When I first switched to a Vegan Diet I gained quite a bit of weight.
I thought, "What's up with THAT?!" This is supposed to be HEALTHIER! Why do I feel like crap? This diet doesn't work!
It happens to a lot of us. Because usually our number one reason for switching to a vegan diet is to help the animals, or to save the planet, or something.
Only you're forgetting something.
YOUR HEALTH Should Be The Number One Reason To Go Vegan!
But we don't think about that. As long as we're not eating meat or cheese it has to be healthier, right?
Yay! Go Veg!
The bad news is with that attitude, it is SO easy to become an unhealthy vegan.
Why Just Giving Up Meat & Cheese Isn't Enough
Oh sure you're helping your cause - don't get me wrong. But you alone won't make that big of a difference when it comes to saving animals. Especially when you become fat and unhealthy.
I mean honestly, you're probably going to try and convert as many friends and family members as you can. Right? And together you'll be helping the planet and saving all those cute little fuzzy chicks and baby piglets. Mission accomplished.
But really, who is going to listen to you when you are unhealthy yourself? What kind of example are you setting?
Setting The Right Example
HOWEVER….if you were the poster child of vegan health….glowing with vitality and bursting with energy. Well then ALL of your friends will be beating down your doors asking for your secrets. You'll probably end up converting your entire TOWN.
NOW how much of a difference will you make? Tons.
You want to put your health first, make THAT your priority.
Then you can concentrate on helping others, family, friends, and coworkers. And you'll actually be helping them in a big way too because study after study has shown that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer all have common links to an unhealthy diet.
And yes, even an unhealthy vegan diet too.
How can a Vegan Diet be unhealthy? Read on…… read on…...
Top 5 Ways to Become an Unhealthy Vegan
1. Eat Processed Vegan Junk Foods
I'll admit, I ate a ton of Boca and Morningstar Burgers when I started. And convenient? My gosh so easy and tasty. And full of salt, soy protein isolates, fat, calories, and various other chemicals.
Remember that ANY processed food - including Vegan - is usually just man-made conglomeration of Salt, Oil, and Sugar.
Same goes for the Vegan Cheeses too. As much as I loved Daiya Cheese on a pizza - that stuff was no better than real cheese. In fact, compare the Nutritional Facts on the two and Daiya is worse for fat and calories. (but we're saving those animals aren't we?).
Forget the processed crap and eat REAL FOOD. Potatoes, corn, rice, veggies, fruit, whole grains, beans, and legumes. So many options are at your disposal without having to revert to the pre-made packaged stuff.
A healthier burger option would be these Jeff Novick Bean Burgers made with only 4 ingredients.
Eat clean - your body will soon thank you by losing the extra weight and becoming fit.
2. Eat Olive Oil
I've had many a heated discussion on this one. Repeat after me - fat is fat. It has absolutely NO nutritional value, minimal vitamins, and zero fiber.
But it's Heart Healthy! Everyone says so! Even my doctor says so!
Really? It's 100% FAT. And your body knows exactly what to do with it too. It stores it. It's built into our genes. Feast or famine kind of thing.
The fat you eat is the fat you wear. Dr. John McDougall, MD
Forget the oil, switch to oil free salad dressings and sauté those veggies in a little water or veggie broth.
And remember, Olive Oil is THE MOST calorie dense food we eat.
1,910 calories per cup.
How much did you pour over that healthy salad you ate last night? Still think it was healthy?
3. Don't Bother Cooking
It goes without saying that if you are not cooking, you're either a raw vegan (how's that working out?) or you eat out a lot. Or maybe you're on the typical 'potato chip and diet pepsi' vegan diet.
Like I said before, those ready-made, heat-n-eat frozen meals are highly processed and full of salt, oil, and sugar. You're NOT going to get healthy eating these 3 meals a day.
I know everyone's busy, no one has time to cook, or they don't know how - but it is SO IMPORTANT in making this lifestyle work.
You MUST start cooking! I can't say it any plainer than that. (or hire someone to cook for you)
Pick one day a week and spend the entire morning cooking big pots of soup, potatoes, and rice. These can easily be reheated in a microwave for an instant lunch or dinner.
Vegan recipes are all OVER the internet. Go find a few you like!
I have a TON of recipes here on my site. Give them a look and find something easy.
Cooking is NOT that hard and is a major step in becoming a healthier vegan. just do it!
4. Smoke
I smoked for over 30 years. I know. Trust me I know.
Going back to the example thing….I would get a lot of chuckles over how I was vegan to get 'healthier' but still smoked. Yeah…..kind of an oxymoron huh. I was definitely NOT setting a good example.
Well the good news is you CAN quit. Really. You can.
I know what you're saying. But remember? I smoked too! Pack and a half a day. And if I can do it, you can too. And it was a lot easier than I thought.
Here's my secret. It's a heckuva lot cheaper than buying cigarettes, and it works.
Buy a personal vaporizer.
No, not one of those cheapo e-cigs, but a refillable one. It satisfies the inhalation issue like no other, and it supplies nicotine to ease your craving. I started at 18mg and I am now at 6mg - the lowest dose. Wean yourself off the nicotine slowly and you'll be smoke-free in no time with absolutely NO withdrawal issues.
I'm telling you it works. (and you'll smell a lot better too)
5. Go Low Carb
I don't know why so many people are anti-carb these days. I LIVE on carbs.
If you try to be vegan by just eating veggies and salads you're going to starve yourself.
You simply won't get enough calories.
And when you're so hungry you can't take it anymore, and start eating all the bad vegan foods, or worse go back to the standard american diet - all that weight is going to come racing back, and then some.
Eat your carbs. Entire civilizations have sustained themselves on carbs.
All large populations of trim, healthy people, throughout verifiable human history, have obtained the bulk of their calories from starch.
Examples of once-thriving people include Japanese, Chinese, and other Asians eating sweet potatoes, buckwheat, and/or rice; Incas in South America eating potatoes; Mayans and Aztecs in Central America eating corn; and Egyptians in the Middle East eating wheat.
Dr. John McDougall, MD
There you have it.
The Top 5 Reasons for Becoming an unHealthy Vegan.
And now that you know - you can do something about it. How about today?
Let's get healthy!
Image Source: Flickr:Tony Alter
Bruce Terrence
Can you disclose just how much money you receive from the American Dairy Association and the National Council of Beef Processors and the like to spread such nasty mis-information on eating vegan? Your snipe, anecdotal, ‘it doesn’t really matter in the end’ approach is not at all constructive.
Nicci
Not all fats are bad, though; there are good fats: the monounsaturated fats in nuts and avocados. There are great fats: the Omega-3 fats in flax seeds. And then there are the bad fats: the saturated fats found primarily in meat and dairy. And finally, the killer fats—trans fats, which are found in only two places: hydrogenated oils, and meat and dairy. Trans fats are basically found only in one place in nature—in animal fats.
Now, thanks to better living through chemistry, though, the food industry found a way to create these toxic fats synthetically by hardening vegetable oil in a process called hydrogenation, which rearranges their atoms to make them behave more like animal fats. This may be good for shelf life, but is not good for human life. The most prestigious scientific body in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences, released a damning report on trans fats, and concluded that the only safe intake of trans fats was zero.
The Academy said that the tolerable upper daily limit of intake was zero. If the National Academy of Sciences is saying the only safe intake of trans fats is zero, and about one-fifth of American trans fat intake is coming from animal products, did they recommend that everyone should eat only vegan? No, they didn’t; but why not? They were challenged on it, and one of the authors of the report, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, responded: “We can’t tell people to stop eating all meat and all dairy products. Well, we could tell people to become vegetarians…” He added, “If we were truly basing this on science we would, but it is a bit extreme.” Amazing. Wouldn’t want scientists to base anything on science, would we?
-Dr Michael Greger
NutritionFacts.org
kayla
I think it's a really huge problem that people take up diets without understanding the science behind them and how your body is processing certain ingredients. I think a vegan diet is a great start to a healthy lifestyle because animal byproducts by nature and also through processing are just absolutely shit for you.
With any diet there's going to be a lot backing it and a lot highlighting the flaws.
I grew up with vegan parents and I follow a keto diet. I was born without a thyroid so I have to be very careful with diets, especially ketogenic. But it also means that I won't change any nutritional habits without being sure that it's right for my body.
So, I do have to say that while you discuss a lot of the things I don't like about vegan diets I would suggest doing some research about fats, oils, and carbs. It's not a criticism! Because if you look at keto research I think you'll find that some things make a lot of sense even if they're counterintuitive. You'll also find a lot of people who think it's extreme and goes against 'basic knowledge' of macronutrients, There are a lot of compelling arguments against what we've been taught and have proven certain ideas outdated.
Some things I would disagree with in your article is that there is such a thing as a healthy fat. In fact, there are crazy benefits to diets that rely in majority on fats... fat is a better fuel than sugar and science doesn't say that your body is storing it directly as fat (you can take my word for it, even with no thyroid I'm 5'2'' and 105 pounds, I'm extremely active and genuinely just eat well, I've never been into junk food because I grew up in such a clean household thanks to my parents' vegan diets).Omega 3 and 9 are great for you. its Omega 6 that is really bad.
My next thing I would disagree with actually has to do with that. Oils are terrible because they are high in the wrong types of fat. But, olive oil is one of the few that is actually good for you, along with coconut oil. You might find it interesting to find out why,
ANYWAY, this literally just started with me researching vegan cheese and losing my mind when I saw that one of the first ingredients in most is canola and safflower oil.... not to say that you should jump into a keto diet, I just think that some of the things it argues are equally valid and I would urge you to maybe consider that your body can rely on alternative sources of energy that are not carbs.
SMattison
Low fat foods don't help you lose weight. That's what the SUGAR INDUSTRY wants you to think. Haven't you seen that Adam Ruins Everything episode? Enjoy;
/watch?v=9rWjb7t8cfo
Sometwo
I'm pretty sure the article is talking about processed foods which contains a lot of processed sugar and oils. If you eat clean - meaning minimal, natural oils and natural sugars from fruits, nothing processed - you will lose weight. The episode from Adam ruins everything shows that you get fat from all the processed sugars put in unhealthy quick snacks. Thats the reason the article tells you to cook - to avoid all unnecessary oils and sugars.
SMattison
Oh please. The "article" says, after point #2, "Repeat after me – fat is fat." and "It’s 100% FAT." and "The fat you eat is the fat you wear. Dr. John McDougall, MD".
Well, I'm sorry Mr. McDougall, but you need to go back to the college you got your Masters from and demand your money back, because that's NOT how fat works. What are you even a doctor in? Theology?
Chuck Underwood
Um....let me see....Dr John McDougall, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Joel Fuhrman......all distinguished medical doctors, many with peer reviewed articles in many of the medical journals, and whom have all been helping patients with a low fat, plant-based diet for well over 30 years now...... And what exactly do you do?
SMattison
Ad Hominem doesn't help your argument. "Distinguished Medical Doctors" say the world is flat and the pyramids were grain silos. A degree doesn't stop them from being wrong. Appeal to Authority doesn't help your argument either. Try searching the internet for the phrase "eating fat doesn't make you fat" and see what it kicks back. Plenty of distinguished medical doctors saying the exact opposite. Only one of them can be right. Do you honestly trust the Sugar Industry that much? There ain't no "Fat Industry" trying to get you to eat fat.
Chuck Underwood
This has nothing to do with the sugar industry. This is about pure, 100% fat, which you seem to think is good for you. So tell you what, you go on about your business and eat all the fat you want.....and I'll go on about my business and continue spreading the Whole Food Plant Based Low Fat Diet message. And if and when you ever change your mind - you know where to find me. Until then....I'm done.
SMattison
60 percent of your brain matter consists of fats... Well, maybe not YOUR brain, but normal human beings of average or greater intelligence.
Der bear
Just compared cheese to vegan cheese and you are absolutely incorrect.. Cheese.. 400 mg salt ler serving.. Vegan.. 180mg... Cheese.. 25 grams cholesterol per serving... Vegan cheese... 0 grams cholesteral... Cheese is all fat and vegan cheese is plants. You are dumb and i feel great eating plants.
Chuck Underwood
A 1/4 cup serving of Daiya Cheese has 90 calories, 60 of which are from fat. That makes this so called 'cheese' 67% fat. When I look into a bag of processed vegan cheese I don't see plants - I see a concoction of processed ingredients made to imitate cheese. Plants are WHOLE FOODS, not chemicals. I'm glad you feel great eating plants, so do I, REAL WHOLE FOODS from plants.
John Eldon
As a vegan chiropractor friend commented years ago, "Most junk food is vegetarian, or even vegan. Did you ever hear of a MEAT candy bar?"
Barbs33139
Lol... that's right!
Gerhardt J. Steinke
EXCELLENT DISCUSSION OF OFTEN IGNORED FACTS.
Caitlin Heath
I needed this site. Thank you!!
J
I really hope you take the time to fact check this article...
Chuck Underwood
Oh I did! But thanks for asking....