The KInd Life Community Forum

nursing makes you VERY hungry regardless of your diet choices

Raw, organic nuts and dried fruit are great filler-uppers. Almonds and walnuts are very nutritious. We always keep those around (along with cashews and pistachios) to snack on. Another option for your meals are sweet potatoes and winter squash.

I've recently realized that marketing execs have us all thinking that veganism is a huge stretch and something totally "other" than what "normal" people eat. Allow me to address this with a picture: http://sneakyvegan.blogspot.com/p/faqs.html

If your goal is to be more health-conscious, try searching for vegan/vegetarian athletes who share their menu plans. I spent years as a personal trainer and had a monstrously huge boyfriend and although we both loved to eat "real food", butter, cheese, milk and animal products didn't appear on our menu plans very often at all. Make it easier on yourself by going slowly and maybe having 1-2 vegan meals/week from recipes that use real food. You can experiment with "substitutes" later but I think it's easier to make a switch if you change as little as possible in the beginning. Take time to build a collection of vegan recipes that you really like so you won't feel so deprived. Eventually you will find enough food to keep you satisfied and can slowly increase the number of vegan meals you eat.

If you feel like you're starving a couple of hours after eating that's good! It means your metabolism is working and you're using up all the calories you're taking in. Most athletes eat 6 times a day - 3 full meals and 3 snacks. This means you're eating something every 3 hours. Keep healthy snacks at your office like fruit, nuts, baby carrots. Invest in blender and keep it in the office kitchen - when everyone else goes for a smoke break, make yourself a smoothie.

You might also consider doing a brief fasting detox to slowly reset your body's expectations. This is a good program that I use: http://gallivantinggreengirl.com/category/cleansing/

Hope that helps :) Good luck!!

I was really hungry in the beginning too. I was so used to severe food restriction when I was eating "the old way" that when I removed so many unhealthy foods, I wasn't eating enough and was really hunger. I started eating more often and enjoying grains, beans and legumes like I never had before. I thought of these foods as too many calories before. Well they are when you have them with meat, cheese, sauces, etc. But on their own and whole they are great for fiber and sustained energy.

Another thing to remember... If you are newly flirting/vegan, you may be used to feeling "full" all the time, then when you don't feel "full", you feel hungry. It may take a while of plant-based eating to get used to feeling lighter. After a while, you won't feel as hungry because your body will be used to the way you are eating. It tooke me a couple months to get over this, and sometimes all it took was to stop and think: am I hungry, or am I just not feeling full? And if I am really hungry, I eat something! Having a healthy snack around is a good idea.

All this assuming you are eating a nutritionally balanced diet. Some of that just takes practice; after a while, you won't have to think about whether you are eating enough of each food group, you just will out of habit.