[fgummett]

At the blood lab today, as the tech was taking my blood, I was bending her ear about the low-carb hypothesis. She gave me pause for thought by asking what a vegetarian would eat? I have only just started Dr Bernstein's book so I expect it may be covered in there, but meantime, any ideas?

I'm guessing it may depend on the "kind" of vegetarian... I freely confess my ignorance and sincerely mean no offense, but I understand that some may choose to eat cheese and even fish? What about Tofu?

[DarthDiabetes]

I imagine one could be a lower carb veggie, but would be harder if you ask me. Can still get lots of fat and slow digesting carbs of course but protein would be the hard part. Beans would quickly up your carbs, eggs not if you are vegan, etc...Nuts and nut butters would help alot but also start to add to the carb count.

[xMenace]

My daughter is vegan (4 years now) and carries no excess weight. She eats lots of potatoes and veggies. She eats lots of soy products too.

The big thing IMO is she eats real food. She eats very few processed and packaged foods. Apparently some of these common long-named-ingredients are derived from animal products, namely milk.

[fgummett]

Thanks DD and John, I suspect that the strict vegetarian diet does not lead to obesity and that for the vast majority of the population, it is the refined carbs (most likely culprit being HFCS) that are the issue. I also suspect that some/many of us are more reactive to carbohydrates in terms of weight gain and need to be more vigilant as a result. I guess in this thread I am most interested if there are any currently or previously overweight vegetarians who have gone through the "induction" phase of a very low carb regime and if so what did they eat?

[ShottleBop]

Google "Atkins vegetarian induction" (without the quotes). You'll find discussions. People appear to rely on eggs and dairy, but I've seen others (non-Atkins) who use Morningstar and other meat substitutes.

[fgummett]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

Google "Atkins vegetarian induction" (without the quotes). You'll find discussions. People appear to rely on eggs and dairy, but I've seen others (non-Atkins) who use Morningstar and other meat substitutes.

Cool... thanks ShottleBop... now I have answer in case I ever face that question again...

[davef]

Frank,

About 5 years ago my Father suffered a major heart attack while in Florida, while he was in intensive care I was speaking to one of his nurses and discuss lifestyle (this was before I was DX'ed), my father is/was a big meat eat (eats lean meat more now) and I was surprised when the nurse told me that he saw a lot of people coming into the coronary care ICU after heart attacks who were both vegetarian and overweight. I had (in my ignorance, please forgive me) always had the opinion that vegetarians were invariably slim/thin (the ones I know are) but according to the nurse this is certainly not the rule and in his opinion (had been in coronary care for 15 years) vegetarians were as likely to come through the doors as non-vegetarians. He said that while the people he treated avoided meat, they often had a high fat diet (please let's not get into the fat is good/bad debate, I'm only relating what I was told). The nurse said that he had also come across a high incidence of Indian (Asian not Native Americans) people who were vegetarian but were overweight and felt that they had a very high fat diet.

Something, perhaps John can educate me on, do people following a vegan diet avoid dairy products as well as meat as dairy comes from cows?

[catatonic]

I've kind of had to become mostly vegetarian - and that too a very annoying and picky one - because so many things got more or less eliminated from my diet!

Diabetes: Rice, Wheat, Corn, Potatoes, Milk, etc..
Pancreatitis: Alcohol, Fat, Animal Protein
Me: Seafood, Eggs, Tofu, Poultry

Of course, I cheat every day , but I restrict myself to one or two bites of whatever.

Honestly, it's not really that hard at all. I always find something no matter wherever I go. It does get expensive eating out sometimes, because I end up ordering 2 or 3 things and then picking around the plate. But I happily pay that price for my health. 2 years now, and I don't take any medications or shots, and the highest my A1C has been in that time is 6.0

[Evermont]

There are different categories of vegetarians with various names depending on what foods are excluded. I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian (link) which means I choose to include diary and eggs. Vegans exclude dairy and eggs. Here's a chart (link) that shows who eats what. A Lacto vegetarian might be fine with drinking milk - but turn down many cheeses which are made with rennet (link). I also avoid things made with gelatin which comes from boiled skins and hooves. etc. etc.

I've been consistently vegetarian for a very long time and certainly was overweight. Pizza, beer, and ice cream plus a little imagination and it's not hard to understand how this happens. I could also prattle on about genetics and a sedentary lifestyle. Mainly I credit excess calories, basically, portion sizes.

My approach to carbs since Dx is to know them. I eat real food, mostly plants. I get carbs for sure, but I can't say how much exactly. Ever notice how easy it is to track carb totals when you eat prepared foods with nutrition labels? Watch me build a salad someday. 20+ fresh ingredients in various quantities - but how many carbs? So a bell pepper is mostly carbs right? Not much fat, not much protein. These carbs are "worth it" because they're accompanied by scores of micronutrients and phytochemicals that support the immune system and other essential biological functions. I feel that those who equate 1 gram of carbs in a tomato to 1 gram of carbs in a sugary breakfast cerial are missing out on some fundamentally important things.

Such as this:

I've seen many diet summaries posted here. "I only eat X, Y, and Z..." from diabetics trying really hard to control BG. Even accounting for some over simplification in these summaries I am cartain that the variety in my diet far exceeds most other people - and I start right out handicapping myself by avoiding all meats. Imagine that! I eliminate a whole category which leaves people wondering "what else is left?" and yet I claim greater variety. I can cook bulk adzuki beans from scratch without a recipe - and 490 other things. There's no telling what I might have for dinner tonight but it's very likely that it won't be anything I've had in the past month.

I'm very happy being a vegetarian - else I would have given it up years ago. There are some classic topics around vegetarianism, one of which is "what do vegetarians eat?". It's interesting that most people have such a hard time conceiving of a vegetarian diet but it's really not hard at all. Now low-carb vegetarian, yeah, that's harder to work out. Know-carb vegetarian, that's not hard to work out at all.

Another classic topic is "why be vegetarian?". That post might be even longer than this but probably off-topic.

[fgummett]

Thanks Keith... an education to be sure

[victorl]

to the best of my ability I eat a Vegan diet.

No it is not low carb.
Yes you can have overweight vegetarians and vegans. It's about carbs that you don't burn off or otherwise eliminate.

A crucial key is fibre, just because you eat salad doesn't mean you are getting enough fibre in your diet.

Have a look at the book "Reversing Diabetes" by Dr. Neal Barnard. It's what made me try this route for my diabetes.

For the record currently 5'9" and 154 pounds.

Victor