high salt intake.)

-Fries - (Pretty much just apply all the stuff said about sweet potato fries, except for that I have them about once a week.)

-Baked Potatos - (usually either one or two potatos by themselves, about once or twice a week.)

-Vegan mock meats - (for a while there I didn't have them all that often, but more recently I've had one about every two or three days. I figure that when I do have them I'm probably eating larger portions than necessary, and similarly to some other foods I'm eating, I worry about how much salt, saturated fat, and Omega 6 fat I'm getting from it.)

-Pasta - (I usually make portions larger than I can consume, but I've been getting better at making amounts I can actually eat and not be overeating. The pasta is either topped with a tomato/vegetable sauce, which I think is pretty decent nutritional wise, except for that it has way too much salt for the amount I'm eating, so I'm going to be looking for some reduced salt ones. If it's not a pasta that I'm topping with tomato sauce, then I'll usually be making Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese, though I haven't made that recently, it's basically the pasta with some soy/cashew milk and Daiya Cheddar/Mozzarella shreds, and one or two tablespoons worth of Vegan butter all mixed together. Though, I've been trying to eliminate palm oil from my diet, so I may not try to make it again until I'm sure it can be done without Vegan butter. I've had that kind of pasta with tomato sauce about maybe one to three time a week, recently.)

-Daiya Pizzas - (I've had probably three or four within the past three weeks, I'm going to stop buying them, because I'm pretty sure they are using palm oil somewhere in the mix of the ones I've been buying. I've had success making my own homemade Vegan pizzas, and I know no palm oil goes into that, since the Daiya shreds I use don't have it, while I've heard stuff like Daiya blocks/slices do have it, but luckily I don't use that. I understand that either way this isn't all too healthy, so I'm going to probably cut back to having one once each month or two.)

-Pop Chips - (these aren't too bad for chips, but they're far from ideal. I usually get the ones with olive oil. I haven't had them recently, but I used to get them a lot about a month or two ago.)

-Some fruit here and there - (I haven't been eating a lot of fruit recently, which I'm thinking of changing a bit, though I figure the most worthwhile thing to change in my diet is to eat more whole vegetables. Recently I've had an apple each day for the past week. Further back I often ate one to three bananas each day. Also, further back I ate about 40 to 60 grams of black berries or golden berries each day about two to four times each week.)


Okay, so that's pretty much my more recent diet rotation.

Further in the past I was eating stuff like steamed broccoli, asparagus, spinach, carrots, raw cucumber, bell peppers, arugula, red cabbage, quinoa/barley/lentil/rice/bean dishes, and some other stuff fairly often, most of which I'm thinking of reincorporating into my diet, plus some other healthier things too probably, and increase/decrease the amount of some things I'm currently eating, but I've yet to do it, though hopefully with some extra advice I can plan an even better diet I couldn't have come up with on my own. :mrgreen:
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garrethdsouza
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Re: Losing weight and an appropriate vegan diet

Post by garrethdsouza »

Dream sphere
Have you used cronometer.com
It's an online site (the app is less good IMO) where you add the food you've consumed on a day and the quantity and it estimates the amount of nutrients' RDA fulfilled. You could try that for an estimate on what your diet may be lacking in.

Once you figure out a particular nutrient that it is less in, you can go to whfoods.com and search for that nutrient. It will give you a list of the foods highest in the nutrient to choose from.

Do post on your findings if you do try this.
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