A reader came to me last week and she was quite distraught. She’s in her last year of secondary school and is taking her exams; soon to be off to Uni. In her email she said, “I don’t want to be fat anymore because of the bullies”. She asked me if a vegan diet can help …
I Don’t Want To Be Fat Anymore – Sarah’s Story
Getting bullied at school is a horrible thing to have to go through and when it’s about your weight, the mental anguish can be overwhelming. Thankfully, if you don’t want to be fat anymore, there is a proven path to help you lose that weight and feel good about yourself again …
I’m not going to use her real name so we’ll call her Sarah. I could tell from the tone of her email that she was very upset and near the end of her tether with it all.
Sarah explained to me that her last few years in school had been a living hell. One girl in particular had decided she was fair game and the bullying was a daily occurrence.
This girl and her friend group were subjecting Sarah to some quite vicious nastiness centred around her weight and body shape. Girls can be a lot meaner than boys, emotionally.
Sarah would regularly arrive home after school in tears just not able to deal with the constant barrage of vile abuse. Sometimes the words escalate into physical abuse and she has often not been able to face going into school, unable to face it.
She lost her Mum 5 years ago to cancer and that is where the problems started. Sarah turned to food as a coping mechanism but things quickly got out of hand.
Reading online that a plant based diet can help you lose weight, she asked me if I could give her some direction with switching to a healthier diet.
Nearly Everyone Loses Weight Going Vegan
You don’t have to adopt the vegan philosophy to benefit from a plant based diet. The truth is, eliminating animal products from your daily consumption will almost guarantee you shed some of those extra pounds.
Many people are shocked at how much weight they lose when switching. In fact some people find they could do with putting on a bit more after the plant based diet has worked its magic.
… and it doesn’t take that long either!
Study after study has shown the weight can fall off very quickly when cutting meat and dairy from your diet. Many people lose 2-3 pounds a week. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect half a stone weight loss per month on this diet.
The average is closer to one pound a week and there are many factors which determine just how much weight you will lose and how quickly.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have published many studies showing significant weight loss is entirely achievable when moving to a more plant based diet. Here’s the conclusion of just one study …
“a 22-week worksite research study, an intervention using a low-fat, vegan diet effectively reduced body weight and waist circumference” [1]
Re-programming Years of Conditioning … Safely!
It’s not your fault. You’ve been conditioned since the day you were born to believe meat and dairy products (especially) are essential for good health.
The messaging is absolutely everywhere.
If you want to grow big and strong with healthy bones then we’re told dairy products are an integral part of your diet, especially important for growing kids.
Who doesn’t want to ensure their kids grow up healthy?
From the very beginning in the ‘new Mum’ leaflets, through primary and secondary school and long into later life, the necessity to consume animal products is front and centre.
As a quick aside, can you think of another species on this amazing planet of ours which consumes milk after the weaning stage? Left to their own devices, most cows won’t feed their calves after 10 – 12 months.
… and what about drinking the milk of another species? It just doesn’t happen among mammals and is vanishingly rare among other animals. Humans are the only mammal that drinks the milk of another species. Bit of a clue there?
Modern nutrition science continues to reveal more and more detail about what we humans need to consume in order to survive and thrive.
Turns out we don’t need to eat meat and drink milk to live a perfectly healthy life, long into old age. But the establishment didn’t want you to know that because they make obscene profits from their gruesome trade.
But I digress …
Plant Based Diets = Rapid Weight Loss
It is now generally accepted that a well balanced plant based diet is healthy. Lively debates abound online where the two sides argue if one dietary pattern is healthier than the other.
But the evidence is now overwhelming.
From endless anecdotes on social media to scores of respected and peer reviewed studies, the conclusions are very clear.
Nearly everyone who moves to a predominantly plant based diet experiences significant weight loss as a result.
As I said above, you don’t need to go full on hardcore vegan (although I’d highly recommend you consider the compassionate vegan lifestyle) but if you switch to, maybe, 90% plant based I can almost guarantee you will lose weight.
… and you will likely lose weight quickly.
WFPB Diets Are Naturally Low In Saturated Fat
Whole food plant based (WFPB) diets, by their very nature, are low in saturated fat, high in fibre and other nutrients as well as having the beneficial effect of promoting a healthy gut.
Fibre is an important nutrient which aids digestion and makes you feel more full than foods containing less fibre. There is zero fibre in meat, for example.
If your diet is high in foods containing minimal fibre then you will tend to eat more to make up for it. Often you will eat more of the same which only compounds the weight problem.
Plant based diets which focus on whole foods like vegetables, fruits, pulses and grains will invariably contain fewer calories than their animal based diet counterparts.
Combined with the fact the nutrition profile of a WFPB diet is usually far superior to the Standard American Diet (SAD), all these factors combine to give you the best chance of losing that unwanted weight.
Another fascinating area of research is the gut microbiome. Scientists are finding ever more links between the balance of bacteria in the gut and human health.
A vegan or plant based diet helps to keep this balance optimal [2] and a healthy gut microbiome is associated with a myriad of health benefits, including weight loss.
The conclusion of the study cited above is as follows:
“a vegan diet is effective in promoting a diverse ecosystem of beneficial bacteria to support both human gut microbiome and overall health” [2]
Doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Is It Time To Make Your Positive Change?
I hope this article has helped you see that you can lose weight effectively and relatively easily by switching to a plant based diet.
Pay attention to essential nutritional factors like omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin B12 … you can’t go far wrong.
Try to avoid eating too much vegan junk food too. Just like its non-vegan opposite number, it is highly processed and unlikely to help you achieve your weight loss goals.
Focus on whole foods and take a good vegan supplement just to ensure you’re getting all the nutrition your body needs to thrive.
Why not start today?
Please leave your comments below and share this post with anyone who you think might benefit. I’d love you to come back here in 9 months time with your weight loss success story!
Have a great day and thanks for reading!
Rohan.
[1] – Ferdowsian HR, Barnard ND, Hoover VJ, Katcher HI, Levin SM, Green AA, Cohen JL. A multicomponent intervention reduces body weight and cardiovascular risk at a GEICO corporate site. Am J Health Promot. 2010 Jul-Aug;24(6):384-7. doi: 10.4278/ajhp.081027-QUAN-255. PMID: 20594095. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20594095/ [2] – Tomova A, Bukovsky I, Rembert E, Yonas W, Alwarith J, Barnard ND, Kahleova H. The Effects of Vegetarian and Vegan Diets on Gut Microbiota. Front Nutr. 2019 Apr 17;6:47. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00047. PMID: 31058160; PMCID: PMC6478664. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478664/