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By becoming a vegetarian do you have "more energy", loss weight faster? feel better as a whole??
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What are the benefits to becoming a vegetarian? Would it help me loss weight and keep it off also?
Posted by admin on July 11th, 2009
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Whether or not you lose weight will depend on more than you just going vegetarian. Losing weight requires lowering your fat intake, lowering your calorie intake, eating balanced meals (so you’re getting nutrition out of the calories you consume) and ideally, exercising.
Simply going vegetarian does not assure any of those things. As a vegetarian, you could still choose to eat fattening foods (cheese pizza, store-bought frozen cheese enchiladas, etc). However, if you eat a truly healthy vegetarian diet, then yes, most likely you will lose weight.
It took me about a year after going veggie before I started losing weight. Why? Well, since I didn’t really know how to cook vegetarian meals, I ended up trying out lots of recipes. I later realized how much cheese was in them! I was consuming at least a pound of cheese per week! Now that I’m more comfortable with cooking meatless meals, I use much less cheese.
I have recently lost 15lbs (over three or four months)without changing anything and without exercise. It’s just that I’m learning new foods that don’t require as many fatty ingredients (stuff like stir fry, tacos, french bread pizza with small amounts of cheese, bbq’d veggie kabobs, etc). NOW I feel like I have more energy and I feel healthier overall. I also have fewer headaches than I did in the past (which ironically were due to various deficiencies in my meat-based diet).
So anyway, yes, a vegetarian diet CAN help you lose weight and feel better… but it will only do so if you eat properly.
not nessasarilly to lose weight you must cut out as much fat as you can ,some people say vegies are healthier, but i don,t agree
that’s part of the answers given. mostly it seems to be more about not harming animals. which is crap. if you eat food, then something is being harmed. and a pure vegan diet is lacking in some nutrients, like some b-vitamins, or minerals. a diet high in meat is bad for the environment, but some meat is a requirement for people. we are omnivores. keeping an open mind is more important. i haven’t got the " eating insects" part straight yet, but have been told it’s healthy too. in time, or hunger, i suppose.
Not necessarily. If you eat french fries and oreos, they’re vegetarian but you won’t lose weight. You have to eat right, exercise and drink lots of water. Eat your fruits and veggies.
ive heard you will lose weight and be healthier but i dont know for sure. i know if you do become a vegatarian you can become deficent in things such as protein that you would usually get from meat. it takes careful meal planning to be a vegatarian because you have to make sure you are still meating nutritional standards or else you will be sick. you cant just eat salad all the time. i dont think its healthy to just eat veggies you need meat and a certain amount of fat to survive.
Perform a websearch on Covert Bailey for overall great advice on diet and exercise.
Cutting out meat will initially make you feel less "loaded down". It may mean consuming less calories (meat usually comes with fat to make it taste better) and thus losing weight, but it depends on what your substitute is.
If you need more energy, then you are not getting enough exercise. Balance cardio with weight training… your energy levels will rocket. But don’t restrict your diet while you are doing that. It will just make you crazy and will only last breifly. Do make sure that you are eating enough of a large variety of foods so you get the full spectrum of nutrients.
clear skin, better moods throughout the day, less body odor.
It can help you lose weight, but it depends on what you eat. If you eat chips and cookies, you most likely will not lose weight. If you eat lots of veggies and cut back on high calorie snack food and get some exercise, you more then likely will lose weight. You don’t have to go to the gym (although it helps). Don’t park your car in the parking spot closest to the store, park furthest from the store..always take the stairs instead of the elevator. It may not seem like much but those few hundred feet of walking add up over time (each calorie you burn counts!)
I actually lost 45lbs between May of 2004 to Dec of 2004 by becoming a vegetarian (I did it for health reasons only..I’m not an animal activist). I have kept off every pound for the last 2 years. I am a vegetarian which means I don’t eat meat, but I do eat cheese (2% only) and meals with cheese in them(I dislike eggs and milk so I don’t eat them anyways). I have cut out junk food, quit eating butter (I replace it with one slice of 2% cheese) and I eat nuts and veggie burgers for protein. (The portebella mushroom burgers seem to be the best tasting to me.) I don’t eat any fattening dressings like mayonaise or ranch dressing. Basically I watch what I eat. I’ve replaced chips with Trail Mix, especially when I hike. Sure I’ve splurged and gained a few pounds, but the next week, I make it up by walking a little further, or cutting back on my calories a little more. I’ve managed to maintain a weight of 104lbs for 2 years. My dieting buddies (who tried atkin type diets) have lost weight quicker then me, but also managed to put the weight back on.
It’s a simple rule of thumb. Take in less calories then you burn and you will lose weight, no matter what you eat. The tricky part is making sure that what you take in is healthy and has enough vitamins and protein to keep you healthy.
Talk with your doctor first before going on any diet.
Eat right and exercise is the key. I have just found out thru the various years that a vegetarian diet is the only thing that has helped me lose the weight and keep the weight off.. That’s me tho and all people are different.
Good luck with your weight loss.
!5 years ago I was overweight and had no energy. Then I became a vegetarian, and started walking and riding my bike everywhere. I lost the weight and have kept it off. I have considerably more energy now. Meat takes a long time to digest (it’s never fully digested most research suggests) and that takes energy. I felt the difference in the first week! It’s not for everybody, but it won’t hurt to try it out.
Not to mention you will avoid all the growth hormones and antibiotics that are constantly given to farm animals, which can’t possibly be good for you…..
You are taking LESS from the earth which is under siege to provide food for everyone. You are skipping a whole layer from the "toxic chemical "pyramid by leaving meat out. You aren’t risking mad cow disease or bird flu. You are less likely to get arthritis pains in your joints because your diet is much less acidic without meat. No living thing has to suffer or die for you to eat. Your percentage of body fat ought to decline (unless you replace meat with dairy) over time. You still have to eat fewer calories to lose weight. Your cholesterol should go down also, again as long as you replace meat with lentils and extra vegies instead of dairy.
Its all about what you replace the meat with.
no not necessairaly, you shouldn’t become a vegetarian to loose weight because that is taking a step backwards. tho it may seem like a good alternative because you eat a lot of veggies and healthy foods you are more often going to run out of options and have less of a variety in your diet esp if you are not properly educated on being a veggiterian. you could start eating more greasy foods-french fries, or more sweets, cake, candy and things like chips and anyother kinds of junk food because those are all foods that are worse for you then a regular sized meal of some chicken and pasta and greenbeans. as long as you eat in moderation and don’t indulge yourself in sweets you can eat a controlled balanced diet that in the long run will be healthier and more stable. also being a vegetarian is hard work you have to make sure you get all the protein one needs to stay healthy and you may need to take vitamins go to the doctor more to make sure your staying healthy. as long as you eat everything in moderation and pass up you nightly desserts and go walk ,stretch and maybe jog for a little while in the evenning you will be healthy and start to loose weight in a healthy way where you don’t end up with a whole bunch of stretch marks and worse off then you were be4.
If a vegetarian diet is very carefully planned, and that may require either fortified foods or supplements, it can be AS healthy as a good meat eating diet. I think there are a couple of benefits, but they come from eating a wide range of fruit and veg and being health conscious as vegans have to be, not omitting meat, and thus those benefits can be go without actually going veggie. Needless to say a uncarefully planned vegetarian, or especially vegan, diet can lack many essential nutrients and be very bad for your health.
There are many benefits to a diet containing meat. Many vegetarians claim that meat is unhealthy. This is a blatant fallacy.
It is well established that eating meat improves the quality of nutrition, strengthens the immune system, promotes normal growth and development, is beneficial for day-to-day health, energy and well-being, and helps ensure optimal learning and academic performance.
A long term study found that children who eat more meat are less likely to have deficiencies than those who eat little or no meat. Kids who don’t eat meat — and especially if they restrict other foods, as many girls are doing — are more likely to feel tired, apathetic, unable to concentrate, are sick more often, more frequently depressed, and are the most likely to be malnourished and have stunted growth. Meat and other animal-source foods are the building blocks of healthy growth that have made America’s and Europe’s youngsters the tallest, strongest and healthiest in the world.
Meat is an important source of quality nutrients, heme iron, protein, zinc and B-complex vitamins. It provides high-quality protein important for kids’ healthy growth and development.
The iron in meat (heme iron) is of high quality and well absorbed by the body, unlike nonheme iron from plants which is not well absorbed. More than 90 percent of iron consumed may be wasted when taken without some heme iron from animal sources. Substances found to inhibit nonheme iron absorption include phytates in cereals, nuts and legumes, and polyphenolics in vegetables. Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, headache, irritability and decreased work performance. For young children, it can lead to impairment in general intelligence, language, motor performance and school readiness. Girls especially need iron after puberty due to blood losses, or if pregnant. Yet studies show 75 percent of teenage girls get less iron than recommended.
Meat, poultry and eggs are also good sources of absorbable zinc, a trace mineral vital for strengthening the immune system and normal growth. Deficiencies link to decreased attention, poorer problem solving and short-term memory, weakened immune system, and the inability to fight infection. While nuts and legumes contain zinc, plant fibre contains phytates that bind it into a nonabsorbable compound.
Found almost exclusively in animal products, Vitamin B12 is necessary for forming new cells. A deficiency can cause anaemia and permanent nerve damage and paralysis. The Vitimin B12 in plants isn’t even bioavailable, meaning our body can’t use it.
Why not buy food supplements to replace missing vitamins and minerals? Some people believe they can fill those gaps with pills, but they may be fooling themselves. Research consistently shows that real foods in a balanced diet are far superior to trying to make up deficiencies with supplements.
Lets not forget either that protein, while it is found in plants, is better quality in animal products.
Some people claim that meat is unhealthy because it contains saturated fat. So does margarine and olive oil, and they’re vegan suitable (in fact the hydrogenated fats in Marge can be very bad, but that’s another story). Besides, any excess calories in your diet, any excess sugar, starch or carbohydrates are stored in your body for later use. This is done by turning them into saturated fats.
Cholesterol too. Your body on average creates four to five times more cholesterol than the average person consumes, and compensates by creating more when less is consumed. Cholesterol isn’t evil, it is essential; it makes up the waterproof linings of all our cells and without it we would die. Too much can be bad, but as with saturated fats there are more healthy ways of disposing of it, like regular exercise. Anyway, it isn’t so much how much cholesterol you eat, but how well yur body handles it. A person who eats loads of dietary cholesterol and leads an unhealthy lifestyle can still have low cholesterol, and vice versa. Most people’s bodies are able to take a large amount of cholesterol without getting atherosclerosis. For this reason that eating meat gives you heart disease is very misleading, and for the most part untrue. Of course, if you do have a problem eating loads isn’t a good idea, but for most people there is nothing at all to worry about.
Yes, there are things in meat that there is some evidence can cause cancer in some people, but there are as many in plants too. Soy especially has some very potent carcinogens. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women. Also they are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
Soy is bad for numerous other reasons, but that isn’t the point, I’m just using it as a quick example relating to cancer not being exclusive to some animal products. The evidence that claims meat does cause cancer is patchy anyway.
Some people also claim that we aren’t designed by evolution, to eat meat. They claim that our digestive system is quite long and that we produce amylase, a starch splitting catabolic enzyme, akin to herbivores and unlike carnivores. Apparently this clearly shows that we were designed to eat plants. Such people should go and look up ‘omnivore’ in a dictionary. They have also been known to cite other reasons we are like herbivores and unlike carnivores: that we suck water instead of lapping it, and that we perspire through our skin, such things have nothing at all to do with whether or not we were designed to eat meat, and nothing to do with how our body handles food. I might as well say that because we, like most carnivores and unlike most herbivores, have eyes that face forwards, we must be carnivorous. Of course, that’s not true for precisely the same reason.
The fact is Humans are omnivores, with the ability to eat nearly everything. By preference, prehistoric people ate a high-protein, high-mineral diet based on meat and animal sources, whenever available. Their foods came mainly from three of the five food groups: meat, vegetables and fruits. As a result, big game mammoth hunters were tall and strong with massive bones. They grew six inches taller than their farming descendants in Europe, who ate mostly plant foods, and only in recent times regained most of this height upon again eating more meat, eggs and dairy foods. We are adapted to eat meat, and it is just as natural as eating plants.
Some also claim that the digestion of meat releases harmful byproducts into our system. This is true, however such are our adaptations to eating meat that our bodies are quite able to dispose of said products without any adverse effects.
So, in summary: it isn’t healthier to avoid meat. You can be healthy without meat, but likely not as healthy as if you did, assuming you kept things like the wide range of fruit and veg that a veggie diet usually entails. Too much meat can be bad, but normal amounts are no problem at all. Any health benefits that come from a veggie diet come from a wide range of fruit and veg, and being health conscious, as veggies often are; that doesn’t require you to not eat meat."
I don’t think a vegan diet benefits anyone in any way better than a better meat eating diet could at all. If you have no ethical qualms, it’s quite pointless. PETA will tell you otherwise, but they have very strong ethical opinions, and mould their ‘evidence’ around it. There is, for example, some evidence that vegans live longer and are at less risk from cancer and heart disease; however those studies show only a very marginal and insignificant difference and none of those studies have yet managed to identify meat as the only variable. Veggies are less likely to smoke, drink or eat junk food, and eat a wider range of fruit and veg, making the test results inaccurate and unreliable.
Vegetarian eating is overall healthier. But going veggie will not necessary help you loose weight. Just think of how many calories are in beans, rice, breads, nuts, etc.
It’s all in how MUCH you eat.
If you want to go vegetarian for health and social reasons there are definantly many reasons to do so, as people have sugessted.
If you want to look into this strictly for a weight loss tool this is what I’ve heard. Vegetarians on average weigh less than meat eaters. However there is many more factors to this than lack of meat. Vegetarians, generally, are more aware of what they put into their bodies and as a result make better food choices. They did find, however, the biggest weight loss secret vegetarians have is eating beans, lots of beans. They have found that meat eaters who incorporate beans in their diet are skinnier as well. Beans are awesome for a diet, they contain a good combonation of carbs and protien. They are really high in fiber and sustain you for longer periods of time then other foods in their calorie range. They are awesome!