The KInd Life Community Forum

Hi everyone,

I hope some of y'all have experienced the full process of switching to vegan and ultimately superhero status, because I am in some serious need of support! Mostly, I have NO idea what is going on with me and my body. I feel like a crazy person! I've been vegan for two months and a couple weeks, with a few transitional slip ups. What I found from the slip ups (a few weeks ago i ate some cheese, and in july I ate my favorite cookie from the local coffee shop on a couple occasions (they are sugar cookies and have vanilla icing on them, lots of sugar)) is that the foods I was giving up - sugar and dairy - were SUPER addictive for me. Like a drug almost, after eating both i felt high as a kite! So anyway, I am committed to moving forward and have made sure I didn't slip up again, but in the meantime I feel like a crazy person with cravings for sugar and wheat, and even cravings to drink wine when I've never been a heavy drinker.

I also feel extremely frustrated because I'm gaining weight and I don't know why or how to stop. I think maybe its because the cravings are making me want to eat larger quantities, but my food is so much healthier that it seems like it should be okay. None of this happened for me in the first month, by the way. It's only at this point that I'm feeling nutso. I am hating what's happening though because I previously had a pretty healthy relationship with my food - not too much, not too little, indulgence when I felt like it, but generally I didn't feel like it much, only ate when I was super hungry, etc. Now, I just can't handle my own body. I was worried about my weight gain so i started to put my food in a calorie counter, which showed me very clearly that there aren't really any vegan protein sources that are lean-they either have lots of carbs (beans) or fat (like nuts). It says I don't get enough protein a day on the calorie counter, but I wondered if the requirements are skewed to a meat eater's diet. So that's been confusing, and after a week of using it I still apparently gained more weight (the scale said 5 lbs??! is that possible??!). I'm also super bloated so maybe that has something to do with it. Anyway, any support at all will help. Please let me know if any of this has happened to anyone else! Mostly I really want to make sure I lose this weight, because I'm feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. I am at the point where I feel like I should eat brown rice for six days and see if that balances me out. Thank you all!!

much vegan love,
Lauren

Like Lauren, I have only been vegan for a short time now, maybe 3 weeks. I know my body pretty well and I know what to eat to be the size I want when eating meat. But now that I have eliminated meat and dairy, my weight is fluctuating and I have even gained a few lbs. I know there must be a certain formula when eating vegan to get to your ideal weight and size, but I haven't found it yet. I was hoping someone might post about this problem. Is it too many carbs? I am really trying to watch the nuts and grains intake but I need some satisfaction and feelings of satiety in the day or I won't stay with it. Any advice is appreciated!

Hello Lauren and everyone - I think it best to be patient, we are all different with different constitutions, genetic make-up, so while some people do well on grains/soy products, other like me, need more vegetables/salads, fruit. I did poorly on a macrobiotic diet, as I am a Blood Type O, and 'Hunter" genotype - this relates to Peter D'adamo's work on the Blood type diet and Genotype diets. I find it very hard to digest grains/corn. But as Peter mentions in his books, quinoa, amaranth and an occasional piece of sprouted wheat bread is ok. I also don't deal well with most legumes or tofu, but as Peter says, my body is fine with azuki beans or some black-eye beans, plus I eat green beans, peas, snow peas. With much experimention over the last 4 years, I am finding I do best with a green smoothie for breakfast, a large salad for lunch with some whole food fat ie 2 or 3 olives, or avocado, or some soaked walnut/macadamia nut/chia seeds as my source of healthy fat to help digest the leafy greens in the salad. I now do a raw vegetable juice mid afternoon, and then I have a small salad at night followed by cooked quinoa with some beans at night. I think fruits/seeds for morning,nuts around lunch as nuts can be hard to digest, and vege/grain/beans for evening. I am trying to be about 80% raw food and 20% cooked food. The more alkaline a diet is, the more the cells respond I think, and the most alkaline foods are vegetables, salad, fruit and a little alkaline grain ie (quinoa, amaranth, millet for some people, sprouted grains or grain bread if one wants). Remember, most grains, nuts are acidic in body. I also had a omega 3,6 9, imbalance which relates to essential fatty acids, due to my large intake of almonds/sesame seeds, chick peas and carrot, and not enough GREENS, chia or hemp seeds, or raw salad greens. Many people can get an imbalance, also I had to do some detox, cleansing due to long-term. digestive issues, and am still taking herbs to tone up my weak liver. Beware of oils/sweeteners which stress out the liver. I no longer have any oils/fats or sweeteners unless they are in whole food forms, most foods have enough fat/oil. all for now. from, Amanda

The bloating thing I think is pretty normal for the first month or two. I went through it and I was recently talking to another new vegan on here who was going through it as well. As far as craving sugar, cheese and other things like they were drugs? They are drugs. Especially dairy and sugar. I was just watching a lecture about how there is something in dairy that creates a calming effect on the brain - which is why babies almost immediately calm down when fed. Here's a quote from a website with a similar tone:

"Opiates hide inside casein, the main dairy protein. As casein molecules are digested, they break apart to release tiny opiate molecules, called casomorphins. One of these compounds has about one-tenth the opiate strength of morphine. The especially addicting power of cheese may be due to the fact that the process of cheese-making removes water, lactose and whey proteins so that casein is concentrated."—healthdiaries.com

Also, sugar is absolutely addictive...ask anyone who drinks several sodas a day or lives for chocolate or other candy. So you're not crazy, you're going through withdrawals. It's no fun, but you'll get to the other side a stronger person. I'm so jealous of some of the people here who apparently didn't have to go through this - they don't know how lucky they (and their families) are. Because when I went through it I was no fun for anybody for like a week. And then the worst was over, though the random cravings remained for a while. I'm 10 months in and MOST of the cravings are gone now but every once in a while one will rear it's head. I've found substitute items to eat when I have my cravings. If I want sugar, I'll eat fruit (which has sugar, of course, but natural sugar and not white sugar). If I'm craving cheese, I eat hummus - which is so yummy it always makes me feel like I'm cheating even though I'm not.

I have a simlilar problem. I was on a mostly meat and cheese diet for years and could lose 2 lbs a week with 1500 calories when I needed to. I again need to shed about 15 lbs., but now that my diet is plant based I can eat 1000 calories and nothing happens. I think it's the carbohydrates, mostly in fruit juice in veggie smoothies that I drink daily??? I try to cut the carbs but it's hard with plants. I am going to try the veggie smoothie without fruit juice, or with as little as possible, but it may be harder to get down without it. I think I'd rather keep my extra 15 pounds and be vegan but ideally I want both. If I actually gain weight at this low of a calorie intake then I will be very sad, not to mention hungry.