Am I Healthy?

[Nest]

I just joined. I did it because I have always been overweight and for about a year now I have been trying to fight it off. I need advice. I am a vegetarian, I think Im overweight though Im pretty tall so I cant tell. I hate the way I look and feel and even though I hate junk food and Im constantly trying to eat healthy foods I dont understand how it can be so hard.

Is there any way someone can give me some tips to help me get started on a diet plan?

[.V.]

Sorry, since you are vegetarian I can't give any useful information whatsoever. However, if you just hang around, there are some on this board that know quite a bit about this and will be happy to help you.

To help them help you better, post your stats.

Sex
Height
Weight
BF% if you know it
(or measurement of neck, abdominal girth, hip girth)
Goals
Current diet
Current exercise regimen

[Nest]

Thankyou. Im not going anywhere. Hehe.

[vegan]

As Welch has said, some detail information about your current diet will be very helpful. There are many varieties of vegetarian diets. For example, do you mean that you don't eat red meat but perhaps eat fish, poultry, eggs, cheese and other dairy products? What foods do you stock at home and what are some typical days of meals and snacks? What do you eat when you dine out and where and how often do you dine out? Information about your current exercise routine will also be very helpful.

I've been on a vegan diet for over a decade and its been a great experience. I went vegetarian (no meat or fish of any type) and then went completely vegan after 6 months. The initial six months of being vegetarian, I substituted cheese and eggs for meat in my meals. Consequently, I did not achieve the progress in weight loss or health improvements that I expected. I started making significant progress when I went completely vegan.

While I can share my opinions and experiences and provide you with what I believe to be reliable sources of information about diet and health, this in no way should be considered medical advice. Such matters need to be discussed with your doctor and registered dietician. However, I think you will be much better prepared to have those discussions with the information and feedback provided by members of this forum.

[Nest]

Before I tell you anything about what my daily diet and routines are I want to tell you that Im a Vegan myself, I guess Im just used to saying vegetarian. I dont eat eggs fish tuna chicken steak - ANY meats of ANY kinda. "nothing with a face" I always say. I do eat cheese and drink milk because that didn't hurt the cow, just because it came from an animal doesn't mean I cant eat it, as long as its NOT the animal. Hahaha.

I try to excersize regularly. I go to the gym at least a few times a week but sometimes I either cant find the time or when I do have the time after work I am way to tired to do anything but plan and cook dinner. Wich is why I think sometimes that I need more energy - Ive heard that working out gives you energy and that does work for me but mostly it just wares me out.

I eat lots of veggies, lots of fruits I do eat nuts and beans so I am getting protein, I take a daily vitamin I just dont feel like Im eating healthy enough because sometimes I dont have much of anything but junk food in the house.

I would appreciate some of your help Vegan and I meant to tell you that I am trying to get a dietician and advice from a nutritionist. I hope I can get it soon. Thankyou for your help.

[.V.]

I don't eat anything with a face either. I always cut the heads off of everything I hunt. Tried eating a trout with the face once, but didn't like looking him in the eye while I ate him.

Seriously, it will be easier since you do take some animal products milk, cheese,...

Post those stats up so they can help you.

[vegan]

Thanks for the additional info. What you have described is a traditional vegetarian diet without eggs. The definition of a vegan diet is no food of animal origin, so that would rule out the dairy and cheese. You're definitely on the right track with lots of veggies, fruits, nuts and beans. However, I would guess that you may be getting too much fat in your diet. Besides weight gains, there are long term health problems with excess fat in the diet, especially saturated fats - trans fats, in particular.

To start with, dairy products can be a problem. They're very high in fat, in particular, saturated fat. 2% milk? That's 2% by volume not by calories. 2% milk is over 30% fat, of which 60% of that is saturated fat. Cheese is typically over 70% fat of which 70% of that is saturated fat. Cheese can be a hard habit to kick. Silk soymilk is the best milk substitute I've found for all-around use.

Do you cook with butter and cooking oil? At 4,000 calories per pound, it takes very little added oil to the diet to get weight gains. I cook with organic vegetable broth in non-stick pans. Try a Chinese bamboo steamer and some salt-free seasoning to give your veggies incredible flavor. Line the bottom of the steamer with Chinese cabbage leaves and place bok choy and vegetarian dumplings on top of them with some seasoning for a fabulous meal with a bit of a 'woody' flavor.

You mention that you have mostly junk foods at home. Potato chips are 2,500 calories per pound. This compares with raw leafy greens at just 100 calories per pound. When I'm hungry, I just pull out a bag of mixed greens and snack on them. I even throw a bag of greens in the front seat of the car if I'm going to be driving a lot during the day. Raw baby spinach leaves are really tasty - kind of buttery. Substitute various kinds of vinegar (Balsamic, raspberry, etc) for salad dressings. Many low-fat and no-fat salad dressings have fat in them. When the serving size contains less than .5 gram of fat then fat is listed as zero. The serving sizes are often so small that the fat can be listed as zero when in fact there is quite a lot of fat in a real serving of 'no-fat' salad dressing.

Get used to eating bread without butter or margarine. If you find some really good whole wheat bread you can begin to appreciate the natural sweet flavor of the grains once you start downgrading your appetite for fat. Learn to eat it plain or toasted and then add some fruit spread for a lower calorie option.

The best way to stay out of trouble is to stay away from trouble. So the easiest way to avoid junk foods is to get them out of the house for good. Just throw them in the trash bin or take them to the food bank if you can't bear to throw them away. If you entertain, buy only enough for the party and give the leftovers away.

A good rule to remember is 'the fat you eat is the fat you wear'. It takes almost no calories to convert dietary fat to body fat. Energy requirements are easily met by fruits, veggies, beans, nuts and seeds. The amount of fat in a whole foods vegan diet is in the 8%-12% range. This is the amount that is found in whole foods. The typical American diet is 35%-45% fat.

These are my initial thoughts. Does this help?

[Weston]

Nest. Your body may not be cut out for Veganism. Some bodies handle it better than others.

You may want to reconsider your dietary philosophy. What's wrong with eating animals? If we didn't eat animals, fewer animals would be born. Because of our carnivorous diet, billions upon billions of animals have been given the gift of life. And not only the gift of life, but the gift of a meaningful life . . . to support the lives of higher beings.

[Maxgain]

Originally Posted by vegan

1) 2% milk is over 30% fat,

2) Potato chips are 2,500 calories per pound.

3)A good rule to remember is 'the fat you eat is the fat you wear'.

4)It takes almost no calories to convert dietary fat to body fat.

1) which is still only 36 calories per 200ml serving nothing typically to worry about

2) Who eats a pound of potato chips that is absolutly huge amount you are
asking for trouble if you do. A standard pack is 30g.

3) No the excess calories you eat is the fat you wear carbs protein or fat. Just ask many Atkins lovers.

4) anything in excess is converted to fat. Cant see how you would say fat is more easily converted than carbs.

I would say you are eating inadequate protein levels and thus can only maintain fat tissue not muscle as a result of your current diet.

[rab91787]

^ that was a beautiful thing of a post. :

[vegan]

Originally Posted by Weston

Nest. Your body may not be cut out for Veganism. Some bodies handle it better than others.

You may want to reconsider your dietary philosophy. What's wrong with eating animals? If we didn't eat animals, fewer animals would be born. Because of our carnivorous diet, billions upon billions of animals have been given the gift of life. And not only the gift of life, but the gift of a meaningful life . . . to support the lives of higher beings.

A couple comments:

1) I agree that some people may handle a vegan diet better than others; however, Nest is not on a vegan diet, so we don't know what sort of results Nest would obtain on a vegan diet. Whether Nest would be healthier consuming a vegan diet is something Nest will discuss with the Doctor and Dietician. And just because it's a vegan diet doesn't mean it's healthy. A vegan diet based upon a variety whole plant foods with adequate B-12 supplementation without added oils is my idea of a healthy vegan diet.

2) The last thing I would call 'meaningful', is the lives of billions of animals in confinement, injected with hormones for maximum growth and then slaughtered for the purpose of a chicken or hamburger sandwich that will most likely lead to heart disease for the person eating it.

[CF-OC_gal]

Originally Posted by Nest

I try to excersize regularly. I go to the gym at least a few times a week but sometimes I either cant find the time or when I do have the time after work I am way to tired to do anything but plan and cook dinner. Wich is why I think sometimes that I need more energy - Ive heard that working out gives you energy and that does work for me but mostly it just wares me out.

Hi nest and welcome.

I think this is your bigger issue. I once heard an opinion by a heath researcher that if you do not have time to plan healthy meals and get to the gym regularly for workouts and find yourself having to choose one or the other then choose exercise. In the long run it will do more to negate a crappy diet.

Of course you'll have to have an exercise plan that challenges you and is balanced in the returns you get from it (cardiovascular endurance, strength and flexibility) That usually translates to 30-60 minutes of actual workout time 5-6 x a week in order to get returns from the time put in. Your understanding of why you are doing the workout you do and therefore the intensity and determination you apply to it will make all the difference.

Get that right and the desire to eat better will follow.

[.V.]

Nest another thought. If you are choosing vegetarianism or veganism for health reasons - I think you are making it difficult on yourself for very little benefit. Yes carnivorous, hunting, meat eating old me did try a real vegan diet once. I did it right, lots of legumes, a variety of sugary fruits, starchy veggies, all the protein I could get from different plant sources. I lost a great deal of muscle and gained fat. I went from 240lbs to 212 and looked gaunt, jiggly, and bony - worse than I did at 170lbs and with less muscle.

If you are doing it for health reasons, you are simply making things hard on yourself for what is probably going to be very little payoff. If you are doing it for what you consider moral or ethical reasons - then there is no choice but for you to stick with it and find a way to make it work the very best way possible. Ethics and morals versus health - ethics wins every time in my opinion. And if this is the case then I admire you for risking your health to stick to them.

If it's for health reasons, please consider that most with a sound basis in religous history know that God told us to eat meat. Those on the other end will ask pretty much any evolutionary biologist who will tell you that we all know that eating meat was what made us become human. Extra fat = extra energy = extra brain cells evolving over time.

I'm weird, I agree with both. Therefore I spend time communing with nature, take it home, then eat it.

Oh, and I hope you weren't offended by my comment about removing the faces. I was making a joke. I do wish I could help you with vegetarian reccomendations for a healthy diet, but when I tried it, I couldn't find it for myself.

[vegan]

Originally Posted by Maxgain

1) which is still only 36 calories per 200ml serving nothing typically to worry about

The standard serving size of 1 cup (236 ml) of 2% reduced fat milk is actually 138 calories with 43 calories from fat and 20 mg of cholesterol.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c201B.html

2) Who eats a pound of potato chips that is absolutly huge amount you are asking for trouble if you do. A standard pack is 30g.

It would be great if people kept consumption to an ounce of potato chips. The typical medium bag of potato chips at the grocery is 11 oz, which is taken home and consumed in large quantities. In 2001 there were 1.85 billion pounds of potato chips sold in the USA, which is about 6.6 lbs per person annually for the 281 million inhabitants. That works out to 105 ounces per year or about .3 ounces (8.5 g) per person per day, or one 30g bag of potato chips every 3 days for every man, woman and child in the country. Somebody's eating a whole lot of potato chips.

http://www.answers.com/topic/potato-...similar-snacks

3) No the excess calories you eat is the fat you wear carbs protein or fat. Just ask many Atkins lovers.

The Atkins diet has been thoroughly debunked.

"Carbohydrates burn cleanly. In fact the name carbo- hydrate basically means "carbon (dioxide) and water," which is what plants make carbs out of, and which is all the waste product one is left with when one’s body uses them as fuel. During the first few weeks of the Atkins Diet, the so-called "induction" phase, a person is forced to live off so much grease that, lacking the preferred fuel—carbohydrates—their body goes into starvation mode.
In biochemistry class, doctors learn that fat "burns in the flame of carbohydrate." When one is eating enough carbohydrates, fat can be completely broken down as well. But when one’s body runs out of carb fuel to burn, its only choice is to burn fat inefficiently using a pathway that produces toxic byproducts like acetone and other so-called “ketones.” The acetone escapes through the lungs—giving Atkins followers what one weight-loss expert calls "rotten-apple breath"92—and the other ketones have to be excreted by the kidneys. We burn fat all the time; it’s only when we are carbohydrate deficient and have to burn fat ineffectively that we go into what’s called a state of ketosis, defined as having so much acetone in our blood it noticeably spills out into our lungs or so many other ketones they spill out into our urine.
To wash these toxic waste products out of our system our body uses a lot of water. The diuretic effect of low carb diets can result in people losing a gallon of water in pounds the first week.93 This precipitous early weight loss encourages dieters to continue the diet even though they have lost mostly water weight94 and the state of ketosis may be making them nauseous or worse.95 If one wanted to try to lose water weight, sweating it away in a sauna may be a more healthful way.
The Director of Yale University's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders explains the miracle formula used by diet books to become bestsellers for over a century now: "easy, rapid weight loss; the opportunity to eat your favorite foods and some scientific 'breakthrough' that usually doesn't exist."96 The rapid loss of initial water weight seen particularly on low carb diets has an additional sales benefit. By the time people gain back the weight, they may have already told all their friends to buy the book, and the cycle continues. This has been used to explain why low carb diets have been such "cash cows" for publishers over the last 140 years.97 As one weight loss expert notes, "Rapid water loss is the $33-billion diet gimmick."98

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2004...00puatkins.htm

4) anything in excess is converted to fat. Cant see how you would say fat is more easily converted than carbs.

From 'How Stuff Works':

The conversion of carbohydrates or protein into fat is 10 times less efficient than simply storing fat in a fat cell, but the body can do it. If you have 100 extra calories in fat (about 11 grams) floating in your bloodstream, fat cells can store it using only 2.5 calories of energy. On the other hand, if you have 100 extra calories in glucose (about 25 grams) floating in your bloodstream, it takes 23 calories of energy to convert the glucose into fat and then store it. Given a choice, a fat cell will grab the fat and store it rather than the carbohydrates because fat is so much easier to store.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/fat-cell.htm

I would say you are eating inadequate protein levels and thus can only maintain fat tissue not muscle as a result of your current diet.

That news to me. I worked out for an hour this morning and did 90 push-ups. I'm 56 years old. Most of the people I know at my age consume the standard American diet, have multiple chronic diseases, are on regular medications and could not perform even 10 push-ups.

[vegan]

Originally Posted by Brat

Hi nest and welcome.
Get that right and the desire to eat better will follow.

The importance of obtaining regular exercise cannot be understated. For optimal health you need to be doing well in both diet and exercise. What is puzzling, is that our health is often a low priority - as if we could step out of our current bodies and hop into another one if things go badly. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Yet people take better care of their cars than their bodies.