Healthy Vegan Diet for Weight Loss
Losing weight on a natural vegan diet is often very easy. This is because fruits and vegetables generally contain fewer calories than foods made with animal products. There is a difference between losing weight and losing fat. Most people want to maintain their muscle mass: This can be a little difficult with a vegan diet because complete proteins are found in meat, eggs and dairy. However, you can still utilize the partial proteins in fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts to get the complete protein you need. A vegan diet will actually add a more variety to your eating habits.
Planning Your Vegan Diet Needs
You'll want to use a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Bodybuilding.com has a great list of complete vegan proteins that you can include in your diet. There are countless vegan recipes for you to try. Consume high protein foods that will give you a sense of satiety and avoid foods with processed sugars, as certain types of sugars will spike your insulin and trigger your body to store more fat than it should. A balanced vegan diet that contains only natural sugars is ideal. Taking a multivitamin that is specially formulated for vegans is also a great idea. Create a list of twenty good meals that you can cycle through on a monthly basis. You can always add more in the future, but creating a varied diet plan will ensure that you won't get bored and fall back on meat and animal products.
Reading Food Labels
You'll want to be careful when you purchase processed foods because many have hidden meat and dairy ingredients. PETA has a great list of apps that will help you select vegan foods. Make sure that you avoid added sugars and trans fats. The best ingredients that a vegan can buy are whole foods. Spending an hour in the kitchen to prepare weekly meals from whole foods is a great idea: You can make large batches of vegan soup and pasta, but avoid canned pasta sauces because these may contain added cheese and rennet.
Calories, Carbohydrates and Fat
The major rules about weight loss are pretty much set in stone. Reducing your calories will cause your body to burn up fat stores. Consuming fat usually does not make you fat. Eating a lot of carbohydrates will slow your weight loss because your body is going to be burning off the carbohydrates before it accesses the fat stores. Roughly thirty percent of your calories should be carbohydrates. Avocado is a great vegan food because it has high calories and very few carbs. You can use a calorie calculator like this one to determine how many calories you need to safely lose fat. You can always do cardiovascular exercise to burn off excess calories as well.
