My 2000 kcal vegan diet: help me lose weight for life

Hello
im Katherine
I'm obese, my bmi is 31
i have read on wiki under diet, just now, that most dieters are heavier 2 yrs later and die earlier than those who don't diet.

So from midnight to midnight I will, without exception, measure and record everything i eat to regulate my "diet"
if I exercise I will not compensate by eating more

if I binge
well
before I binge... I will listen to suggestions and strategies and loopholes and ideas and plan it so that I know what to do next time I have the urge to bake for exexample



I promise I won't enter everything I eat every day for the next 10 years, but I would love some feedback from when I do post my foods.


i will not be able to reduce my intake more than that to 1500, for example, for a start, I need the nutrients and its not as though I haven't tried every diet

I'm a newly returning vegan and I'll be here frequently
i never needed to do anything so much and with so little faith in myself


Thanks for reading

Hi

day one
low on veggies today, high on sugar
soup and chard tomorrow
Walked around town and half hour swimming


250 juice
70 protien powder
15 green powder
150 cereal
160soya milk
240balls of nuts etc
60apple
50 two tangerines
290 tofu
90 tomato (tinned)
225 pasta
200 vegan peanut butter biscuit
200 chocolate (dark)


2000
:)

Day two.

still could be more veggies.

walked round a few shops.

Breakfast cereal 150
chocolate 50
Almonds 100
Orange70
Bread 70
Hummus 100
Biscuits 200
Protien powder 70
Soya milk 180
Olive oil 140
Kale 40
Wine 160
Soya yoghurt 120
Quinoa and bugler wheat 220
Pomegranate 230
booja booja chocolate 65
2 tangerines
2015

:)

Hi Katherine. I have a lot to lose so I am with you on learning to eat healthy. I have used diets and have gone low carb to take pounds off before just to gain back and put more on. I would rather just learn to eat healthy and learn to eat the way I can for the rest of my life also. Second day looks better to me. I like almonds and I have to get nuts in the house. I have heard about a study that proved that people that eat a half cup of nuts a day weighed less over time. Maybe the protein and good fats in there curb the appetite. I have to find something to eat at work that is crunchy to keep me away from the snack machine. I have never tried soya yogurt or quinoa but I think I should. I love citrus and think it is important for us to help the iron absorption from the greens and other veggies . Walking is great. I didn't notice how much it was helping me until I stopped. I want to start a journal also. I am going to take a picture of myself starting out. I just went vegan and really making an effort to lose and get healthy. You look like you are off to a good start.

Hi Nightowl
thanks for Your post.
Almonds are supposed to help Prevent diabetes Type II if you eat them regularly.
I have been including a fair amount of sugar in my diet I think to stop me from caving in to ordinary biscuits or chocolate With dairy products.
I think 2000 cal is something I haven't tried yet and I know when I write everything down it always makes me eat less so having a diet which is not a diet I think will be really helpful.
Congrats to you too for going vegan.
I think it's a really good way of life.

Cereal 170
Bread 70
Hummus 100
Pitta bread 140
Hazelnut butter 120
Soya yoghurt 130
Chocolate 150
Soya milk 70
Chocolate 100
Mushrooms, courgettes leeks pepper 170
Tofu 500
Curry sauce 80
Wine 110
Olive oil 100
2010
2.5 pints cider 500
crisps 150
gin 70
2720
Went out in the evening
now for 8 days I need to eat 1900

cherry tomatoes 50rice cakes 60
hummous 80
protien powder 70
banana 100
blackberries 60
coke life 60
almonds 100
soya yoghurt 130
soya milk 60
tofu 250
Olive oil 100
veg (courgette, leek, brocoli, orange pepper) 160
Plum compote sugar 260
320 chocolate
40miso
50 tangerines

1930

Best wishes on your weight loss journey! I am coming from the other extreme, having been severely underweight for years and finally this year getting to a normal weight after major health problems have forced me to try to overcome my eating disorder. What started as an innocent "diet" for me in 2007 (I gained a little weight from menopause, being sick from it and also I quit smoking in 2006 but I was still a healthy weight range) became a deadly eating disorder. I never dieted in my life before then and always maintained a low normal healthy weight. I had a traumatic hysterectomy in 2005 (due to endometriosis) and lost my ovaries and went into surgical menopause and my life turned upside down. If I could go back in time, aside from not having the stupid surgery, I would never have started dieting knowing what I know now. It does nothing but screw up your body, even if done with best of intentions. I went through periods of profound bingeing after restricting for long periods and my weight was all over the place for a long time in my ED, though still very underweight.

this year I fought to learn to have a normal relationship with food and let go of restricting, recording every calorie, and killing myself with exercising two hours a day. It is still a work in progress, but I have come a long way.

I can tell you that obsessively counting and calculating calories and macro-nutrients every day will cause you to think about food more and more, and for me at least, it leads to bingeing and rebelling against the strictness of such a habit. It might help in the short run if you are learning how to eat healthy to fuel yourself and train your body to know what it needs and when to eat. If you pay attention to your energy levels, and when to eat, and what makes you feel full without feeling stuffed or sleepy after eating, then make notes of that so eventually you can let go of counting calories and tracking every nutrient. The more routine healthy eating becomes and the less you have to think about what and how to eat, the less you are likely to binge or center your life around food. I think it is good too that you are not depriving yourself of occasional treats that are more on the healthy side such as chocolate (depending on how it is made).

I used to have an all or nothing relationship with nut and peanut butters. I couldn't keep a jar of that stuff around for anything, because it was a "forbidden" food for so long. When I did buy it I would devour it. Finally I started allowing myself two tablespoons a day of sunflower butter in a tortilla for a snack. After a few weeks I realized I could enjoy it and put it away and not feel the insane need to eat the whole jar because I allowed myself to enjoy some every day. I have many forbidden foods I am slowly reintroducing...oats, bananas, almonds, bread, and dates to name a few. I used to binge on those things. Not even junk food, just that stuff, because it was readily available and easy to grab and was a quick source of energy, but I would go overboard because I had deprived myself. I gained and lost 25 lbs four times from 2006 to 2014. Each time I would lose weight, it was harder and I had to take ever more drastic measures to lose. And each time I regained from bingeing, my body fat would go up more than before despite desperately exercising like a maniac (and then getting injured in the process which meant slowing down which meant more weight gain). Dieting for sure messes up your body. No matter where you are on the scale.

Exercise can help regulate metabolism and allow you to eat a little more while still losing (as long as you don't think you can eat anything just because you exercised that day) if you keep it reasonable and do enough but not too much. I think the only reason I was able to stay at a low weight for so long was because I exercised daily and did not go too crazy low with calorie intake for that reason, though it was too low for the amount of exercise I was doing. Moderation is key.

Your variety of food looks decent, though I don't see any grains, but maybe you are avoiding them for some reason? I find that whole grains like brown rice or millet and some beans really provide me with satiety and energy. but every one is different. It's good to see that you are not depriving yourself of calories. I hope everything works out for you!

Thanks for your post Robin


I can tell you that obsessively counting and calculating calories and macro-nutrients every day will cause you to think about food more and more, and for me at least, it leads to bingeing and rebelling against the strictness of such a habit. It might help in the short run if you are learning how to eat healthy to fuel yourself and train your body to know what it needs and when to eat.


Thanks for this - agreed

To lose weight i will have to eat fewer calories than I need but I do not want to restrict much which is why i'm counting.

I think with 300kcal of chocolate (for example) a day i hope i won't feel deprived...

I think the 1900 has to be kept because of the occasional evening out or very late night.

That is within the range of normal though.

maybe at some point I will let go of the calorie counting... but for now i need it

I have had some real problems with Bulimia or binge / starve / binge and have lost and gained 28 - 48 lbs about 6 times in 15 years.


I mean to keep this weight loss Slow...
- - - Updated - - -

so far:

cereal 180
cashew nuts 240
hummus 160
bread 190
vegan ice cream 130

I'm also on a calorie counting mission at the moment, I use a specific website which has a large database with foods/drinks in to keep me accurate.

I wanted to share what I have learnt so far;

I noticed you don't have any drinks during the day on your list? Or sauces/condiments? Maybe you don't drink anything other than water or use a sauce but forgetting things like this can add up over time!

Also, if I am feeling hungry between meals I will have a small amount of nuts (10 - 20g) as they are nutrient dense and keep snacking at bay. I have also found that increasing my protein intake has reduced the amount I ate - or want to eat - drastically. Before I started tracking my food I was getting like 40g protein a day and always hungry - filling this gap with carbs, I now try for 90g in my food and am thinking of getting powder to increase it to 120g (I lift a lot of weights/rock climb).

It's taken me 10 years as a vegan to figure this out. Good luck on your journey!

Your foods the last couple days look good and appetizing to me. I also heard that eating nutrient dense foods helps curb cravings because the body is not trying to fulfill a deficiency. I found this to be true when I eat more fruits veggies and especially my large green salad with broccoli and melon and berries for desert.