Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Staying Healthy on a Vegan Diet

One of the main struggles of a vegan diet, and more specifically, exercising while eating vegan food only, is getting the protein your body needs to build and maintain muscle. First off, nuts are a great, vegan source of protein and healthy fat. Make sure you have at least one protein in every meal. For example: if you are planning on just eating a salad for lunch, toss on some nuts or seeds. Some other healthy, vegan foods high in protein include: beans, lentils, soy milk, almond milk, tofu, chickpeas, quinoa, nut butters, soy yogurt, broccoli, spinach, brown rice, etc. Your body will benefit from your adding these foods into your diet. Failing to maintain a healthy balance of the food groups will make your body enter starvation mode, making it eat away at your lean muscle for energy. If you are trying to lose weight, this might satisfy your immediate hope to drop the pounds, but in the long run it will hurt you more than help you.

Now to the exercise: As I wrote in my last post, choosing your workout is all preference. Everyone will like a different kind of work out, but no matter what you chose to do, one universal rule is that to gain/maintain a healthy body and soul, it is recommended to do at least 20-30 minutes of some kind of exercise or physical activity EVERYDAY! 

Thank you Laura for your comment!

Here's a great website I found that could help give you some ideas about exercise and your diet: http://www.veghealthguide.com/exercise/

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for this. It is harder to get protein, especially at brunch, no eggs, no cheese! I just recently discovered seitan and love it, although I noticed that the soy yogurt I was eating had live cultures that were made in milk (makes no sense.) I will check out the article.
    Laura

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  2. thanks for the protein reminder! ive been back on vegan again for a couple months now and i do find it a challenge to not get bored with the protein of the week. i just need to make sure i buy a few more options so i dont skip the protein needed and get depleted. just started growing my own sprouts again too. i hear those are a good source as well. just now getting around to reading your blog... sehr gut!

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