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. 🥗🌽🥦🥬🥕🥒🫑🥑🥭🍅🍑🍓🍌🥥🫐

Thank you @LargeInCharge.

I’m going to try the herbal tea idea @SuperLoudPoppingAction. Thanks for suggesting. I love fresh ginger so adding a slice of that is a great idea. I think I might try and save some calories for a little something in the evenings too as I eat very early with the kids normally. You are completely right about it being the sensory input that is so attractive.

My current favourites are the end of a mixed box from France - peach and guava, rhubarb and strawberry, spiced apple etc.

In the morning I have Pukka Mint Refresh.

Jasmine tea is also nice without sugar.

The pukka three ginger is really nice.

Any Polish shop might well have some nice, cheap flavours of fruit tea. I had a lovely fig one from my local one.

The ginger one sounds lovely, I’ll try that for sure.

B - 2 coffees
L - vegetable soup, two boiled eggs and a kefir mango flavour
D - quorn lasagne and a coffee

Total so far 797.

I’m waiting for an order to be delivered so plenty of calories left to treat myself.

I have green tea with fruit flavouring in the morning - at the moment I’ve got a twinings one with mango & lychee but I normally get the tetley mango & passion fruit or mango & pineapple ones. In the afternoon I have mint.

Brunch - LM sausages, baked beans, wholemeal toast, hash browns 736kcal
Dinner - wholemeal pasta, spinach, cherry tomatoes, garlic infused oil, melon, strawberries 512kcal. Didn’t actually need any pudding but realised I hadn’t had my 5 a day!

My lunch was toast with pesto and edam again. I've realised that if I accurately log my bread as rye bread, the protein count seems to go up.

Dinner was penne with bolognese (sort of) and refried beans. Not sure why. I did not cook. Was nice enough.

And I had an apple.

Around 1250 calories altogether.

Today's food:
B - cup of tea, branflakes
L - half a tub of sweet chilli philadelphia on 5 ryvita crackerbreads, a portion of graze chilli and lime nuts, 6 dried prunes
S - a Special K Dark Chocolate Chewy Delight bar and a cup of tea
D - half a pack of per-peri quorn and roasted veg in 2 wholemeal pitas, a satsuma, third of a big pot of skyr natural yoghurt with a squirt of honey
As it's Saturday night I will treat myself to some barbeque pop chips and maybe one of these www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/guuud-salted-caramel-ice-cream/695953-753038-753039

Just catching up on posts...

Hello to the newcomers

@Yourownpersonaljesus I bought those graze chilli & nuts last week, really tasty. I love eating too but maybe ryvita with cream cheese isn't satisfying you in the same way a large salad would, or soup with bread? If it feels like you are being deprived, it'll be hard to stay on track. I like voluminous food, so meals that are eaten in a few bites are not for me.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction I've taken to not eating in front of the sofa and at the table instead, and being a bit more mindful - actually tasting the food and realising if I'm full makes a big difference. I'm normally one for eating quite quickly and slowing down has helped. You did very well with the birthday food - cake/desserts are a weakness for me.

Re the tea chat - I like fresh mint tea, I find the fruit teas smell amazing but I'm always so disappointed by the taste. I do like the lemongrass and ginger tea from T2. I bought green tea with mint teabags for waitrose the other week that I'm enjoying.

Today:
B - nothing
L - puff pastry sheet, topped with garlicky mushrooms and cheese (these was so easy and very tasty - you can't really go wrong with the pastry/cheese combo!), served with rocket salad
S - ice cream cone, hula hoops
D - unlikely to have any as I'm full

My nephew was here for the day so I chose not to calorie count - I find one day of not counting helps me not get too hung up on the numbers.

I have gained 0.2lb this week but I wasn't expecting to lose, given I haven't moved much this week due to being unwell.

Sports bra purchased in the week so as soon as I am feeling better, I will attempt C25K - anyone here done it?

Just to clarify - I didn't eat the whole puff pastry sheet for lunch

I got about 3 weeks into c25k once. I tend to get pain issues because I don't notice im in pain until after the fact.
Case in point: I have shin splint pain from walking 16 miles a few weeks ago. I felt fine at the time. (Am autistic).

I used to have a lovely place to do it near my last house. Lovely soft flat forest paths. It would be a little trickier now but not impossible. Maybe if I stayed on each week for twice as long it would be do-able.

I do eat salads purplegirl13 but only get a food delivery once a week and find the salad leaves don't have a great use by date. I do make a nice lentil/mixed bean and feta salad to take to work some days. I've got a couscous, roast veg and feta salad on my meal plan for lunch this week. I'm very exited to make your sweet and sour tofu with the tofu that came in my shop today!

I’ve done C25K @purplegirl13 - it’s been brilliant for me in terms of how I feel about my body. I’ve got an autoimmune disease and I feel like I’ve given it two fingers every time I go for a run. A bit like @SuperLoudPoppingAction I do tend to injure myself doing it and not notice until afterwards - I think running is especially bad for that. In more normal times I’ve found it good for maintaining my weight and improving my legs. I don’t think it makes me lose weight as I tend to eat back some of the calories inadvertently!

I’ve had a good day so far today lots of healthy veggie food and currently at 1,000 kcals. Going to have some wholemeal toast and a herb tea as suggested (lemon and ginger) now everyone is in bed. I will not help myself to any biscuits or handfuls of cereal

I've done c25k and kept going with the same kind of technique to increase my stamina to doing 10k regularly now. I also have autism and I find I have a very "all or nothing" kind of approach both to exercise and to weight loss which for a few decades meant I chose "nothing" and gradually gained weight until I was over 18.5 stone but when I decide to go for something I am pretty determined about it. I do recommend the c25k - each incremental step can feel daunting and too much to tackle when you haven't done it yet, but then you give it a try and find that you can. It's easy to take it slower than the plan e.g by doing each run 4 times rather than 3 times before moving on to the next step, or switch from run to walk 10/15/20 seconds earlier than the app tells you to the first time you tackle a new step in the program, gradually progressing at whatever pace works for you.

Thanks for the feedback on C25k!

@SuperLoudPoppingAction I've only done it for 3 weeks before, and that was including repeating week 1. At the end, I bought new trainers that helped with shin splints but I never ran more than a week with them so will see how I get on this time

@Yourownpersonaljesus I hope you took no offense at my words, it was in response to your post where you said you were losing motivation and I wondered if changing up your foods might help. I also only get groceries once a week so feel your pain when it comes to fresh produce (and I have a tiny fridge which also doesn't help). If I recall correctly, I halved the sugar in that sweet and sour recipe and wish I hadn't. I really like the orange tofu from that site so suggest you give that a go as well!

@NotquitewhatImeant I also have an autoimmune condition and am a fellow shortie, so some similarities there. I have always avoided anything cardio related due to a medical condition but would like to get my fitness up so this is more for that than weight loss. I get out of puff very easily but think I did notice improvement last time so would like to try and give this a proper go and not stop after 3 weeks (barring any injuries)

@KihoBebiluPute cross-posted - thanks for those comments. I do plan on repeating weeks/days if I need to.

Today:
B - kefir drink
S - graze chilli and lime nuts (30g)
L - salad with puy lentils and soft goats cheese (those merchant gourmet packets are great for this) and adding a dressing to up my calories
S - possibly greek yogurt and berries
D - LM chorizo sausages, mash, peas and gravy

Have a good day everyone!

I definitely didn't take offence purplegirl13. It's really helping me reading everyone's suggestions and ideas. I think it was you that mentioned upping protein which I have tried to do by adding nuts and skyr yoghurt to my diet. I will stick to the correct amount of sugar in the tofu recipe - thanks. Just going to do a workout and will then have my lunch - avocado and tomatoes on toast. Have a lovely day everyone.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

I didn’t finish updating yesterday so my grand total was 1100 and I treated myself to an 81 gram pot of blueberries and cream Haagen Dazs which was 198 calories. I’ve decided to have a pot for a weekend treat so I’ve three left.

Today so far:
B - coffee
L - two boiled eggs in 209g of Tesco tomato and basil soup, 30g philly with chives, 2 protein ryvitas and a Pepsi max cherry

339 with 861 remaining.

I’ve never tried C25k. When it comes to exercise I like aerobics, rowing, walking, dance and weights. I do have a foldable mat to try yoga and/or Pilates.

Well I have just had my dinner - sweet and sour tofu with wholegrain rice. I added julienne of courgettes and carrots to the sauce. It was nice but I'm still not convinced about tofu - I think it's the texture. It was very healthy though.

The guuud salted caramel ice cream I had yesterday was really nice if anyone is looking for something sweet with not many calories (82 to be precise).

Here's a photo:

Your meal looks good @Yourownpersonaljesus

Regarding the tofu, I decided to cut it in strips (around 1cm thick) rather than cubes and I prefer it like that.

@purplegirl13 high five for us short auto-immune people! I’ve found getting fitter has helped my relationship with my illness and means when I do get unwell I don’t get quite as poorly and bounce back quicker. Although I get very frustrated when the condition stops me exercising which is a downside. I hope it goes well and you stay injury free.

@Yourownpersonaljesus that dinner looks lovely. I weirdly love tofu even though I agree the texture is a bit odd.

B: a crumpet
L: tofu, chickpea and sweet potato patties with a spinach salad
s: popcorn
D: veggie pad Thai (with egg), fat free Greek yoghurt and flaked almonds on top. One square of chocolate

I’ll have a bagel or porridge before bed and a herbal tea again as that definitely helped. Leaving enough calories to have something later in evening seems to be easier for me to manage than having a long gap between dinner and bed. I think realistically I’m always going to want something to nibble on but I need to make it an ‘official’ snack rather than mindless picking.

@Yourownpersonaljesus the meal looks lovely. Did you use the tofoo brand of tofu? If you have no issues with quorn, you could use quorn pieces instead of tofu?

@NotquitewhatImeant when I flare up, I have to resort to the biege diet so I think it's important to try and eat well when I can (although I have a weakness for desserts). I've never looked into an anti-inflammatory diet in much detail, but think this is on the cards for a later date. Exercise will also help as I can feel low on occasion, and living alone, I find it hard to force myself outside sometimes.
Do you follow a recipe for the pad thai? I've never thought about adding flaked almonds to my greek yogurt so will be giving that a go!

I went to my mum's today so my planned salad for lunch has now become dinner. Lunch ended up being a veggie breakfast - hash browns, scrambled eggs, beans etc

I've estimated my calories are over my nearly 300 today

I am going to to aim for daily calories of 1200 this week instead of 1330, I'm not moving much and with rain expected I can see myself staying in more

That's a good idea @purplegirl13 I do eat quorn. Yes I used tofoo - the extra firm one. Your veggie breakfast/lunch sounds good.

@Yourownpersonaljesus any tips on cooking brown rice? I only cook basmati/jasmine but do have some brown rice I should try and cook

[quote purplegirl13]@Yourownpersonaljesus any tips on cooking brown rice? I only cook basmati/jasmine but do have some brown rice I should try and cook[/quote]
I'm lazy so buy the microwavable pouches!

@Yourownpersonaljesus that might be the way to go and see if I actually like brown rice.

The only time I've had recently it was made in the slow cooker with lots of other stuff as part of a burrito bowl. Other that that, it's been about 10yrs since I've had it 'plain' and found it too nutty. Tastes change though so should at least try it now