Vegetarian Diets Are Great For Weight Loss – But How Do I Start?

raw foodRaw foodists are convinced that raw food diets are absolutely necessary in order to maintain a healthy weight.

While everyone’s body is different and while people actually need a variety of foods in order to maximize health, raw vegetarian diets are great for weight loss and the body.

These foods are usually low in the types of fats that stick to the ribs while being high in nutrients that will help keep you energized to finish your daily workout. But grilled hamburgers and hot dogs can be so delicious.

And switching to a vegetarian diet can be so exhausting for some reason. Our bodies just can’t seem to adapt.

Also, how do we eat vegetarian diets when the whole rest of the world seems to want us to eat meat? Where do we get our protein from?

Delicious meats

Sometimes, delicious meats are extremely difficult to give up. We often experience extreme food cravings that we know shouldn’t be on our menus. In order to give up these delicious meats, we must be aware of why we want to eat meat in the first place.

Are we giving up meat because we don’t like to eat the fluffy animals that remind us of Disney cartoons? Or are we giving up meat for health benefits.

If you are giving up meat for an ethical reason, giving up meat can be all the more challenging and traumatic. If you slip up even once, you have to deal with the guilt of caving in.

However, if you are becoming a vegetarian for health reasons, consider eating meat occasionally. If you want to, throw some egg or chicken into your salad.

Or if you want a full blown hamburger, go ahead and order it. Occasional splurges won’t hurt you as long as they’re occasional. Also, getting your daily protein is difficult on a vegetarian diet and you might as well occasionally get protein from an easy source.

Exhaustion

Many who try vegetarianism feel weaker. This is usually caused by one of two reasons: 1. their body hasn’t adapted to the new diet yet. 2. they’re not getting a healthy diet.

If the first reason is the case, make sure that you slowly transition into a vegetarian diet instead of quitting cold turkey (no pun intended). I gradually transitioned into my vegetarian diet and over time I came to dislike meat.

However, I still have to be very careful in choosing my foods in order to make sure that I get a balanced diet from my meats.

Getting your protein and other nutrients

There are some nutrients that meat simply has a lot more of. These are proteins, iron, calcium, B12 and zinc. Fortunately, there are several vegetable sources for these.

Soy products, legumes, tofu, dark green vegetables, collard greens, kale, broccoli, enriched cereal, beans, peas, lentils and whole-grain products can all help you get the nutrients that you normally get from meat. Just make sure you’re diverse when incorporating them. Did I forget to mention wheat germ and mushrooms?