Vegan dieters support thread?

[Fatkins]

Hello!

Is anyone out there trying to lose weight while also being / trying to be vegan / plant based?

I am and would love some company! I have very recently gone vegan, but am wary of gaining weight. I actually really need to lose some, so I'm attempting both things at once.

I am doing Weight Watchers, but any approach, (but obviously vegan food), would be very welcome to join me.

Crazzzycat that recipe looks delicious!
Mixed day - an oat biscuit for breakfast, vegan sandwiches for lunch, chips (I know but I was by the seaside!) and spaghetti with vegan bolognese for dinner. Conference over, back home and will be watching my calorie intake carefully from tomorrow!

I had a pretty good day too. Spicy bean wrap for lunch and a roasted vegetable salad with bulgur and crispy chickpeas. Snacks were a nectarine, some almonds and a small sour cherry blondie.

The blondie wasn’t vegan, as I haven’t yet got my head round baking without animal products. I was tempted to buy a vegan baking book today, but didn’t think that would do the diet any good. Probably better to avoid baking altogether 😂

Luckily no real damage done by the chips! Went for a walk/run this morning. Have had toast and marmite for breakfast, carrot for snack and grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, beans and veg sausages for lunch.

Crazzzy I've never been a great baker but I have found some really good recipes online for vegan cakes and so on. This brownie recipe in particular is quite dangerous! www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chocolate-recipes/vegan-chocolate-brownies/

Today I'm having usual fruit and seeds for breakfast, sausages, kale and mushrooms for lunch, and chickpea chuna/tuna salad for dinner. You may notice my meals are on the repetitive side... this is partly because I get into phases of wanting the same thing all the time and partly because I am not a very good cook!

Thanks for that link Damn. Those look seriously delicious. I definitely want to explore vegan baking, but probably should wait until I’ve lost some more weight! I’ll bookmark this for now

And I keep having the same meals too. I think I’ve had the same lunch for about 4 weeks now, but it’s quick, tasty and healthy so don’t really see much point in changing it. Plus it’s kind of nice to not have to think about every single meal.

Yesterday was a write off for me, as I was away from home and there was just too much temptation. I’m back on plan today though. Lunch will be spicy bean wraps with a green salad, dinner teriyaki tofu stir fry with some rice. For snacks I’m planning a nectarine, some almonds and a few corn thins with pumpkin seed butter and banana.

I find I’ve been snacking quite a lot recently. Ever since I started using the Cronometer app, I’ve become a little obsessed with tracking nutrients. I’m allowing myself a few extra calories, just so that I can have some healthy snacks to hit my targets. The scales are still going down (slowly!), so I guess I’m not doing too badly.

I've just downloaded that Cronometer app and trying to get to grips with it, Crazzzy. Any tips gratefully received!

Today I've had
B: fruit and seeds
L: avocado and chickpea salad with toasted seeds
D: Sweet potato and red lentil stew.

I'm really hungry today! I'll probably have a plate of raw veg later and some crisps as a treat. I'm never sure if it's OK to eat some kind of crap food every day or not, not just in terms of calories but in terms of nutrition. Maybe the Cronometer will help? But I get really grumpy and give up on diets if I limit foods too much.

Damn I find the app pretty straightforward forward to use, once you’ve set up some standard meals. It’s a bit of a faff to do that, but you only need to do it once for each of the recipes you use.

I’ve heard it’s not so good for ready prepared foods, as many of those are not in the database. And for those that are, there’s usually only limited nutritional information available. It’s not a problem for me as I cook most things from scratch, and to be honest My Fitness Pal has similar problems (and only lets you see more detailed nutritional info if you subscribe 😡)

It’s totally changed the way I eat. I believed the “you don’t have to worry about nutrition as a vegetarian”- line for years. I only downloaded the app because I was interested in exploring 100% plant based food, which fortunately does often come with a warning to think about nutrition.

The first few times I entered what I ate I did badly, may be hitting about 60% of my nutrition targets 😬. I’m pretty sure those stats wouldn’t have been much different when I was still eating dairy and eggs. So now I’m living by the mantra of more beans, more greens and more nuts and am hitting about 90% of my targets now.

Part of that is because the protein target is set ridiculously high (who the hell needs 120g of protein a day?!), but also because it can be hard to get enough of some of the minerals on a calorie controlled diet.

If you’re interested in seeing how many of the targets you hit, you need to be aware that some are set ridiculously high. You can change that by going into the settings and going to nutrient targets.

Wow, do I win a prize for longest post on this thread? 🙈😁

My plan for today is spicy bean wraps for lunch with a green salad, lentil bolognese for dinner. Snacks will be a soya yoghurt with seeds and a banana and a nectarine.

The lentil bolognese is calorific, but also gives me a whopping 60% of the nutrition I need. It’s that kind of thing the app is really useful for. Yes, I could eat something lighter, but it won’t deliver quite as much. So I’ll have the lentil bolognese and just cool it on the snacks for a day.

I’ll shut up now before I become even more of a nutrition bore!

I'll have a look at the app - must admit nutrition is very much on my mind as well as weight loss.
So far today I've had malted wheats and soy milk (both fortified). Plus 2 flat peaches - yum!
Lunch is a coop vegan slaw salad with some vegan ham-type slices and handful of cashew nuts. (Have found a local coop with loads of vegan stuff and plan to go back and stock up for holiday next week!)
Something quick and healthy needed for dinner!

I really appreciate all that info Crazzzy, it's not boring to me at all and I hope you don't mind if I ask more questions? I have done 2 days on Cronometer now and I am failing to hit the iron, protein and calcium which is a bit worrying. Which targets do you change?

I am realising I need to eat more greens which is fine, but I'm really not a fan of nuts. I do eat seeds daily, I like nut roast, and I have pine nuts in meals sometimes. I'm also forcing myself to have a glass of calcium enriched soya milk daily even though I am not keen. Any other tips for packing in the nutrients, please?

Today I had
B: smoothie with banana, pineapple, protein powder, flax seed, nut butter and soya milk
L: Linda Mac lincolnshire sausages with chickpeas, toasted seeds, lettuce and tomatoes
D: green lentil, sweet potato and kale curry. Sounds a bit horrific but is really gorgeous. I had seconds as I was starving (we were out and about all day, I reckon I walked 6 miles).

Scales this morning were encouraging as another pound gone. That's 9 in total.

I also just noticed that the lentils I entered on Cronometer are not coming up with any mineral values at all and I don't feel I have time to research and add them in. It's a bit frustrating. I really do want to improve my nutrition and hoped this would be the tool I needed but not sure how to make the most of it.

I’m surprised the app doesn’t list nutrients for lentils Damn. That’s quite poor. Adding that information yourself is not too difficult but still a bit of a faff!

I changed the targets for vitamin D, E and K as they were much higher than the NHS recommendations. I’d like to change the protein one, but the app won’t let me.

Like you, I find calcium and iron the hardest targets to hit. I’m reasonably ok on the calcium and usually hit at least 70%, sometimes even a 100. The iron is much harder.

The best things I’ve found for calcium so far are tofu, soya yoghurt (or other enriched dairy alternatives), almonds and tahini.

For iron, most of the things I’ve found are a bit poor. Lentils are good, as are tofu and soya beans. Some grains are reasonably good, like oats and bulgur wheat. Pumpkin seeds are a good source, some days I have this lovely homemade pumpkin seed butter which is 99% seeds which helps a bit. And there’s always dark chocolate...

I try and combine as many of these as I can, but it often doesn’t add up to much. Still, I’m sure that what I’m eating now is a whole lot better than what I used to eat. I’m going to try for a few more weeks, but will look for an iron supplement if the numbers stay too low.

Loose I had no idea the Co-op is good for vegan stuff. I have one in my village that I rarely visit. I will go for an explore tomorrow

Crazzzy - we have several Co-ops locally but one in particular has a lot of vegan brands so it may be a bit hit and miss!

Crazzzy thanks for that... quite by coincidence today I had hummus for lunch, dark chocolate for a snack and am having tofu for tea, with the result that for probably the first time in blooming ages I'm meeting my calcium and iron goals! Woohoo! That does include a supplement but in the past when I've totted up it's still not usually good enough. So I'm pleased.

I have problems with heavy periods so I often take spatone which I think is vegan although I'll be honest, I don't check that carefully on supplements etc. It seems quite effective because when I had my iron levels checked last year they were ok, despite regularly bleeding for 2 weeks at a time. I still feel knackered all the time though, so want to improve my nutrition all around.

I had a white pitta for lunch with my hummus, I don't normally eat bread if I can avoid it, but I was out and there wasn't a good alternative. I didn't think it would affect me much but I have spent the whole afternoon with shaky hands and feeling sleepy. It's good in a way because it definitely confirms the fact I feel a lot better when I'm eating lower carb and avoiding wheat.

Hope everyone has had a good day?

Loose did you try Cronometer yet? If so, how did you find it? I feel like I am getting to grips with it now.

I've tried it today. I'm not sure I understood the nutrition report but the calorie counting is easy to use. Will play around with it again tomorrow!

Ah, think I'm getting the hang of it. The calcium and vitamin D are low (I do take a vegan supplement, though). No problem with iron today but that will be the fortified cereal, soy milk and the broccoli!

Loose if I remember correctly the default vitamin D setting of the app is significantly higher than the minimum recommended by the NHS. That may be why you’re not hitting that target?

I had a bad day yesterday, with proper emotional stress binging 😖 I thought I had moved on from all that emotional eating nonsense, but clearly the temptation is still there sometime. On a positive note, I had a whole bag of Brazil nuts, so probably don’t have to worry about getting a selenium deficiency any time soon...

I’m determined to do better today. I’m going to go away for a few days so not sure if I’ll be able to update later today, but so far I’ve had a spicy bean wrap, a nectarine and some dark chocolate coated almonds. No idea what dinner’s going to be yet.

I like that app! I like the way it links to my Apple Watch and automatically adjusts calories.

I’m also doing really bad with calcium. I’m hitting every other goal but not calcium.

furrytoebean My calcium is bad today as well. I smashed it yesterday but I had a yogurt, soya milk, hummus, and the most effective thing half a block of Cauldron tofu. Apparently that's 80% of your calcium for the day in one go. We normally only eat tofu once a week but I think I'll up it to twice. It does work out rather expensive though for 5 of us.

Today I've had two multivitamins and a glass of soya milk and I'm still on 44% calcium. I guess I'll have a yogurt later but I had a big dinner and I'm really full!

Has anyone found anything good to do with sesame seeds? I hate the way they get stuck in my teeth.

Loose I don't know about you but I'm enjoying the nutrition reports now. And I found out the trick is to pick the generic product (eg red lentils) rather than a branded product (eg Crazy Jack red lentils). That way you do get all the macros accounted for, whereas the branded products often just have the basic info you could find on the packet.

Crazzzy I am sorry to hear you had a rough day. My eating can be very emotional, in fact most of why I piled on all this extra weight was as a way of coping with anxiety. I hope today was better and yay selenium!

Thanks for the tips - I'm finding the app quite informative now! I managed to up the calcium very slightly with humus but we're having a chickpea stew tomorrow so hopefully that will boost it!

Think I need to make sure I eat Brazil nuts every day! Amazingly for a vegan diet the B vitamins are showing up really well - so is iron - but I think that's because the cereal and soy milk are fortified. Plus nutritional yeast!

Does anyone know if your body stores calcium or do you need it every day??

Nutritional yeast has got to be the best thing ever! I didn’t even know about it a few weeks ago, but now I just add a couple of teaspoons to my lunch and hit nearly all those vitamin B targets. I wish all vitamins and minerals were that easy!

Damn can’t help you with the sesame seeds I’m afraid. I love them on absolutely everything, but still don’t eat enough to hit my calcium target every day. I’m getting better though. I think fortified dairy replacements are the answer here, as well as tofu.

I also take a calcium supplement on days when the numbers come in particularly low. I can’t quite remember why, but for some reason calcium doesn’t work well in a multivitamin, so you’re best off buying a separate supplement for it, if you’re planning to go down that road.