New to veggie low carbing!!

[Smileybean]

Hi All!!


I'm a newbie to low carbing. I alraedy do a lot of exercise and after trying caloric restriction w/ the exercise that I already did, I saw literally NO change. I have pretty much lived this wasy for years- low caloric intake and a heck of a lot of exercise and no changes really, (other than presumably increased muscle mass??). So anyway, I think the problem may be a CARB one. So here I am. Low-carbing!

Today is my second day on induction.. I started two days ago by deciding to drop my carbs and just ate protein/fats, but then late that night, was reading about Atkins and decided that this is totally for me! Despite the vegetarianism... So yesterday was my first day of induction, and this morning I am already down from 142.8 to 141.0lb... maybe this is just water weight???

Anyway, looking forward to getting to know everyone here and exchanging ideas with you all! :) :)

Smileybean xxoxoxoxox

[staceyoa]

read next message,
as had posted this one without doing spell check and had to do it again before someone looked !!x

[staceyoa]

hello smileybean and welcome,
i am a newbie too.
i was a veggie for years but fell away a few years ago.i still eat alot of vegetarian food and am using a lot of tofu and tempeh in my induction for breakfast as i dont like to eat so many eggs.
i also use seaweed and spirilina which is very low carb as veg.

i exercise lots too.
xxstacey

[Smileybean]

Thanks for your warm welcome Stacey!! Ok, so it's day 2 and already I have cheated. WHAT THE HELL AM I PLAYING AT???!!! Had a bite of a biscuit!!!

Does anyone else ever cheat and totally regret it?!

xx

[camcyd]

Welcome to the forum!

[redturtle]

Hi smileybean,

I'm new here too - I couldn't help but notice we're the same weight and have the same goal weight.

Hey, did you ever think maybe your calories are too low? Sometimes we've gotta force ourselves to eat more just to raise our metabolism - particularly high quality fats. Did you ever try coconut oil? Adding in a couple tbsp a day may help also to increase your metabolism... I also find that alternating a few diet days with a few normal or high calorie days really works for me in not slowing down my metabolism - ie., cheat a little (when not in induction).

I was a vegetarian too and hadn't eaten red meat in 15 years until this past week. I also suffered from anemia and B12 deficiency. I read a lot of revealing articles on beyondveg dot com and also learned from an article by Julia Ross that animal protein - complete protein - is essential for the health of the brain. The amino acids being crucial precursors to the brain's 4 neurotransmitters, the essential amino acids that we must get in foods, found completely in meat.

I looked up the nutritional content of lamb and found it had a TON of tryptophan... (precursor to seratonin). I also learned that there are two types of iron, heme iron in animal protein, and non-heme iron in eggs and plant protein - non-heme iron is only minimally absorbed. So that explains why I became anemic as a vegetarian.

I imagine it would be hard to do Atkins veggie style, but I hear it's been done. I just wonder about complete proteins, and heme iron. I came to do Atkins after adding red meat back into my diet, so it was pretty convenient for me! lol... since I don't eat soy, or gluten, I have no non-starchy source of plant protein. I guess there's low-carb dairy like whey protein powder - what are you using for low-carb protein?

redturtle

[redturtle]

PS Don't beat yourself up for having a bite of biscuit - just dust yourself off and keep going ! :) Even if you had binged for 3 days, just dust yourself off. Never give up, and don't cling to minor mistakes. We all make mistakes and no one can ever be perfect. And who'd want to be perfect anyway?

[Smileybean]

Thanks for the kind words redturtle!! Im finding induction tough because my diet is so limited at the moment..my protein is pretty much coming from hemp and whey proteins and eggs and cheese...

I'm always interested in the health pros and cons of vegetarianism/veganism... I was a vegan for the past 3 months but after reading some articles, I decided that my diet was no way nourishing me the way it should.. So I'll definitely take a look right now!!

Regarding th emetabolism- I think your right. I think mine is screwed up from years of messing around with it. I'm just afriad that if I up my calories, it will make me put on rather than lose. I uped my calories in February to 1500kcals and gained around 7lb over the following 2 months, (with exercise too!). But then again, I wasn't keeping an eye on the macro ratio- I was probably getting lots of carbs rather than protein so that may explain the gain...I decided yesterday that because of the huge restriction that my diet gives me, that I couldn't do induction properly as I still wish to eat my veggie high protein alternatives (like Quorn, mycoprotein), and they have too many carbs for induction. So i've decided to aim for high protein, low carb but not as strict as induction and see what happens...

:)

[redturtle]

Hey Smileybean,

I'm glad to hear back from you. I felt kind of bad after my first post - that it might rub you the wrong way as a vegetarian. But those are the kind of things I wish someone had told me when I was suffering with anemia, and probably also the bad effects of soy, when I was a vegan.

But I really am glad for you that you are doing dairy after 3 months as a vegan. Even many of the vegan advocates will nibble on eggs and cheese on a regular basis, because their body demands it.

Yes, your protein sources sound very limited. But at least you're not relying on a ton of tofu. Hemp and whey and eggs and cheese sounds very healthy! Sweet.

It's tough to cut the starch because it has to be replaced with something... if you add a bit of healthy fat into your meals, that might help a little. Coconut oil and either flax oil or an omega 3-6-9 blend might help... they totally helped me lose a few lbs when I added them in.

Ya you don't have to go down to 20g carbs a day... Protein Power recommends for someone around your weight range to go to 55g carbs a day. That should work fine too :)