Eat plenty of fresh fruit. It is naturally low in fat and healthy. There are four levels of vegetarian diets: Vegan; only consume food of vegetable origin. Lacto-vegetarian; includes cheese and dairy products. Ovo-lactovegetarian; includes eggs. And Semi-vegetarian; no red meat, but open to chicken and fish.
Vegetarian diets are healthy if you make sure to consume enough protein. Very tough to stick to if you're not a committed vegetarian. It is certainly not a short-term change.
Pro Review: submitted by a past visitor to chasefreedom.com:
I have been on many diets, including some that are listed here, and have even had Bariatric Surgery. Nothing helped me lose the weight and keep the weight off until I became Vegetarian and consumed no wheat products. The comments made by the initial review that a Vegetarian diet is hard to stay with were made by someone who is not a Vegetarian. The interesting thing about becoming Vegetarian is that because there are different kinds of Vegetarians, those who eat some chicken and fish, those who consume dairy products and eggs, those who eat no animal products at all, becoming Vegetarian need not be an all or nothing proposition. Starting out by eliminating some meat is the way to go. As time goes on, the elimination of the other products is not difficult because the body and the taste buds don't respond to animal products in the same way. After a year into Vegetarianism, I can eat no animal products at all. My body doesn't want them, and I cannot tolerate the taste of them.
I never thought I'd hate the taste of cheese and other dairy products, but it happened.
I am a bit concerned that there is some bias against programs if they are not one hundred percent successful from the first day started. Change takes time, and there are failures on any program. The key to losing weight is to choose a program you can stick with and keep starting over when you slip up. Slip ups are not the sign of diet failure. They are the sign that the person needs some help to control eating. When I first started out, I broke down and ate meat about once a week. Does this mean Vegetarianism is a plan that won't work? No. It means I had an ingrained eating pattern that needed commitment to break.
I've been a Vegetarian, eating only plant based proteins and foods for seven years now. I have lost 340 pounds (no, that's not a typo. I went from 470-130) and am able to maintain it. I lost this weight eating about 1800 calories a day of no animal products or wheat, trying not to eat sugar or junk food, drinking only water and walking a half hour four times a week. The nice thing about the Vegetarian diet is that there is alot of food on the diet for the calories. The soy meat replacement products out there in the form of Textured Vegetable Protein are really very good and varied for converting favorite recipes from meat to vegetarian, and the meat substitutes are inexpensive, come in beef, chicken, turkey, sausage flavors. People who don't know what TVP is, don't realize that it is not meat when they try it. It's very high in protein, low in fat and calories and is easy to use. Tofu is also extremely versatile and I love making fruit smoothies with soft tofu, fresh fruit and juice in the morning. I also love baking tofu, using it in stir fry, eating it fried in a bit of olive oil, marinating it in my favorite spices. Tofu takes on the taste of whatever you cook it in, and comes in a variety of textures as well. Even freezing tofu changes the texture and works well. There are many recipe sites online available to those wanting to learn how to cook vegetable proteins.
A balanced Vegetarian diet is a healthy diet. It is good for the heart, and body. It doesn't have to be boring and you don't have to feel like you're grazing in a pasture when you're a vegetarian.
The food is good, and it's up to your imagination to make delicious low fat, no animal product dishes. I have a four year old that loves what I cook. Variety is everything. So is having good information. Read up on Vegetarianism before embarking, and when trying, if you slip up, realize that you just start over again. There are no food police who come and take you away when you eat the wrong things. Just keep trying.
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