Is a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle healthy with the sleeve?

[endless80 697]

Has anyone here done this and been successful at it?

If so, can we hear your story? I'm fascinated.

Alan

Edited May 14, 2014 by endless80

[Bob2013 326]

I think the problem you would have would be getting enough Protein. Most people on that sort of diet have to eat ALOT. Since we are limited in the amount we can eat it would be difficult to consume the amount needed.

[WhoKnows 288]

I'm on my pre-op low carb diet, and I'm doing ok vegetarian. My plan right now is to do vegetarian until I get to maintenance and then go back to vegan. I'm pretty committed to adding unflavored Protein powder to a lot of things. Today I ate a total of 1200 calories and got 106g of Protein. I had one Protein shake, two tofurky sausages, and a salad with a homemade fat-free quark/lemon juice dressing. I'm certainly not at 0 carbs, but I'm doing a lot better than normal, when I usually ate a lot of bulgar, rice, etc. Post-op, I know I'll be eating less though, so, like I said, I plan to use a lot more unflavored Protein Powder to boost the protein in things like lentil Soup or refried Beans.

Also, today I came across a vegan pumpkin seed Protein Powder. I'm just not sure if on it's own it's a complete protein, but it looks interesting and like it would be good with savory dishes!

If you ever wanna swap vegetarian/vegan recipes, just let me know!

Edited May 14, 2014 by WhoKnows

[WhoKnows 288]

Oh, also, my surgeon knows I'm a vegetarian and sees no problem with it. He agrees though that it's best not to go fully vegan until I'm done losing.

[endless80 697]

I think the problem you would have would be getting enough Protein. Most people on that sort of diet have to eat ALOT. Since we are limited in the amount we can eat it would be difficult to consume the amount needed.

I'm not sure I believe this myth. There is an abundance of vegetable Protein sources out there. meat may have concentrated amounts of protein but it certainly doesn't corner the market on adequate protein sources. Where do you think the animal gets its protein from? The plants it eats.

[Bob2013 326]

I think the problem you would have would be getting enough Protein. Most people on that sort of diet have to eat ALOT. Since we are limited in the amount we can eat it would be difficult to consume the amount needed.

I'm not sure I believe this myth. There is an abundance of vegetable Protein sources out there. meat may have concentrated amounts of protein but it certainly doesn't corner the market on adequate protein sources. Where do you think the animal gets its protein from? The plants it eats.

I am not saying there are not plant based Proteins. But being able to consume enough of the plant based protein would be difficult. Except for Beans, you would have to eat quite a bit more to get the required 60+ grams per day.

An example would be soybeans, which contain pretty much the highest plant based protein.

1 cup of soybeans = 28 grams protein

Since most VSG patients can only eat 1/2 cup per meal. You would have to eat 1/2 cup of soybeans 4 times a day to reach the 60 grams of protein.

Its not impossible. But most people would get sick of soybeans pretty darn quick. And anything else plant based is has significantly less protein. So without overeating it would be tough.

[WhoKnows 288]

I think @@Bob2013 does have a point about the volume problem. Vegan body builders and athletes tend to eat a lot and they don't usually do low carb since most vegan sources of Protein also have a significant amount of carbs (not that that's a bad thing for most people). I've worried about this myself, and like I said above, that's why I plan to be lacto-ovo until I get to maintenance (and source out the least ethically problematic sources of dairy and eggs I can during this time, though of course that's not easy since I don't run my own farm). Not eating meat definitely isn't a problem though. Fat-free Quark for example (which I don't think you can get easily in the US, but it's a curd cheese that's kind of like a mix of greek yogurt and ricotta) has almost 30g of Protein per 100g serving and only something like 4g of carbohydrates. I put it in my salad dressing, Protein shakes, on top of Soup or Beans instead of sour cream, and when I'm post op and can have fruit again, I'll mix it with berries, and maybe even freeze it for popsicles.

You're supposed to get one gram of protein for every kilo you weigh, so @@Bob2013 that means you'd need about 75g of protein a day when you get to goal. Once you're done losing, you can probably up your calories to around 1200-1500, depending on how much you work out, and 75g of protein on a standard clean vegan diet shouldn't be a problem. Minimizing your consumption of animal products by going vegan is a wonderful goal, and if you can make it work, then I totally applaud you and I wish you luck! Hopefully I'll get back there at some point too.