Vegan Dieting - Weight Loss or Lifestyle? |
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Vegan?
Actually vegan (pronounced “Vee-gan”) dieting becomes a lifestyle, that is, if you desire to lose weight quickly and keep it off then this is the diet for you. The term may be confusing at times due to the differences in how people eat when claiming to be a vegan. Vegans may be termed strict or pure vegetarians also. This is defined as all-vegetable and fruit diet, without any product of animal origin. Other terms you may hear will be:
By eating whole, raw, live foods you will maintain a healthy digestive system that allows the immune system to perform at its maximum potential to fight any disease – and makes it next to impossible to gain weight. It may be interesting to note that most of the world’s people live on vegetarian or almost vegetarian diets mainly because they cannot afford animal products – mostly third world countries. Some of those people living on the frugal diets of plant foods, nuts, seeds, and fruits show extraordinary levels of physical activity, energy, and performance. An example of this is the Tarahumara Indians. They have an organized team competition where they kick a ball forward on mountain paths. This competition requires running continuously for 24 to 48 hours and covering a distance of 90 to 185 miles! The Tarahumara diet and nutrition consists mainly of maize, beans and pumpkin, wild plants, and some sweet water fish. |
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Use caution if you adopt the vegan only lifestyle!
Joel Fuhrman, M.D., board certified, family physician, and specializing in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional methods warns that vitamin B-12 deficiency will manifest over time when on a vegan diet. Read about vitamin B-12 - your life may depend on it! Tests show that deficiencies will occur when living a vegan lifestyle in the U.S. This is due to the plants that we eat today are void of some important vitamins, bacteria, and minerals. Many changes in our lifestyle, added stress, depleted soils, additives and chemicals in our water, air pollutants, all play a role in our ability to receive and process the nutrients necessary for premium health and weight. Another factor is the detoxification that you will go through by eating the vegan diet. When you replace your standard diet with a diet of all raw, living foods you may experience some temporary discomfort due to the body expelling toxins that have built up over time in the tissues of the body. This ranges from mild discomfort for some and extreme discomfort for others. This is a good thing and everyone should detox, but by adding the 15% cooked portion of food the detox process is slowed down and makes it easier for some. Detox explained here! Vegan weight loss
If you follow the vegan diet path for weight loss, tests have shown that you will lose over 4 pounds more in the short term than other weight loss plans. My personal experience on an all vegan diet was losing too much weight! I soon started adding cooked foods to my diet to maintain my ideal weight. I felt better than I had for as long as I can remember but also noticed a lack of energy when exercising. I soon changed my diet to a 15% cooked and 85% raw daily plan. It is inevitable that you will lose weight by following this diet but there are no hard and fast rules or formula that will work for everyone. “There are no two people alike in terms of metabolic and biochemical individuality". Two women who are the same age and weight can have significantly different needs; one may require only 500mg. of vitamin C a day to maintain good health, while the other may need 1,500 mg. or more”.[1] Needless to say it is useless to rely on some figure which is claimed to represent someone’s “average” dietary requirements. See more on the health plan that I adopted. Think about your nutrition needs not the desire of the body. Learn to listen to your body and you will be well on your way to not only weight loss but optimal health for experiencing enormous amounts of energy, fighting off most any disease, and protecting your immune system. It is important that you get a wide variety of nutrients into the body by mixing up the whole, fresh, natural food that we take in. There is a wide array of these natural foods available to us. Your body was created to take care of all the complex chemical processes and things we have only scratched the surface on. We do well if we allow our bodies to do what it was created to do and don't short circuit these processes by placing inferior, altered, denatured foods into the body. Use the balanced approach for weight loss!
Keep in mind these important factors:
God gave us a marvelous body that not only recognizes these unknown substances but also has the ability to utilize them individually and in combinations to provide health to our bodies. It’s up to us to be sure we are providing the living substance for our bodies to function properly. If we are eating dead, processed, unnatural foods, we will pay the high cost through illness and disease. 
[1] Food & Behavior, Barbara Reed Stitt
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