Will a Vegetarian Diet Help Me Lose Weight?

 

Written by Jenny Catton

 

Many people choose a vegetarian diet for health or ethical reasons. But when it comes to shedding the pounds, will a vegetarian diet help you lose weight?

 

Yes –Libby

When I started university I was about three stone overweight. That’s because I was brought up eating lots of meat products and would regularly tuck into burgers, hot dogs and pepperoni pizzas. But at university I shared a flat with a vegetarian. She loved to cook and made delicious vegetarian meals every day for both of us. I could see how much healthier it was than my old meat-heavy diet and my excess weight began to drop off.  I decided to become a full-time vegetarian and the result is I’m still slim almost 10 years later. Every day, I enjoy a wide range of foods and base my meals around fruit, vegetables, grains and pulses. This makes it easy to stick to a low-fat and low-calorie diet.

Many meat dishes are high in fat and cholesterol, making them bad news for anyone who wants to be healthy and lose weight. Being vegetarian forces you to think more carefully about mealtimes so you’re more likely to make healthy choices.

When I told my family that I’d become vegetarian, they were worried that I wouldn’t get all the nutrients I need. However, I believe I get a much more balanced diet now and it’s easy to make sure you’re getting protein by eating things like yogurt, cheese, eggs, beans and pulses.

 

 

No – Mitch

No one food group is to blame for weight gain, so cutting something like meat out from your diet is unlikely to have an effect on your weight, unless you are making other changes too.

Of course, some meat dishes are high in calories and fat but many vegetarian dishes are too. Think about macaroni cheese, four cheese pizza or chocolate cake – they are all vegetarian but none of them will help you lose weight. I think that vegetarian food can be just as bad for you as meat-based dishes if you make the wrong choices.

Vegetarian dishes are often high in carbohydrates or dairy products as they rely on these as a substitute for the meat. In high quantities both of these can add to weight gain. Also vegetarian diets tend to be lacking in protein. Protein actually makes us feel full, so if you aren’t getting enough then you’re likely to feel hungry more often, causing you to eat more.

The other problem is that when eating out, vegetarians have much less choice than meat eaters. This makes it harder to choose healthy options. For example, in a restaurant, a chicken salad will be much healthier and lower in both fat and calories than a rich, creamy mushroom risotto served with garlic bread.

Rather than cutting out meat entirely, it would be better to look at your overall diet and see where you can make healthy changes.

 

Categories: Lose weight, meat, meat dishes, Vegetarian, vegetarian diet, vegetarian dishes, weight, weight gain, weight nbsp

Better Health and Better Sex: Date a Vegetarian

There are lots of good reasons to date a vegetarian, but did you know that your sexual wellness and wellbeing could benefit from this choice too?

 

A recent survey showed that 30 percent of omnivores would not consider dating a vegetarian, but there are actually lots of great reasons to date a herbivore, including a better sex life, better health and better moods.

 

Vegetarians are great in bed. A study recently published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour has shown that there is a link between a vegetarian diet and increased sexual activity. It is thought that this is because certain plants produce so-called sex hormones called phytoestrogens, which could have an influence on the sex lives of humans.

 

The same study also proved that vegetarians are more likely to give oral sex than non vegetarians. The survey was done on both men and women, and showed that 9:1 liked giving oral sex, as opposed to 7:1 non vegetarians.

 

The vegetarian diet has also been linked with virility.

 

Vegetarians are also far less likely to develop various health problems such as cancer, heart disease and cognitive decline. A magazine also shows that a meat-free diet is far more healthy than a meat-based diet. Vegetarians consume no animal fat and less cholesterol and tend to consume more antioxidant-rich produce and fibre.

 

Another study showed that vegetarians tend to be healthier than those who eat meat. Eating more fruit and veg has been shown to improve people’s mood. A clinical trial carried out on 300 people showed that increasing their intake of any kind of plant-based produce led to a far greater feeling of happiness and calm.

 

Another study also showed that omnivores improved their mood when they restricted their intake of meat and increased their intake of fruit and veg.

Categories: health, meat, nbsp, nbsp vegetarians, oral sex, Sex, study, Vegetarian, vegetarian diet, Vegetarians

A Week without Meat: How to Lose Weight By Going Veggie

If you’ve been thinking Beyonce looks even more gorgeous than usual lately, it’s thanks to her new wellness place. As well as stepping up her cardio, the Single Ladies singer has started to take care of her wellbeing with a new meat-free diet. That’s right, B has gone veggie and she’s never looked better. However, the important thing to remember is that you can just give up meat while working out; this could be dangerous to your health. Rather, you need a vegetarian meal plan that still contains everything you need to fuel your exercise routine. Luckily, we’ve got just the thing:

 

Monday: For breakfast, have three Weetabix with 120ml skimmed milk and 1tbsp dried fruit. Snack on two plums and, for lunch, spread low-fat soft cheese on a toasted wholemeal bagel. You can also have a large salad with vinegar dressing, followed by 200ml low-fat rice pudding. Snack on two figs. For dinner, choose a 300g kidney bean casserole, served with 180g cooked brown rice. Finish with 100g quark cheese with 1tbsp honey and fresh blackberries.

 

Tuesday: Eat two slices of rye bread with low-fat spread and peanut butter for breakfast, and a banana for a snack. 300g vegetable moussaka is your lunch today, followed by a snack of 150g low-fat yoghurt with 150g seasonal berries and 1tbsp porridge oats. For dinner, cook 45g dry macaroni in 200ml skimmed milk, drain and mix with 1tsp rapeseed oil, 30g low-fat cheese and parmesan. Serve with steamed vegetables.

 

Wednesday: For breakfast, eat 6tbsp porridge oats in low-fat yoghurt with 1tbsp seeds and 1tbsp dried fruit. Grab a 150-calorie cereal bar for a snack. For lunch, mix the juice of a lemon, six chopped cherry tomatoes and 100g quark cheese. Spread this on 110g wholemeal baguette with herbs and black pepper. Snack on 50g nuts and raisins and, for dinner, cook 140g couscous in vegetable stock with 50g dried apricots. Serve with 80g feta cheese, chopped tomato, celery and grilled aubergine in 1tsp sesame seed oil.

 

Thursday: Have baked beans (reduced sugar and salt) on waffles for breakfast with 50g orange juice. For a snack, have 250ml fruit smoothie, followed by 300ml lentil soup and one wholemeal roll with low-fat spread and low-fat cream cheese for lunch. For your afternoon snack, have a cup of black tea with two fig rolls. For dinner, mash 160g new potatoes with melted low-fat spread and fried onion, and serve with steamed vegetables, vegetable gravy and two Quorn sausages.

 

Friday: Start your day with 37g oat bran flakes with 120ml skimmed milk, and snack on two rice cakes with peanut butter and 200ml skimmed milk. For lunch, have 180g bean salad, raw tomato and 200g vine leaves stuffed with rice, and snack on a large pear in the afternoon. For dinner, make vegetable tikka with 160g rice, 4tbsp chickpea dhal and raita.

 

Saturday: For breakfast, make a burrito with one egg, 50ml skimmed milk, cumin, ½ a chopped red pepper, ½ a can of black beans, 50g quark, chopped coriander and salsa. Serve with one slice of wheat germ bread. Have an apple for a snack and then a Greek salad in one wholemeal pitta with low-fat hummus for lunch. Snack on 35g plain popcorn in the afternoon and finish with 120g Quorn and 200g mixed veg stir-fried in 10g rapeseed oil, with sweet chilli sauce to taste. Serve with 120g boiled egg noodles.

 

Sunday: Spread almond butter on two slices of wholemeal toast for breakfast, and have a 200g fruit salad for a snack. For lunch, have 100g falafel in one wholemeal tortilla wrap with reduced-calorie mayonnaise and chopped tomato, and treat yourself to two chocolate-covered marshmallows in the afternoon. For dinner, mix 300g vegetable risotto with 100g cooked soya beans. Finish with 150g low-fat yoghurt and 200g fresh fruit salad.

Categories: 200ml skimmed, 300g vegetable, Celebrity Wellness, chopped tomato, dinner cook, peanut butter, porridge oats, rapeseed oil, skimmed milk, steamed vegetables, Vegetarian, Workouts

Vegetarian? Get Munching on These Essential Minerals!

If you’re a vegetarian, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’re probably getting more nutrients than your meat-eating counterparts. Sure, you have to be careful about ensuring you have plenty of protein, but with all the fresh produce and nuts you’re now eating, you’ve got vitamin and mineral wellness in the bag, right? Unfortunately, a vegetarian diet can be lacking in some essential nutrients, so watch out for these key players in your well-being.

 

Iron – Iron is so essential because it carries the oxygen in your blood, and without it you can become anaemic. You can find this much-needed mineral in two forms of food; heme sources, including meats, fish, and poultry; and the non-heme sources, such as legumes, vegetables, dried fruit, and seeds. Obviously, as a vegetarian you’ll be going for the latter category, but iron from non-heme sources is not as efficiently absorbed and used as that from heme sources. Therefore, the Institutes of Medicine recommends even higher levels of iron for vegetarians. If you’re a vegetarian man or menopausal women, your daily iron target is 14mg, while childbearing vegetarian women should be aiming for a daily dose of 33mg. Go for spinach, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, turnip greens, molasses, whole wheat breads, peas, and dried apricots, prunes, and raisins.

 

Calcium – Your body needs calcium for muscle contractions, blood clotting, nerve conduction, and bone strength and integrity, to name a few. If you’re under the age of 51, you need roughly 1000mg of calcium every day, and you need an extra 200mg if you’re over that age. As a vegetarian or vegan, you can get the calcium you need from calcium-fortified soy-milk, calcium-fortified breakfast cereals and orange juice, tofu made with calcium sulfate, and certain dark-green leafy vegetables such as collard greens, spinach, turnip greens, bok choy, and mustard greens.

 

Zinc – This mineral is vital for maintaining your senses of smell and taste, supporting healthy skin and hair, and arming your body for resistance to infection. Most people need 40mg of zinc every day, but vegetarians may need 50% more zinc than this – according to the National Institutes of Health – as there is a lower absorption level of zinc from plant foods. Therefore, you need to eat plenty of beans (such as white beans, kidney beans, and chickpeas), zinc-fortified breakfast cereals, wheat germ, and pumpkin seeds.

Categories: breakfast cereals, calcium, calcium fortified, essential minerals, fortified breakfast, heme sources, iron, kidney beans, turnip greens, Vegetarian, vegetarian diet

What Everyone Ought to Know about what Vegetarians Eat

Did you know that not all non-meat eaters are the same? There are a variety of different ways to go about a vegetarian lifestyle.

One of the interesting things about humans as a species is the vast diet that they can survive no, when compared to virtually any other animal in the animal kingdom. This has allowed humans to maintain their wellness regardless of whereabouts on the earth they inhabit. Many different types of food types contain the vitamins, minerals and supplements that are needed in order to maintain the wellbeing of the human body. Some people, for example, can survive on diets of whale meat and blubber, or seafood and herbs. Others can survive on a vegetarian diet, and there is a great variety of types of vegetarian diet, too.

Depending on the type of vegetarian, some may choose to eat a diet that has a lower impact on the world, has a lower carbon footprint, or has not been brought about by animal suffering. Others choose diets that do not involve farming of any kind.

One thing that all health experts are certain of – and this applies whether you are a vegetarian or carnivore – and that is that processed foods such as ready meals, cereals, crisps and sweet drinks should be consumed in moderation, if at all.

Studies have also shown that the closer you follow to a vegetarian diet, the longer you are likely to live. Processed meats are pretty much the worst type of food that you can choose and there is strong evidence linking them to early death.

Vegetarians generally don’t eat meat, fish or seafood but they have the most variable and flexible diet in the non-meat category. A lacto-ovo vegetarian is someone who also does not eat eggs or consume dairy products. Vegans, on the other hand, don’t eat any animal products at all (including honey) and they don’t wear any products made from animals.

Categories: diet, vegan, Vegetarian

Are you Missing Vitamins with a Vegetarian Diet?

Meat is the key ingredient in most people’s meals, but a new study suggests that a vegetarian diet could actually be better for you. Researchers looked at the cause-specific mortality in a group of over 73,000 men and women Seventh-day Adventists, who generally follow a vegetarian diet.  Looking at the dietary patterns of the participants, they categorised them into five groups – non-vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian (which includes fish), lacto-ovo-vegetarian (which includes dairy and egg products) and vegan. Those in the vegetarian groups tended to be older and more educated – they were also less likely to engage in drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Researchers noted that they were also more likely to exercise and be thinner than those in the other groups. Though some studies have associated a vegetarian diet with a reduced mortality, the relationships are not well established.

 

Researchers found that the vegetarian diet benefited men more than women, noting that they were less likely to die of cardiovascular disease and ischemic heart disease. But there were no such figures to suggest that women could benefit in the same way. While this study suggests that a vegetarian diet could benefit you in a number of ways, you could be lacking in certain vitamins and minerals found in foods that are stricken from this type of diet. It’s important to ensure that you get plenty of iron, as this is something that most people get from red meat – it can be supplemented by eating plenty of rich green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, cabbage and broccoli. Likewise, protein should be included by opting for eggs, tofu and pulses, such as chickpeas and beans. It’s easy to ensure you get all of the vital nutrients, simply by ensuring that your daily meals include foods from the main food groups – if you ordinarily get one group from meat and fish, ensure that you replace it with a vegetarian-friendly alternative.

Categories: diet, Vegetarian, vitamins

Which Healthy Vegetarian Foods Could Help You Gain Weight?

If you’re trying to lose weight, a lot of people adopt a vegetarian diet to do it. However, though it seems counterintuitive, if you’re underweight, or want to bulk up a bit without the animal protein shakes, certain vegetarian foods can help improve your wellness in this area too. So which vegetarian foods can help you along the way to gaining a healthy weight.

Firstly, pasta is a great food for gaining weight quickly, and not only is it delicious and healthy, but it goes with almost anything, so your taste buds will never be disappointed. Pasta is very high in carbohydrate, which means it will help you gain weight fast, but as it is also very filling pasta won’t lead you to snack on unhealthy fats in between meals. Pasta is also very high in nutrients, and if you eat a bowl a day, you could end up adding kilos to your weight.

Next on this list is cottage cheese or paneer. This vegetarian-friendly food is essentially made of milk cream, which is good for you but also helps you to gain weight very effectively as it is high in calories. The milk cream element of cottage cheese or paneer makes it very easy to digest, because it contains soluble dietary fibre. This means your digestive system doesn’t have to work hard to break it down, and so you don’t exert too much energy and lose weight in digesting.

Many vegetarians turn to beans and pulses for their source of protein, which is an essential part of building muscle, rather than fat. This makes beans and pulses one of the healthiest tools for gaining weight, especially when consumed on a daily basis. Regularly consuming cashew nuts can also help you pile on a few pounds, as cashews are rich in essential oils, and add to your calorie count. If you don’t like them raw, cashews can be easily added to many recipes.

Finally, flax oil and flax seeds are also rich mono saturated fats and other essential oils that add to your body weight. With this kind of fat, you can gain weight in a healthy way without affecting your general wellbeing. As an added bonus, flax is also very good for healing up wounds, and both the seeds and oil can be easily used in cooking your daily dishes, adding a light but delicious flavour.

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Which Healthy Vegetarian Foods Could Help You Gain Weight?

Categories: Pasta, Vegetarian, weight gain

Warning: Eating Meat Could Shorten Your Life

Vegetarians have something to smile about this week, as a new study shows that following a meat-free diet can cut your risk of having heart disease by up to 32 per cent. Carried out in Britain, the study draws the conclusion that eating meat can do more harm than good.

Researchers involved in the study looked at data from 44,500 voluntary participants, over a period of 11 years. From this, they found that the vegetarians in the group were significantly less likely to suffer from any form of heart trouble.

When looking at those in the trial aged 50 – 70, it was found that 6.8 percent of those who had fish or meat as a regular part of their diet ended up being hospitalised at some point, or even dying, due to heart disease. This contrasts sharply with just 4.6 per cent of the vegetarians in this same age group.

One of the lead researchers, Oxford University’s Francesca Cowe, hypothesises that this may be due to better wellbeing, such as a lower level of cholesterol in vegetarians, combined with lower blood pressure.

Heart disease is one of the biggest killers in the developed world, and is the cause of 65,000 deaths in Britain every year.

In the study, one-third of those involved followed a vegetarian diet. Out of the full 44,500 participants, 1,235 people developed heart disease, and 169 of those died from the disease. Researchers say that this new information emphasises the importance of diet and nutrition for wellness and to help prevent heart disease. The vegetarians in the group typically had lower BMIs and were less likely to have diabetes as well.

Factors such as smoking habits, exercise levels, age and alcohol consumption were all taken into consideration to isolate diet as a factor in this study.

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Warning: Eating Meat Could Shorten Your Life

Categories: live, longer, Vegetarian

Will a Vegetarian Diet Help or Harm a Diabetic?

The keystone to a healthy lifestyle for a type two diabetic is eating healthily and maintaining an all-around healthy diet. It's a bit of a leap to begin with and it can cause some people more problems than others but once it's been mastered it'll help to keep diabetes under control and other health concerns to a minimum. With such a large proportion of type two diabetics obese, this new diet can be especially difficult to adopt but once it has been the potential for weight loss is a fantastic motivator.
The vegetarian diet is an interesting one in terms of type two diabetes. It's not empirically good or bad for the condition as it has both pro's and con's when it comes to managing it. Becoming a vegetarian isn't going to miraculously control your blood-sugar, what it might do it help you cut down on your weight will indirectly help to combat your diabetes. We've drawn up a short list of the good and bad aspects of taking up a vegetarian diet in terms of type two diabetes and hopefully, when armed with the facts you'll be able to draw your own conclusions.
Pro's
–                    A lack of fish and meat in the diet means that, generally, the diet will have fewer calories than a non-vegetarian diet would have. This will help to keep your heart healthy and as people with type two diabetes are around twice as likely to contract heart disease this is great news!

–                    Generally there's less processed food in a vegetarian's diet (though this is not always the case) as diabetics should avoid these foods anyway, not having them at all will help to keep your blood-sugar under control and manage your condition much more effectively.

Con's
–                    Though it might seem like it, vegetarian diets don't guarantee good health and a lot of their protein replacements (beans, lentils etc.) can contain far too many carbohydrates than is healthy for you.

–                    As you've essentially cut out the human race's prime protein source it may be difficult for you to get enough of this nutrient, there are some other vitamins and minerals you may also struggle to get enough of.

Whether you go vegetarian or not is entirely up to you. Providing you take care to factor in your diabetes and plan your meals the pros could outweigh the cons however, the danger is real too. Be careful and conscientious and you'll be fine!

Categories: diet, Vegetarian