People turn to a plant-based diet for a dozen different reasons, but a popular one is as a way to lose weight. Many people turn to plant-based with the hope that the pounds will simply fall off and a lot of these people are disappointed when that doesn’t happen. The question is, why not? Plant-based is healthier right? The answer to that is, it's complicated. If you turned to plant-based with the plan to be healthier and you did a ton of research beforehand, chances are the weight is falling off. But if you just quit eating meat and hoped to see a change, chances are you are not reaching your goals.
One thing nearly every diet can agree on is the key to weight loss is calories in versus calories out. Basically, you want to burn more calories each day than you consume. If you are eating the same amount or more calories than you burn, you will not be losing weight. What shouldn’t come as a surprise is that you can still consume more calories than you are burning on a plant-based diet. Recognizing that a plant-based diet can still be high in calories is the easy part, the hard part is doing the leg work necessary to determine what part of your diet is causing the issue.
Many people who have turned to this diet might not be seeing the results they expected. Here are six common reasons why that might be happening.
You are consuming too many calories.
No matter what your calories come from, if you eat more than you spend your body will not burn away stored fat deposits. In order to lose weight, you have to eat less than your body needs. You can do this by either eating smaller portions or upping the amount of exercise you do in a day. Exercising can be hard to fit in, but it’s linked to multiple benefits for a healthy life, so it is a great option to help create a calorie deficit.
You are eating junk food
This ties in with the 1st reason you may not be losing weight on a plant-based diet. Many of the plant-based junk foods are as bad or even worse as some you would find eating a regular diet. In fact, the popular cookie Oreo is considered vegan, but it’s easy to understand that if all you eat is Oreos you will quickly find that your vegan diet doesn't work. It’s the same with other vegan junk food, they are high in processed sugars and refined carbs and low in anything of nutritional value. Eating too much of this type of food will leave you hungry often and way over your calorie budget.
You aren’t getting enough Macronutrients
A healthy diet has proteins, fats, and carbs. Generally, when people switch to a plant-based diet, they replace proteins with carbs. While carbs in healthy portions are not the bad guy, they can quickly become an issue when they make up a majority of your diet. Refined carbs especially, which is what many vegan junk foods are made from, are quickly stored as fat if your body does not need them for energy. Making sure you are getting enough proteins and fats is essential to losing weight on a plant-based diet.
You are eating too much sugar
Unless you are on a whole food plant-based diet odds are good you are getting many of your daily calories from pre-made vegan meals.