Hi all,

It's been a long time since I've been on these boards - I basically gave up the diet after I put on loads of weight after a holiday and ended up back where I started. It took me so long to lose the weight in the first place that I was too disheartened to continue. I also had some bad things going on in my life and I stopped going to the gym and wanted comfort food.

Well, I want to start again. I'm veggie verging on vegan (I don't eat eggs or anything with eggs in them and I don't have a lot of dairy products due to an intolerence) and I was hoping someone on here has experience of veggie dieting?

Obviously I need to make sure I get adequate nutrients, and I need it to fit around my omni partner's meals so something like a detox diet would be hard to follow.

My usual diet is:

*soya yoghurt and fruit for breakfast
*avocado or peanut butter and salad sandwich or houmous, oatcakes and salad for lunch, usually with crisps and fruit
*evening meals are my downfall - chilli and rice, pasta and sauce, pie and chips, sausage and mash- I try not to eat huge portions but I get hungry!
*Snacks are nuts, soya milkshakes or fruit.

Any suggestions? And I need some motivation to go to the gym!

Pixie

I'm not a true veggie as I eat fish but some of my meals are veggie/vegan.

Every morning I have a huge bowl of porridge. I mix in raisins, goji berries, Tesco Omega 3 seed mix, ground coriander, ground ginger, ground cinnamon and nutmeg and then put enough cold water to cover it . I then put it in the microwave for about 3.5 minutes and wait for it to cool down/set. I then eat it with blueberries on the top and skimmed milk (you could have soya milk). This keeps me filled up for hours and is my favourite meal of the day.

I also eat a lot of pasta - I've switched to wholemeal pasta and have a tomato sauce with it, for example passata, and you can add your own herbs, spices etc. As long as you don't have a gigantic portion, it's filling.

For lunch I enjoy a wholemeal roll with horseradish and tomato or grated cheese. Houmous is also really tasty and you could make that yourself. Hope that helps.

Hi Pixie

I am not really sure that I can help here as I don't know enough about vegan nutrition and how to cover all the necessary nutrients. I personally did not do well on completely animal product free nutrition when I was in my forties. My skin became very dry and flaky and my hair fell out. I would advise you to look into vegan nutrition carefully and get advice, possibly from books or the web if you don't know any successful vegans personally, before going down this path. There is bound to be plenty of advice out there nowadays if this is your chosen path.
I am mainly veggie, but do eat egg very occasionally and a little cheese and fish now and again for health reasons as much as taste. If you are prepared to take supplements, though, the vegan way would seem to be a perfectly healthy possibility.
Looking at the glimpse you gave us into your typical meals, there could be an issue with the quantity of fat you are eating in peanut butter/houmous and the crisps. If these are potato crisps, they really are very unlikely to be healthy. Could you for starters just try halving the portions of these fatty foods and adding more raw vegetables for health and that feeling that you have had enough to eat? Cutting down fats can leave you feeling hungry otherwise, but would certainly help with weight issues.
What about a quarter reduction in the evening portion of pasta/rice/mash etc in the evening for a specific period and once again watching the fat/oil in the sauces while you monitor if it helps with weight reduction without leaving you hungry? This would still fit in with family cooking. Crudites before meals are very satisfying as long as you don't dislike raw veg!
A lot really depends on how much time you are going to allow yourself to lose weight. A slow weight loss achieved through changes in your eating that could be for keeps would probably serve you better in the long run than any crash diet. And you wouldn't feel deprived, so the journey might not seem as long as it did before.
I know that portion control is something I had to get to grips with when I decided enough was enough, and after a while you do get back into finding out what a normal portion is. It's a learning curve better started sooner rather than later. I could eat pasta, rice, bread - well any grain-based food really - until it comes out of my ears, but I now eat a more normal (not stingy) portion and don't feel deprived. It just takes a few weeks to get there.
Don't worry about having given up before. The sun rises every morning and we have a fresh chance to be good to ourselves. You can start again any time you want, and there will be plenty of support - vegan or not - on TTHC for you.
Let us know how you get on.

Hi Pixie - I always weigh out the rice or pasta I'm cooking for myself.

I used to do 2 handfuls until I discovered this was around 100g (dry weight). I cut back to around 80g per portion and then to around 60g. I find that if I add plenty of vegetables it still makes a substantial plateful. You'd probably be surprised at the size of your portions if you weighed them!

hi all,

Thanks for the advice. I try to have about 50g of rice / pasta with my meals and loads of sauce. At least I've stopped having cheese sprinkled on my pasta now!

I think I'll try and cut down on bread and carbs generally, but not cut them out completely -

I've started adding crudites to my lunch - so today I'm having a pitta bread, with half a mashed up avocado and carrots and celery. I get really bored at work so I usually have food at 12 because I'm hungry I'm going to try and have a walk before I eat my food so I eat later.

As it's a nice day I'll even try to go for a swim after work!
Px

Pixie, how much do you drink? We had a May Bath Challenge where we tried to drink a bathful of water during May (that works about about 3 litres a day). Quite a few of us have kept up the habit of drinking more water as (a) if you have a large glass of water when you feel hungry, it sometimes satisfies what was not really hunger in the first place and (b) it's good for you!

Hi Fiona,

I drink 2 litres a day at work (air con - always too hot or too cold but dries the air out!) and a bit more when I get home. I've always drunk a lot since I was a child. I'm hungry becaue I'm bored - just had a milkshake so hoping that will stave off pangs for a bit

Px