Why Can’t You Lose More Weight?
Imagine you eat vegetarian food and you only include legumes, fruits, nuts and seeds, and other whole natural food, except vegetable, in your daily meal plans, how on earth can your body ever get a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and various other nutrients to function at its max?
Proper bodily functions include calorie management. If you don’t give your body exactly what it needs, even though you eat lots of quality vegetarian food but leaving veggies out, your body at best will help you shed some pounds initially.
At certain point, you’ll hit a weight loss plateau since you don’t give a full range of nutritional needs to your body.
A friend came to me some months ago and she looked great (to me) by getting from 240 pounds down to 180 pounds (wow, loss of 60 pounds ever since she started vegetarian). I thought she was doing well in her weight loss but then she told me she had been struggling with losing more weight to get to her desired body weight (120 pounds), but no matter what she does, she seems to get stuck at a plateau.
She further told me she ate lots of good stuff and took very minimal amount of junk snacks (well, it won’t hurt you that much if you really take very little junk food once in a blue moon).
OK, I was getting baffled until she added, “But… I didn’t take veggies, because I can’t stand the green smell and imagining biting them in my mouth makes me feel yucky! Oh I did add some little peas here and there at times because they’re more bearable and smaller in size, so when mix with other food I don’t really notice their presence.”
You see where her problem lies? She didn’t take a good amount of veggies.
Simple Solution to Break Weight Loss Plateau
I then advised her to increase her veggie intake if she seriously wants to break her weight loss plateau. Though she felt skeptical, at least she gave it a shot since she got nothing to lose.
I know she doesn’t like the smell and taste of veggies, so I gave her a tip that will remove the veggie taste and smell yet she can still absorb the goodness of veggies – blend veggies into her fruit smoothie. Here’s the recipe:
- 2 cups of broccoli
- 1 carrot
- 2 bananas
- 1 mango
- 1 cup of strawberries
- 1 cup of water
I tell you, this recipe is very filling because of its high dietary fiber. You can eat it as a whole meal for your breakfast. And you should change the ingredients every day so you’ll get a balance of various nutrients from different mixture of food. Let your creative juices flow.
Guess what? 2 weeks later she screamed at me as if I’ve done something wrong, “I lost another 3 pounds after taking more veggies”. Another 2 weeks later, “Your method really worked!”
Well, it’s not my method works. It’s the veggies at work. Why are vegetables so powerful?
Firstly, veggies contain high fiber as you already know. Fiber makes you feel full easily so you’ll stop your craving for food and don’t get a chance to heap on excess calories you don’t need. Fiber also helps you move waste out of your body smoothly, leaving behind a cleansed and detoxified body.
A toxin-free body will definitely burn fat much more efficiently than a toxin-laden body. That’s for sure.
Secondly, veggies contain complex-carbohydrate and carries low calories. Unlike simple carb that only requires very little energy for your body to break it down to unleash its high caloric content, your body will need to draw lots of energy (calories) from your fat storage and glycogen (stored carbohydrate) to break down the complex-carb just to obtain the low caloric content.
That means, when you eat more food carrying complex-carb, you’re basically achieving calorie deficit rather than surplus.
That explains why those who eat lots of veggies get to lose weight faster and more than those who do not.
But You Can’t Just Eat Vegetables Alone
No doubt grains and other sources of complex-carb do also take more energy for your body to break down, but these foods contain dense calories within. So you may end up with a caloric balance resulting in your fat loss initially and then fat gain later once all energy has been unleashed from your grain intake.
But you still need energy-dense food like grains and fruits to sustain your body throughout the day. That’s why you need to eat a balance mixture of all whole natural foods to achieve fat loss, at the same time, gain more energy and keep your health in tiptop condition.
You can easily get at your nearby grocery store and supermarket various types and species of cheap yet healthful veggies, especially those green leafy vegetables which are literally overflowed with disease-fighting phytonutrients, minerals and antioxidants with significant levels of iron, calcium and lutein, to name a few.
In a nutshell, whether you want to stay healthy for your family and kids, or you want to look good in whatever you wear, then you should not shut veggies out of your vegetarian lifestyle. Eat every day rather than just once or twice a week, and your body will thank you.
Laura Ng invites you to find out more proven vegetarian weight loss tips and strategies at iNotFat.com. When you apply her tried-and-true techniques, you’ll lose your belly fat, break your weight loss plateau, improve your health and eliminate your overweight / obesity problems permanently, without side effects. Get slim and stay healthy for your loved ones. Check out iNotFat.com to effectively lose weight the vegetarian way now.
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