After watching endless amount of YouTube videos and following every vegan Instagram account I could find, I thought “Wow! These girls and guys are so lean and fit looking, I want to look just like them!” Although becoming vegan to lose weight and body fat wasn’t the main reason for my conversion, it sure was an added bonus in my books. Coming from a past of calorie restriction and always being scared of gaining any weight, I thought that veganism would fix all of my problems. However I was pretty naive and I didn’t realise that changing from a 1500 calorie heavily dairy based vegetarian diet to a 3000 calorie plant-based overnight is a drastic change. My body sure did thrive off the extra calories, but not in all the ways that I wanted. After three weeks my skin was clearer, my hair was shinier, my eyes were brighter but my weight had increased by at least 5 pounds. The horror! Looking in the mirror I didn’t see an Instagram worthy bikini body, but a pudgier and slightly bloated girl looking back at me.
I was so confused and upset because I thought I was doing everything right, I was having a big banana smoothie for breakfast, a big salad for lunch, lots of sweet potatoes and green vegetables for dinner, not to mention snacks in between. However I found out first handed that veganism isn’t a weight loss diet. There is no diet that you will successfully lose and keep off that extra jiggle around your thighs in a matter of days. Instead of trying to lose my unwanted jiggle by doubling my gym time, I focussed on how I was feeling inside and not the number on the scale. Once I started listening to my body and how I felt, I started to not care so much about if I had gained weight or not. I love my fruits and veges but I didn’t and still am not following a “High carb, low fat” diet, “Raw till four” diet or “80/10/10” diet, I was just eating want I wanted as long as it was vegan.
There are so many articles about how to avoid gaining weight on a vegan diet, these people tell you to avoid foods such as nuts, avocado, coconut oil but in my opinion it will just set you back even further. This is because it will fuel the restrictive mindset that society has taught us as soon as we learnt what a calorie was. I ended up losing the weight plus some after a few months of being vegan, this was because I listened to my body. I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full. I did not count my calories and I ate mostly healthy un-processed foods. Yes I do admit to eating out, eating dark chocolate and vegan ice cream on occasion, if I didn’t eat any processed foods at all I may have lost weight faster but I like to have a treat from time to time.
In my opinion, if you are eating a whole foods plant based diet you will lean out over time. Everyone is different and some people may gain lots of weight initially and lose it slowly, some may not gain anything. It all depends on your previous eating habits. I think the main reason that I gained weight when I went vegan was because I came from a restrictive eating past. My body needed to adjust to the sudden increase of food intake and it did so by keeping fat as an energy form. This was just my body’s way of saying “I’m going to stock up on energy because I don’t know when I will get this much again”. Once my body became accustomed to this, I did not need to keep the extra weight because I was feeding myself lots of natural plant based foods. Gradually but consistently, with regular and moderately intense exercise the number on the scale went down. The reason why I believe calories don’t matter on a vegan diet is because these foods contain complex nutrients that the body has evolved to be able to digest efficiently. Plant based foods do not contain a lot of saturated fat like diary or meat products therefore it is much harder to gain fat on this lifestyle. The fattier plant foods such as avocado, nuts and coconut contain monounsaturated fats which are metabolised much differently and can actually aid in fat loss. They also have a lot of health benefits such as reducing risk of cardiovascular disease unlike the saturated fat found in animal products which cause many health implications.
So what if you gained a few pounds on a plant-based diet, personally I would be 10 pounds heavier and feel fantastic than underweight and feel horrible all the time. In saying that, I have never seen or meet an overweight vegan. I have learnt that veganism isn’t about looking a certain way it is about increasing your contribution to the environment, your health and the animals.
x
therosieapple 