Weight loss for vegetarians

[LargeInCharge]

Hello!
I’ve been a vegetarian nearly all my life and I want to lose weight to be healthier (and to look better in my clothes) so I thought I’d create a space where fellow veggies (and vegans too) can share their weight loss journeys, food ideas, recipes and how they are feeling.

I started my journey on Tuesday so this is day 4 for me. My daily calorie limit is 1200.

Weight - 15st 4 (weighed on day 1)
Height - 5’ 9
Goal weight - 10st 7

How I gained weight - not exercising, eating crisps, cake, too many carbs and booze.
Positive changes - trying to be more active, ditched the crisps, cake and booze. Limiting my carbs as much as I can.

No pressure to reveal weight or anything that’s personal to you.

Good luck. 🥗🌽🥦🥬🥕🥒🫑🥑🥭🍅🍑🍓🍌🥥🫐

I have some milk to use up so am thinking of making bechamel for the freezer. I don't like drinking milk on it's own, it's only used for coffee. Any other easy suggestions for me to use it up and freeze?

@purplegirl13 it’s certainly helping with my sugar cravings in between meals! Yes I will do them daily if I can.

Yesterday’s total = 861kcal. Tried to increase this but was struggling as hit 50g carb limit and I was full up by the end of the day!

B: grilled asparagus with hummus (didn’t skip breakfast this time and went carby with the hummus as I felt pretty weak from the days before exercise). - 68kcal

L: grilled quorn chilli stuffed yellow pepper, topped with violife Greek and half an avocado and cucumber on the side. - 342kcal

D: homemade red Thai coconut ‘chicken’ soup packed with mushroom, fine green beans and green peppers. Chicken by the vegetarian butcher. Thai curry Kit from Aldi and topped with stock to be made in to a soup. Was very spicy!! - 375kcal.

Snacks: 2x teaspoons of half almond butter and half marmite.

Today’s plan is a breakfast fast, roasted cauliflower soup for lunch and ratatouille with salad for dinner. I’ve also booked on for a 40 minute swim later so will have blended berries as my post swim snack. I am hoping to drop 2lbs this week!!

How much milk? Paneer can freeze if you have enough and a lemon.
You can strain it with a Muslin or a cotton woven tea towel.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction less than a pint - paneer is out as I can't stand the smell of boiling milk, I used to HATE when my mum made it.

Fair enough.
I usually find it curdles without actually boiling but I imagine the smell is the same.
(Hate cleaning burnt milk off pans!)

Had a pretty good day yesterday, but did have a little bit of snackage. But then only had an apple instead of something more calorific as my after dinner sweet so that probably balanced ok. Scales were down a little bit this morning but not as much as I had hoped.

Today I have so far only consumed less than 400 calories (2 ryvita with pate and some carrot stick with houmous) and have done a long walk which my smartwatch claimed burned more than 400 cals so that's pretty good going too.

Dinner is going to be a low-cal adaptation of a HelloFresh recipe mexican buckwheat bake but I use 6 peppers (2 each red yellow and orange) and 2 red onions and I also saute a grated courgette in with the onions (using 1 cal spray). Massively reduce the cheddar and creme fraiche (and using light creme fraiche), with the rest of the ingredients as the same the quantity for 2 servings in the original but with the masses more vegetables makes enough for 6 servings with calories per serving around 350 cals.

@purplegirl13 I’m usually full due to the protein but I did feel pretty hungry on Tuesday morning. I used to snack a lot, thinking back even when I wasn’t hungry. I’m a lot more mindful over food now.

Saying that though....😂 I had 6 Timbits today. My dd and her dh sent dh and I a 20 box, they’re lovely (she doesn’t know I’m dieting). I put mine down as lunch and mfp says it’s 330 calories for 6 but the Canadian website says 72 calories each so that’s 432 so to be safe I’ll use the higher number. I actually feel a little light headed now.

I love all the food ideas here. That bake looks delicious @KihoBebiluPute. I haven’t had buckwheat in ages.

Fairly boring food day here, porridge and omelette again. Veggie fajitas for dinner (I do beans instead of chicken/meat and lots of vegetables. Kids get some cheese too but I’ll skip that - I’m not that keen on it). Probably have yoghurt for pudding and some kind of toast before bed.

@purplegirl13 it’s so tasty isn’t it, my DP has been known to eat a whole full sized baguette for lunch! And the bastard is still underweight

B - trek bar
L - soup and curried chickpea wrap from Pret
S - nakd bar
D - bol pot, mango, vegan jam doughnut
Think that puts me around 1500 kcal today - the Tesco vegan doughnuts are only 139 each. Big victory for my willpower, instead of ripping into them as soon as I got home, I didn’t have one until I’d had my dinner and mango and I only had 1 instead of 2 like I would have previously. I’ve left them next to DP and asked him to leave me one for tomorrow 😂

B - arla protein on the go pouch and a coffee - 172
L - 6 timbits - 330 (allowing 100 cals extra in case)
D - Thai chilli kale, edamame, peas and quinoa soup - 180
S - 384 calories worth of rice cakes, fage total, philly cheese with ryvitas and a coffee

Total 1066 but 1166 in case of extra calories. I did over 6k steps and moved some furniture around with dh. 💪🏻😁

Yesterday i did better but I’m still struggling to add those calories up to a ‘safer’ limit. I ended up eating a bit of chocolate to raise my calories.

B: fasted
L: creamy cauliflower and asparagus soup - homemade. - 301kcal
D: ratatouille with a huge salad, avocado and a side of garlic and herb creamy mushrooms - 445

S: frozen blended berries, two teaspoons of marmite and peanut butter, allowance for some 85% dark chocolate. -344kcal

Total 1,090 with a 25 minute swim.

Not sure about dinner tonight but dinner I’m looking forward to tofu scramble I’m hoping to have lost at least 1lbs by now this week

Weigh in day for me

12/03/21 -0.4lbs
19/03/21 -1.4lbs
26/03/21 -1lbss
02/04/21 - 0.8lbs
09/04/21 -1lbs
16/04/21 -0.2lbs
23/04/21 -1.2lbs
30/04/21 +0.2lbs
07/05/21 -1.4lbs

Total loss: 7.2lbs

@Themadcatparade are you on the low carb threads? do they have any suggestions on how yo can bump up calories but keep low-carb? inspired by you I am going to make a red thai curry tonight

@LargeInCharge I had to google timbits - they look lovely

@PattyPan I try not to keep bread in the house otherwise it's my go-to and before I know if I've eaten 6 slices of toast! Good job on the doughnut restraint.

Today's plan:
B - raspberry kefir drink
S - cappuccino
L - scrambled eggs and salsa on rye toast
D - tofu and veg red curry with jasmine rice
Snacks if needed: cucumber and houmous, nuts

In terms of weight loss, I should state that I'm 5'1 and losing on 1330 calories. 1200 was not sustainable for me. Some days are naturally 1200, others 1400 but it balances out

Well done on your weight loss @purplegirl13 have you put your losses on a graph? I printed out a page with little squares and it’s nice seeing the progress.

here it is

I love a spreadsheet

That’s a great decline it looks fab on a graph you can really see how steady your progress is! I have an app called happy scales which does it for me

I will have a look at the low carb threads for sure, thanks for the tip!

Enjoy your Thai

Love that decline. Seeing the progress on a chart makes it even more satisfying for me.

I know it's going to be much harder/slower to lose in a month or so. It will take about 1400-1500 to maintain my goal weight so 1330 will mean 2lbs loss a month if I'm lucky!

This is my graph since January. Apparently I should be at my goal weight by June 23rd. I quite like looking at this when I’m having a few days plateau or gain as it’s a good reminder that overall it is going in the right direction.
I’m not having the best day food wise but I’m going to have a light dinner so should still be within my calorie allowance.

B - choc chip brioche and liberté yoghurt

S - banana

L - sandwich spread and quorn ham on a sandwich thin, golden delicious apple and wotsits

S - piece of kinder chocolate

D - will be some stir fried veg with rice and coconut

@MarmaladeToastAndAMarmaladeCat that's a great graph, well done on the weight loss!

I met a friend in the park and had a coffee with a couple of very tasty homemade biscuits from the cafe. Didn't have lunch until 2.30pm (scrambled eggs on 2 rye toast) so think the thai red curry will have to wait until tomorrow (eggs tend to keep me full for ages). Not sure what to do for dinner yet, need something reasonably light - maybe miso soup with some dumplings.

Another impressive graph and loss, well done @MarmaladeToastAndAMarmaladeCat

I find eggs fill me up too @purplegirl13

Those graphs are impressive! Mine is not so good as I have had zero loss this week (well, a gain at the start of the week then re-lost to get me back where I started) and I had very little progress for most of April.

Today has been good. Not been snacking (yet).

B - Banana 100cal
L - 2 Ryvita with pate and cherry tomatoes. Carrot with houmous. Raw mushrooms. 300 cals.

Dinner will be chilli non-carne again, I'll have around 400 cals worth, all fairly boring, no new recipes to report.

DH went to the cheesemonger yesterday and has brought home some lush cheeses. If I can get to after dinner time with no snacks I will have 150 cal worth of delicious cheese, with an apple, and that will be lovely.

No impressive graph here but a relatively good day
B - grape nuts and alpro yoghurt
S - carrot
L - bol pot, jam doughnut (as planned)
D - soup, mango
Total 1257

Sainsburys delivery coming tomorrow and I’ve planned some good, easy meals although I have a few days off so shouldn’t be as stressed and busy on those anyway.