Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul_Heery
Over the last 10 weeks, I have lost around 25 lbs. in weight and about five inches off of my waistline. I attribute this to a lot of factors. But, I believe that switching to a primarily (not completely) vegetarian diet has been the most significant lifestyle change that I have made that has helped with the weight loss.
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Congrats on the weight loss.
IMO, though, you didn't lose the weight because of a vegetarian diet. At least not directly.
You lost the weight because you have gone on a highly reduced calorie diet. For example, your lunch of "red pepper, a sliced red onion and a portabella mushroom cap on the grill, wait a few minutes then throw it on a bun" has almost no calories, for a typical adult lunch.
If, for example, IMO, you substituted a ground beef patty for the bun on that lunch (which would roughly equal the calories of the bun), you would lose the same amount of weight.
In the past 10 weeks, you have probably also cut out almost all junk foods/sugars, which of course are very detrimental to weight loss.
In other words, while you have lost weight on your particular diet, IMO it's *not* because you have cut out meats/proteins. If you wrote down every single thing you have eaten in the past 10 weeks, my guess is it would show (1) a greatly reduced number of calories than what you were eating before, and (2) a greatly reduced number of carbs that you were eating before.
The problem with vegetarian diets is they tend to focus on "low fat," and low fat diets, while sometimes effective in the short term, are IMO rarely effective in the long run.
Just IMO, from someone who has tried all the diets, but finally "figured it out" and lost 50 lbs 10 years ago, and kept it off.