My Vegan Diet

Vegan Diet

People who are thinking about asking me to help them with their weight often express concern that I’m going to ‘force’ them to eat a vegan diet, because that’s something that I do myself. Please don’t worry, this isn’t the case at all.

Every health care professional you ever meet has an opinion about diet and nutrition. It could be ‘vegan’, but it could also be ‘carnivore’, ‘low carb’, paleo’, or any number of other things including ‘everything in moderation’ or ‘food doesn’t matter because I didn’t learn about it in University’. Each of us as health care professionals has a responsibility to make your treatment about you, not about us. So we need to leave our personal opinions at the door, and give you the best advice we can according to your own needs.

So no, I won’t expect you to suddenly start eating a vegan diet, unless of course you want to.

But I’d like to talk about just two things at this point – why I became vegan, and why I believe that eating as many plant based foods as you can is your best shot at losing weight.

WHY I BECAME VEGAN

I had always thought that it was weird that we killed and ate animals, and it made me a bit sad. So as soon as I was independent enough to be able to fend for myself, overnight I pretty much became pescatarian (vegetarian plus fish) – I had read somewhere that fish was good for you, and I did enjoy it.

It was when I went back to University to study nutrition that I started to really question my choices. I learned a great deal about the benefits of plants with all their magic micronutrients, and how ‘eating the rainbow’ is great for health. As my studies progressed, however, I couldn’t really see an argument for eating meat, and the one for fish was ever less convincing.

At this point I started researching ‘plant based diets’ online, and it became clear to me that the evidence suggests that this is the healthiest way to eat. Once I started touching the edges of the plant based world, I also started to learn about the negatives associated with particularly meat and dairy, and also the cruelty involved in their production, and the harms to the environment.

For me, eating a diet based entirely on plants made, and still makes, sense as an all round win. Better for me, better for our environment, and fairly obviously better for the animals. And like most people who discover a plant based way of eating, my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner!

A PLANT BASED DIET FOR WEIGHT?

There have been numerous trials about this, and the evidence is clear. Plant based diets are a big win if you’re trying to lose weight. Let’s look at some details:

If you’re eating a healthy, balanced diet then around 85% of your diet should be plant foods anyway, and if that’s the case then fantastic! I’ll never ask you to start following a completely plant based diet, but the evidence is clear that the more of your diet is based on plants, the healthier you are likely to be and it also increases your chances of losing weight and keeping it off, too!

Here’s plant based diets in a nutshell (as it were!)

The three factors in food that keep you full for longer are fibre, water and protein. Only plant foods contain fibre and water, and yes they do contain plenty of protein!

Plants have a low energy density, that is to say that they have very few calories per mouthful or per pound. We all tend to eat the same weight of food per day as individuals. It varies a lot among people, but each individual eats about the same weight each day, typically a few pounds. It stands to reason that a few pounds of fruits, veggies, grains and legumes contains fewer calories than a few pounds of steak, chicken, chocolate or crisps! (I appreciate that your diet is probably somewhere in the middle!)

Epigenetics: we all have a lot of genes that determine our health to some extent. Research suggests that eating plant foods switches on a lot of the good ones that reduce our chances of health problems, and switches off a lot of the bad ones that do the opposite. Animal products don’t have this benefit.

Microbiome, the zoo in your poo! We all have trillions of bacteria roaming around our bodies, and a large percentage of these hang out in our bowels. There are different types, and the ones that flourish or starve depend a lot on your diet. Some help you gain weight, some help you lose it. The ones that tend to hang around the most when you eat plants are the ones that help you to lose weight. If you eat a lot of meat and dairy then you get lots of the other guys, encouraging you to gain weight.

Hormones – there’s also some evidence that a plant based diet can increase your GLP-1 hormone, which is the same as the weight loss injections do. To some extent, plants are nature’s very own ‘skinny-jab’!

There’s a lot more to it than that, but seriously – the more of your diet that is plants, the more likely you are to lose weight. It doesn’t have to be 100% – I’m always vegan, but that doesn’t mean I’m always eating pure plants. A few chocolate based treats do find their way to me, and I find it as hard as many people to turn down a tempting savoury snack! If you feel the need to include meat, dairy, eggs and fish in your diet then of course I’m more than happy to help you towards your goals. Just keep getting those plant foods in too! Your physiology will thank you.