Weight Loss For All

Plant-based diets are becoming far more popular in this modern day and age when people are more conscious about what they’re putting in their bodies. Thanks to the high nutritional content of plant foods, it’s possible to get all the nutrients you need from just eating whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and veggies. But how far should you take it? Here, we’re going to break down the vegan vs. vegetarian diet in order to help you understand which is the better choice for you.

The Vegetarian Diet

Vegetarians do not eat meat (fish, poultry, or red meat) or any product that is made from animal flesh. However, some do eat animal products, such as eggs or dairy products. The vegetarian-based pescatarian diet includes fish as well, but it’s otherwise plant-based. Vegetarian diets are excellent for those who want to cut back on their animal protein intake and consume more fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, and grains. It’s not as restrictive as a vegan diet, as it allows for animal products. However, it’s still a very healthy option for those who are trying to improve their eating habits.

The Vegan Diet

Vegan diets are characterized by the total lack of animal meats or animal products in your diet. If it came from an animal—including eggs or dairy products—it’s off the menu. The vegan diet is high in legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Replacement proteins are typically consumed, such as those derived from soy products (like tofu and tempeh) or grains. Raw vegans stick with all raw and minimally processed foods, while whole-food vegans are all about only consuming whole-grain foods. Veganism is far more than just an eating plan—it’s often a lifestyle, with people committing to only vegan fashion, beauty products, and even household products.

Vegan vs. Vegetarian Diet: The Nutritional Balance

The one downside to both vegan and vegetarian diets is that cutting animal meats and animal products out of a diet can lead to a deficiency in certain important nutrients. For example, red meat is the best source of Vitamin B12, a vitamin that plays a vital role in your metabolism, and one that’s hard to find in non-animal proteins. Iron is another nutrient that is typically obtained from animal products, but which vegans have to supplement with iron supplements. While it’s not impossible for vegans and vegetarians to get a balanced intake of minerals, vitamins, carbs, fats, amino acids, fiber, and antioxidants, it will require some supplementation in order to replace the nutrients typically available in animal products.

Fitness on a Plant-Based Diet

Getting fit on a plant-based diet will require the consumption of vegan protein powders. There’s just not enough protein in the average vegan or vegetarian diet for the body to produce enough muscle tissue from the available amino acids. There are more than enough carbs and fats to provide the energy required for exercise, but only by taking a plant-based protein powder or eating a lot of plant-based proteins—emphasis on A LOT—will you have the amino acids required for muscle growth.

Vegan vs. Vegetarian Diet: Which is Healthier?

The truth is that both diets have their pros and cons. For those looking to cut animal products out of their diet complete, veganism provides a fully plant-based diet. However, it’s often a difficult diet to maintain, whereas vegetarianism is a bit easier thanks to the flexibility of adding animal products. Both can offer health benefits, but it’s a good idea to consider how sustainable it is over the long term before committing to either.

What makes “healthy diets” actually good for your health? Is it the results you get when you follow it? Sadly, crash diets and unhealthy diets often yield more short-term weight loss than healthy diets, so that’s a no-go? Is it a diet you can easily get into and stop? How about diets that limit your intake of unhealthy food? The truth is that there are many healthy diets, and the best all have a few factors in common.

Factor #1: Quality over Quantity

This is one of the crucial factors in a healthy diet! Instead of worrying about how much you eat, a good diet will place greater emphasis on what you’re putting in your body. Many of the best diets don’t even bother counting calories; instead, they help you to make smarter food choices, emphasizing the filling, high-fiber foods and keeping your portions moderate. A diet composed entirely of high-quality foods—meaning foods rich in dietary fiber, balanced macros, and plenty of micronutrients—will typically be more than enough to help you get your weight and existing health problems under control. The higher the quality of the food you eat, the better!

Factor #2: Vegetables

Any diet that doesn’t include a lot of vegetables is one you should be highly skeptical of. Vegetables are one of the most important foods you can eat, as they contain a lot of dietary fiber, very little sugar and calories, and a hefty dose of important antioxidants and micronutrients. They’re the healthiest food on your plate and are the least likely to have a negative impact on your weight. Every healthy diet will encourage you to eat a lot of veggies—in fact, they’ll often craft the diet around the various veggies you’re including. They’re also incredibly filling, so you’ll find that eating more veggies makes you less likely to eat a lot of the other unnecessary and lower-calorie foods.

Factor #3: Eliminating Unhealthy Foods

A lot of people have a misconception that their favorite foods are going to be deemed “unhealthy”, so their diet immediately becomes an elimination diet that leaves them craving the foods they can no longer have. There is some truth to this—many of the most popular foods and drinks are high in sugar and low in nutrients—but for the most part, healthy diets are just going to cut out anything that’s highly processed, rich in carbs but low in fiber, made with excessive amounts of sodium, or have high traces of chemicals and additives. Basically, the focus of all healthy diets is on eating food that is as natural as possible, eliminating anything processed, pre-packaged, or refined. If you can accept that this is the best thing you can do for your health, you’ll find plenty of ways to enjoy your favorite foods while still making the healthy choice.

Factor #4: Focus on Balance

A healthy diet is one that provides all the various nutrients you need, both macro and micro. Your body can operate on more fat to compensate for lower carb intake, but the healthiest diets are those that find a good balance between the two. Vegetarian and vegan diets focus a lot on the plants, but often end up consuming less protein without animal fats. Diets that don’t include whole grains often end up with less intake of vital minerals, while low-fruit diets miss out on important antioxidants. The best healthy diets focus on balance, on making sure you get all the nutrients your body needs from the many foods available to you.

Diet mood swings are one of the nastiest side effects of any strict diet. They’re often the byproduct of cutting carbs, or they can simply be the result of just not eating enough. Your mood tends to suffer when you’re not getting enough calories to keep your energy levels up, or when you’re shifting from a regular high carb intake to a more diet-friendly limit on carbs. But the good news is that diet mood swings don’t have to happen, and they don’t have to ruin your life! Here are some tips to help you get rid of them once and for all:

Get More Fat

Cutting carbs is one of the best ways to shift your body to actively burning stored fat. Unfortunately, carbs are the body’s primary energy source, and when you don’t get them, you can become irritable and angry during the time period as your body is changing to burning more fat for energy. During this time, it’s a good idea to increase your intake of fats, particularly healthy plant-based fats. A lack of Omega-3 fatty acids has been linked to depression, hostility, and anger, but getting more of these fats can help to balance out your mood and keep you feeling happier. It’s most important that you drastically increase fat intake during the crucial first few weeks of your low-carb or low-calorie diet.

Don’t Cut Calories Drastically

While you do need to reduce caloric intake in order to have a better balance of “energy in vs. energy out”, cutting too drastically can lead to nasty mood swings. Try to avoid any diet that drops below 1500 calories per day (for men, or 1300 for women), as these low-calorie diets lead to hunger that can trigger brain chemistry changes. Instead, decrease your caloric intake fractionally, and increase the amount of energy you burn on a daily basis by doing more exercise and activity. Or, if you really want to cut back on your calorie intake, do it slowly, cutting just 50 calories per day over the course of a couple of weeks. Easing your body into it will make it much less likely to trigger nasty diet mood swings.

Avoid Deprivation

When you feel like you are unable to have something you want or are unable to enjoy what everyone else is, those feelings of deprivation and missing out will make you feel more irritable and angry. In fact, “restraining yourself” or “forgoing something you want” can actually lead to a drop in your blood pressure, which can trigger hypoglycemic feelings of irritation and anger. Your chances of ultimately bingeing on those foods later down the line also increase. Instead of depriving yourself, find healthy alternatives that are equally enjoyable, or simply allow yourself only very small, controlled portions. It’ll be much easier to stay happy when you’re not constantly feeling like you’re missing out on something you enjoy.

Eat Complex Carbs

Cutting carbs can lead to nasty mood swings, especially in the first few weeks while your body is getting used to burning fat for fuel. Instead of cutting carbs totally, make a shift from simple and low-quality carbs to eating only complex, fiber-rich, high quality carbs. Brown rice, whole grains, beans, corn, and other high-quality sources of carbs will give you enough energy to avoid the low-carb mood swings, but they’ll be healthy enough that they won’t interfere with your weight loss efforts. Slowly start phasing them out, but give your body time to adjust to consuming fewer and fewer carbs with each passing day.

Intermittent fasting is a simple eating plan that involves fasting for 16 to 18 hours a day, followed by a 6 to 8-hour window where you eat all of your daily calories. It has become one of the most popular eating plans, and for good reason! Once you see what it can do for you, you may just find that it’s your next choice of healthy diets.

The Methods of Intermittent Fasting

There are a few options for intermittent fasting. First is the 16:8 method, the most commonly used intermittent fasting method. With this plan, you fast for 16 hours a day (only drinking water), then eat all of your calories within the 8-hour eating window. With the Eat-Stop-Eat method, you fast for a full 24 hours at least once a week, but no more than twice a week. On the Alternate Day Fasting method, you fast every other day, but instead of full calorie restrictions, you simply limit yourself to 500 calories on a fast day. And, finally, the 5:2 method, where you fast two non-consecutive days in a week, limiting yourself to 500 calories on those days, but eat normally the rest of the week.

How Intermittent Fasting Helps Your Body

The idea behind intermittent fasting is that limiting your food intake on certain days or within certain time periods will force your body to tap into stored calories. Not only that, but it’s intended to improve lipolysis (fat burning) to make your body more effective at turning both dietary and stored fats into calories. However, intermittent fasting can also stimulate the production of growth hormones, which will improve insulin sensitivity and decrease body fat levels. Fasting can also lead to a decrease in insulin, which makes it easier for your body to burn stored fats.

Intermittent Fasting and Exercise

One of the most complicated parts of intermittent fasting is timing your meals around your exercise. This can be tricky if you need a lot of energy first thing in the morning, but you only work out in the late afternoon or evening. Ideally, the largest meal of your day should be consumed after you work out, and it’s a good idea to have something light (200-300 calories) before your workout. However, it is possible to work out in a fasted state, and though you’ll experience decreased endurance, there will be much better fat activation because it’s the only source of energy available to your body. For those looking to build muscle, though, it’s better to avoid working out in a fasted state, as that will lead to muscular breakdown rather than growth.

What You Eat Matters

When you eat is important, but the “what” matters just as much. If your diet is nothing but junk food, your body won’t be able to compensate for it, no matter when you eat it. Your goal should be to eat food that is as healthy, balanced, and rich in nutrients as possible throughout your entire eating window. Balancing your macros (protein, carbs, and fats) and micronutrient (fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants) is crucial for a healthy body, and it becomes even more important if you’re depriving your body of calories at certain times of the day or week.

Watch for Danger Signs

If you start feeling dizzy, extra fatigued, or weak, it may be time to give intermittent fasting a break. It’s okay to occasionally break the fast if your body is showing danger signs, and you can have a few calories to give your body energy to keep going until your next meal.