I have been almost entirely vegan, except for some failings (milk chocolate) for almost 2 years, I think. And, I have been trying to have only plants for food for most of my life (I'm 50). I am also over weight.

It only occurred to me to try fake meat stuff in this last 2 years. So, that is the main reason why I am over weight, after inadequate physical activity. You can do much worse than meat, in terms of weight gain, eating high-calorie processed vegan food

Actually, it was decades of consuming alcohol that is responsible for most of my body fat. I stopped that around the same time as i stopped eating meat.

Now, I am more or less following the McDougall approach which is high in complex carbohydrates and very low in fat and salt. A lot of the recipes that they promote are much too time consuming for me. But there are enough simple recipes to be found. Much of the food is bland, mainly because of little salt. But, after a week I got used to it and now an apple, for example, tastes very sweet.

In other words, if you can stand it, you probably only need to stand bland food for about a week until your sense of taste becomes more sensitive. Bland does not exclude spiciness. So, food will be spicy hot but not salty. Until I was used too less salt that tasted... like it needed more salt.

After a couple of weeks I started to feel faint and checked my blood pressure and it was 90/50, so I stopped taking the blood pressure medication that I was on.

I am kind of failing a bit now because I find ways to eat fat, like preferring beans. Even so, I am much healthier.

Oh, also my eczema is almost entirely unapparent. I still have one spot where it is always flaky, but not big areas with a rash. I am just starting to take care of my skin too. So, hopefully when I moisturize myself property the flaky area will stop being flaky.

It doesn't work to have a vegan diet combined with alcohol abuse.... So, in other words, vegan alcoholic = alcoholic. Probably, if you drink but don't have a problem, the calories in alcohol are still something to consider.

Unice

I used to work at a health food store and we advised new vegans to take a vitamin b supplement (with all the Bs). Or eat nutritional yeast.

Edit [not sure why the font is weird halfway through]

Quote from: VeryGnawty on March 02, 2014, 03:08:09 PM
I don't think links are allowed on these forums.  But, you might want to search YouTube for someone named "Freelee The Banana Girl" and her boyfriend who's channel name is "durianriders"

Both of them make a lot of videos talking about high carb (mostly fruit) diets.

I have been vegan for about 5 years (other than occasional honey) and I tried the diet they talk about for 2 months last fall and felt amazing! The only reason I stopped the diet was I got sent from Hawaii to CA for work just as a cold snap hit and I went from 80 degree weather to below 20 degree weather literally overnight. I needed cooked food to stay warm because the house I was in didn't have a good heater.

The most important thing I took from the diet is to drink lots of water (4-5 liters per day minimum) and to eat lots of  lettuce greens (5+ lbs per week).
Other than that as many whole fresh foods as possible and as little processed food as possible.
I still follow these guidelines (with some cooked food now) and feel better than when I was just standard vegan.

mmm...i never really like talking about dieting stuff cuz everyone has their own two cents to throw around and all the bickering sometimes...so i'll only speak from my own experience.   Iv'e been vegan for 5 years on and off high carb low fat vegan, right now i'm high carp low fat and aiming to stay that way to keep my body healthy the rest of my life. And no you do not gain excessive weight only in the first week or so which is why people quit it because they usually are calorie depriving their body..after a few weeks your body really trims out nicely and its a great energizing feeling .  all the rice and pasta you can eat *-*....I usually buy a case of bananas a week and some other fruit as well as pasta and rice ...occasionally beans...sorry im probably jumping every where either way i recommend the high carb vegan lifestyle (diets don't work)

I recommend checking Freelee the banana girl out or 30bananas a day forum.
(the only supplement you may have to take is a b12 shot because b12 is found in organic vegetables/fruit)

I'm trying to get back into that lifestyle now. I just bought about 40 mangoes for $18 so hopefully that will be enough food for 2-3 days. Although when I was into that lifestyle before I had actually gained 5lbs even after 2 months (but I was underweight to begin with)

Quote from: xponentialshift on April 12, 2014, 08:59:23 PM
I'm trying to get back into that lifestyle now. I just bought about 40 mangoes for $18 so hopefully that will be enough food for 2-3 days. Although when I was into that lifestyle before I had actually gained 5lbs even after 2 months (but I was underweight to begin with)

ya if your underweight you will gain it and overweight you will lose it...in the end it all works out!  I suggest buying a case of bananas a week (20$ usually in the US very cheap) (im not sure if you can eat them all yet because of stomach size) but I usually eat 10-12 a day in two smoothies...just add frozen strawberries or what ever.

I would buy 2-3 cases a week while in Hawaii, but now that I am in CA they don't have the delicious apple bananas... I was spoiled and now I don't want the ordinary Cavendish.

LOL fair enough

I'm thinking about doing the high carb thing, but maybe focusing more on grains.  To be honest, the quality of fruits in a lot of stores is not particularly good.  I want a diet that I will actually stick to.  I'm thinking about making spaghetti my staple food, since I was at my strongest when I was eating a lot of spaghetti.  That was when I was in college, back when I practiced le parkour.

The thing with me is that my body doesn't seem to digest corn, like at all.  That seems to include corn in any form, including corn syrup and modified starch forms of corn.  So, it's taken a bit of research to come up with a diet idea which is feasible since corn is in almost EVERYTHING.  I actually laughed when I saw those corn commercials talking about how corn syrup is "natural" and how your body doesn't know the difference between corn syrup and cane sugar.  Yeah.  Uh-huh.  I don't care what kind of doctored research they have to support their nonsense, but my body knows the difference between corn syrup and cane sugar like it does between night and day.

Hopefully the spaghetti thing will work for me.  Otherwise I'm back to the drawing board.  I don't particularly want to eat tons of bananas.  Broccoli might be an option, but that's not really high carb.

Oh, and you guys mentioned gaining weight initially on the high carb diet.  Durianrider actually explains that in some of his videos.  The human body needs time to adjust from damage caused by previous diets.  Basically, the body kind of holds on to the "good stuff" until it gets a chance to use it.  So, you gain some initial weight (including water weight) but you will eventually lose it.  This is one of the reasons that health is such a complex subject and stumps modern scientists.  The human body basically does the opposite of what you expect it to.  Think of Herxheimer reactions, et cetera.  You actually need to test things over long periods of time, otherwise the results of your tests are meaningless.  People want to lose weight instantly, but the reality is that the body might gain weight initially when you switch to a diet that actually does work.  For the same reason, any scientific study which is not conducted over a long period of time probably won't give you any conclusions which are worthwhile.

I agree with Durianriders on many things.  Judge by results, not theory.  Or, as we used to say:  In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

I don't know how long I've been vegetarian. Gotta be like five or six years now.

Quron: good chicken substitutes and a great "turkey roast".
Morning Star: I do prefer their veggie burgers and the veggie bacon with BBQ sauce and shredded cheddar. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. I get their crumblers too and make tacos with them.

Morning star is MUCH much better than Boca anything. I love their facon and sausage patties.

Quote from: LordKAT on June 26, 2014, 12:16:31 AM
Morning star is MUCH much better than Boca anything. I love their facon and sausage patties.

Indeed not only does Boca not taste good it smells horrendous when you cook it.