Hi
newbie2019 ,
Wow! I totally know the feeling! About a month or so after going vegan I decided to weigh myself. I was about 180 pounds (which was probably down from where-ever I was when I started out) but I found that I plateaued there for several months starting out. It was very disheartening. I thought, "surely I must be loosing weight." I still had man-boobs and was pretty down on myself about this. What shocked me however was that despite little weight loss, my pants kept getting looser and looser. I wasn't doing much exercise at that point, but I feel like somehow my body comp. was changing. Eventually, I needed to go to a tailor I know and get another whole drilled in my belt.
Things really started to change when I started exercising regularly. I ran about about three times a week, and this is when the weight loss really started moving. It was really gradual (maybe less than a pound a month) and it took about 2 years to plateau at about 167 pounds. I lost the man-boobs after I started running as well as about three or four inches on my waist. In terms of balancing the calories in and out, I think
LIGHT-exercise is very important. But I have also found that too much exercise leads to binging and eating vegan junk food. If exercise sounds intimidating (it was for me at first and did lead to some injuries) Dr. McDougall suggests walking for an hour a day. This is actually a really good way to get your heart-rate up into fat burning mode.
You could also hold off on the flax and soy milk until you are at your desired weight. I've been trying to follow the 10 points for maximum weight loss that Jeff Novick shared on this forum, one of which is to eliminate higher fat veg. foods. One of the biggest changes I've noticed from my normal eating, is that I've cut way down on the plant based milks and seeds. Doing this, I finally dropped down from my plateau weight. You might find it helpful to print out (or write out and decorate
) Jeff's ten guidelines and post them in your kitchen.
Also, it's okay to take things slow, HEALTHY weight loss should take years rather than days. If your vitals are better, that's a win. I think if you focus on following the 10 Guidelines the best you can, and not worry about calories or weight loss. Amazing things will happen unexpectedly.
Best wishes!
Tian-De
