Vegetarian Weight Loss Diet

The best vegetarian weight loss diet is one that involves nutrient dense foods, like vegetables, fruit, nuts, and legumes.

Nutrient density is a critical component, maximizing the essential dietary nutrients while minimizing total calories. From an evolutionary standpoint, the optimal human diet is the one we evolved on for millions of years. However, this diet often contained meat, albeit wild game meat, rich in omega-3 fatty acids and low in cholesterol and saturated fat.

However, a more important aspect of the Paleolithic diet is the absence of grains. The prevalence of grains in the modern post-agricultural world has led many vegetarians to become "breadatarians," substituting high calorie carbohydrates for nutrient dense protein. This is bad news for weight loss.

Thus, for a vegetarian to follow a healthy diet that decreases weight, they must focus on minimizing grains and supplementing with more protein. Ovo-lacto vegetarians can get ample protein (containing the eight essential amino acids) through eggs, dairy, and legumes.

Vegans need to incorporate more variety into their diets to get the full complement of essential amino acids. Vegetable foods all contain the proteins and amino acids humans need, just in different quantities than animal-based foods. Some good vegetable sources of essential amino acids for vegans would be alfalfa, beats, carrots, apples, pomegranate, Brussels sprouts, dandelion greens, Brazil nuts, almonds, and garlic.

For more vegetables sources of specific essential amino acids CLICK HERE.

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