I want to be healthier...

[tessha_m]

I am a vegetarian. Have been for about 13 years or so. I eat eggs and dairy, but i don't like the taste of eggs so i only eat them in cakes etc. I also don't like milk too much. i never drink a whole glass of milk. Maybe once a year i have a milkshake. I love cheese and sour cream and love to cook.

I would consider being a vegan except that i really don't think i could handle all that lable reading! I'm not too strict a vegetarian. I will eat Thai curry when i know it most likely has shrimp paste in it. When i cook for myself, i cook 100% vego, but when i go out i'm not too worried about stock and shrimp paste etc.

Also one major factor that puts me off loosing wieght (i know it sounds crazy) is that i don't like it when people notice/comment on it. It really irks me that people think its there business to comment on your weight.

I don't do much excercise. I don't have money for a gym. or live near one. I don't like sports.

I drink a lot of juice. 2 or 3 glasses a day. thats proberbly not so great!
I drink 1/2 bottle of wine in a day, but not every day, proberbly 4 days a week, after dinner.

I eat a very wide variety of foods. I don't think I'm lacking anything nutritionally in my diet, but i would like to be healthier and loose a little weight for health reasons. I would like to make my diet a bit better forever, not just until i reach a certain weight.

I have become very interested in cooking, and i think that has lead me to consider taste above all else. there was a time when i would have not cooked with butter, but now i do if it tastes the best.

I guess i don't want to change too much, but make some effective small changes. I would still like to eat fried falafels occasionally! (maybe once every 1 or 2 months as i do now) I guess eating as much cheese and sugary drinks are proberbly the best things i could cut out.

Does anyone have any tips on how to analyse my diet to see whats wrong with it? how to modify it? any links to any site with easy to understand nutritional info for vegetarians?

[rabid_child]

Weight loss is calories in v. calories out. You don't need to join a gym to get exercise, and whether or not you want to lose weight you need to exercise. Take walks around the neighborhood or the mall. If you can't even handle that, park as far away as possible from where you need to go and never take elevators.

Insofar as your diet goes, I don't have a good grasp on what you eat since you didn't type up an average day or two's diet. From what you did say, 2-3 glasses of juice and 2 bottles of wine a week are excessive. 1 glass of diluted juice (50/50 with water) and 1 glass of wine a day would be a good start in terms of cutting down. A serving of cheese is the size of a pair of dice, so keep that in mind when you're eating cheese. Replace simple carbs with complex if you haven't yet (brown rice instead of white, 100% whole wheat bread instead of white bread). Drink lots of water, and eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and as few convenience foods as possible.

[synergy]

:up: RC! Nice post.

tessha, if you want some detailed feedback on your diet, you might want to log your food for a couple of days and then post it here. That will give us a better idea of what you could do.

One book that Fromper and I have been pimpin' all over VB is 'Becoming Vegetarian' by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina. Even if you've been a vegetarian for years, it contains all you need to know about nutrition. Seriously. It's also very easy to read and understand.

Some links to start you off :
http://www.pcrm.org/health/Info_on_Veg_Diets/index.html
http://www.vegsoc.org/health/
http://www.vegetariannutrition.net/index.htm
http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/

Hope this helps some.