Planning to go vegan, low BMI

[TerminalEntropy]

Hey all, new to the forums and am planning to go vegan this week after I finish the fish in the freezer. Before I jump to my questions I figure some background info will be helpful.

I'm a senior in high school and live at home. I'll probably be here for at least a year or two longer since the university I'm going to is half an hour away and it saves on cost. This makes it a little more complicated for me than if I lived alone, but it's not too big of a problem. Since this is the case I think it would be a lot more helpful to know exactly what I need from the store since I'm not the one buying the food, which leads to my first question.


Is there a site that has something like a meal plan and shopping list? It'd be really helpful when starting out to know almost exactly what and how much of things I should buy for the first week paired with meals. I take a supplement normally so I try not to be overly worried about deficiencies, but I can't help it. Where is a good place to start? I've looked up a few shopping lists, but they all seem pretty long and I'd rather start out slow.
The other question is how should I change my diet assuming I'm at the very low end of the BMI scale (18.5 and below sometimes)? I developed the habit of not eating that much as a child since I had acid reflux and it continues because of the disgusting feeling I get from eating heavy foods like meat. I figure I'll eat more as a vegan, but a lot of people go vegan to lose weight and that's something I can't afford.


Thanks for reading.

[Bells]

Hi TerminalEntrophy, welcome to the boards!

Going vegan is usually not difficult at all, and it will be much easier starting out at home. I'm a junior in high school, and I went vegan about two years ago, so I kind of know what you're going through.

1)Here is a pretty good in-depth overview of vegan nutrition: www.veganhealth.org It gives good information on protein, specific vitamins, and almost anything else you can think of!

Sample meal plans: http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/meals

As for groceries, I would snoop around this (http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=88163) thread and maybe this (http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=96755) one as well. They will give you a good idea of what to buy and some inspiration for what to eat!

Also, going vegan does not mean buying a lot of specialty items. For me, I buy tofu; almond milk; cereal; dried and canned beans; canned diced tomatoes and tomato sauce; rice, quinoa, bulgur and other grains; nuts and nut butters; pasta; bread; fresh fruits and veggies, etc. etc.

2) I would not judge your weight by your BMI. IMHO, BMI means nothing. If your doctor is satisfied with your weight, you should have nothing to worry about! As long as you replace the meat, dairy and egg products you are eating appropriately with other foods, you'll be just fine. Oh, and plenty of vegans actually gain weight when they make the switch (though I'm not saying you will). The sick, skinny, anemic vegan is a false stereotype, I'm afraid.

Good luck!

[Clarita Osita]

Welcome to Veggie Boards! Bells had great advice, but just to add if you DO want to gain weight, try to eat foods that are higher in calories - for example, quinoa (I think), avocados, nuts, seeds. Toss some nuts, seeds, and avocado on your salads. Puree some extra beans into soup. That sort of thing.

Good luck, and feel free to ask plenty of questions!

[TerminalEntropy]

Thanks much for the links and info Bells, good to hear it wasn't hard for you even as a frosh. I have an obsession with planning things out, so the meal plans will help. Once I get into it I'm sure it'll seem a lot less alien.

rockingdancer, I'll most likely ask my fair share of questions. Thanks for the advice as well.

Are the canned vegetables healthy? Even though I eat canned stuff pretty often, I always have the impression that I'm loading my body with preservatives and what not.

[Mrrple]

Are the canned vegetables healthy? Even though I eat canned stuff pretty often, I always have the impression that I'm loading my body with preservatives and what not.

They generally have salt added, and have lost a lot of their nutritional value from the cooking and canning process. I would highly recommend frozen vegetables as opposed to canned ones.

Good luck.

ETA: I didn't gain weight for three years until recently when I went vegan. I eat a lot. I was 101lb at 5' 6". I'm now about 110lb, although it fluxuates about six to nine pounds daily, for whatever reason.

[broccolichick]

ETA: I didn't gain weight for three years until recently when I went vegan. I eat a lot. I was 101lb at 5' 6". I'm now about 110lb, although it fluxuates about six to nine pounds daily, for whatever reason.

Geez, can we exchange bodies?

[Mrrple]

Geez, can we exchange bodies?

Gladly. I get more crap about this than good, since I still appear about 90 pounds. I've always gotten a hell of a lot more snide comments than good ones. I'm not 'slender', I'm skinny. I'm not 'thin', I'm a twig.

I love my body. Other people just don't seem to :|

[TerminalEntropy]

An update I suppose. . . I'm on my seventh day and the changes were really noticeable. It helped me get out of a rut since my body feels great. I don't think I even noticed how lethargic I felt before. Instead of my whole body breaking down when it wants to sleep, it's just my brain that gets tired. I think if I could find a way to control my body in my dreams I could go 24/7 haha.

Oh and on my weight. It's hard to tell if it's going up, but it looks like it's at least stabilizing at a "healthy" number. I eat a ton more now so I don't think I'm losing weight anytime soon. I used to pretty much starve all day until I got home, then snack a little bit until dinner. Now I eat more like 5 meals a day. I enjoy eating a lot more when I don't feel bleh afterward. I even drink (soy) milk now, I never liked the disgusting feeling in the back of your throat from cow milk.

I wish someone would eat the damn chocolate eggs with caramel inside in my house though... Every time I see them my mouth salivates. I need to get some dark or vegan milk chocolate treats.

[Lain]

Glad its going good ^_^ Just wanted to say, yeah don't worry about the BMI, its really not a great way to see if you're overweight or underweight, just a general rule of thumb. For example, my BMI is 17.5, but I have a very petit build, if I was bigger boned that would be bad but for me I'm just a few pounds underweight instead of the ten pounds the Wii Fit insists I need to gain XD

I know what you mean about enjoying food more now, I also enjoy cooking. I went vegan in January and I never knew how to cook before, now I'm awesome at it ^_^

[MZCsmpsns]

Yeah, IMO your BMI doesn't matter as long as you are eating enough and healthy. Your weight doesn't determine if you're healthy or not. If you actually want to gain weight, as someone suggested eat foods that are higher in calories and fat, healthy foods though. I think as long as you're healthy, just love the skin you're in!

[sblthin]

Bells has a lot of good suggestions. I think if you just browse around the forum you might find some ideas. Not everyone loses weight when they go veg*n, it's not a guarantee, so if that's your main concern then don't worry too much. And as far as bmi, it's not the most accurate tool for measuring weight. In my nutrition classes we use bmi and in my exercise science classes we use body fat %, so don't worry too much, although your weight seems a little low it may suit you. It is annoying that people say things to make you feel bad about being so thin. If it was someone who is overweight they wouldn't say "oh you're so big" etc, so why do it for you being thin? Anyway I hope everything works out for you.


Are the canned vegetables healthy? Even though I eat canned stuff pretty often, I always have the impression that I'm loading my body with preservatives and what not.
^^Drain and rinse your veggies and canned beans! If you can't find low sodium this will really help, they absorb some too but there's a lot of sodium left in the liquid that you can get rid of.

[TerminalEntropy]

Oh it's not that I feel insulted by being called skinny, I just don't think it'd be healthy to be any skinnier. I love being skinny, though I wouldn't mind putting on some muscle (I'm too lazy).

Thanks for the suggestions.

[beepbeeplove]

Oh it's not that I feel insulted by being called skinny, I just don't think it'd be healthy to be any skinnier. I love being skinny, though I wouldn't mind putting on some muscle (I'm too lazy).

Thanks for the suggestions.

As others have said, it doesn't matter what your size is as long as you have enough nutrients to function optimally :)
My boyfriend had a BMI of 15 (weight of 50kg) before he was vegetarian, and he ate about twice as much as me. Now that he's vegetarian his BMI is 16 or so, and he's grown taller too so I don't think being vegetarian makes you skinny automatically. In the same way I'm always trying to lose weight and I'm vegan, it's the darn peanut butter that stops me :p

[itsveggietime!]

People who go vegetarian to LOSE weight, are usually very overweight and the doctor has given them an ultimatum. Actually, if they just stopped overeating and eating bad foods all day, they'd lose weight! I actually gained weight, because it was rather like being a new bride. A new bride wants to impress her husband about how good she can cook and they both gain 10 pounds the first month! I wanted to impress my husband with how much good veg*n food there was and actually now I'm back to just cooking simply, like I did before when we were meat eaters, just subbing crumbles and meat patties, soyrizo, and such for the meat we used to use. A veg*n diet is a healthy diet, so your body will gain or lose to become it's optimum healthy weight for you. Now if you deprive it, it won't do that, or if you overeat like many new veggies do eating pasta and cheese all day, you'll gain weight.

The most important things you must do to maintain a healthy body is to daily eat:

whole grains/pastas, brown rice or wild
protein
variety of colors of fruits & veggies
healthy oils (olive oil, grnd flax, advocados, nuts-unroasted,unsalted)
calcium source (not all soy/other milks are created equal, read the label)
b12 source - found in well foritified soy milks
lots of water

I used to have reflux and so did my husband. I would take a big drink of extra strength mylanta at night and it'd quit. He ate tums and ended up having that throat surgery because it scarred his esophagus. The odd thing was, when I started eating frequently and having a bedtime snack of say, 1/2C-1C of very vanilla soy milk I stopped having it. Some foods can cause you to get heart burn, on the other hand, being very empty caused my acids to have nothing to burn up but me. I don't have it anymore. My husband takes meds everyday to control his, which is why I give him B12 patch, since they my interfere with his absorption of b12, eventhough he is an omnivore away from home.

I do keep all kinds of canned veggies and fruits, but more like for emergencies. They have way too much salt, and the light/no salt taste awful to me. and then there's the loss of fresh nutrients. If I have greenbeans, they are usually canned, but I don't have them much. But I try to eat lots of steamed broccoli, cawliflower, onion, summer squash slices, baby carrots - a little of all in my steamer. I also am a salad LOVER and put everything one can imagine in the salad, like salad mix, onions, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, radish, cucumbers, celery, broc & cawliflower florets. Then I pick a protein source and either add pumpkin & sunflower seeds, or rinsed canned kidney beans, or shredded soy cheese. I eat a minimum of dairy, and once in a while it is a whole grain mini bagel with cream cheese (1/3 less fat). Or I might have triscuits with the salad, plain or with hummus, or I might have a soup, like Tomato Basil or Hearty Tomato by Progresso.

Check out my food blog in my sigline for ideas :)

[vata07]

Gladly. I get more crap about this than good, since I still appear about 90 pounds. I've always gotten a hell of a lot more snide comments than good ones. I'm not 'slender', I'm skinny. I'm not 'thin', I'm a twig.

I love my body. Other people just don't seem to :|
funny how no one ever criticizes fat people...:sealed: but skinny people are always fair game, :furious: