Calling all vegans!

I'm not vegan, only be I LOVE seafood. I don't eat any other meat. Here's a good link I found for veg protein! Hempseed is included! I did not know you could eat that!

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/protein-for-vegans-vege tarians#section8

Thank you for that link. I'll have to give nutritional yeast and spirulina a try.

How often do you eat the granola? I was advised not to eat anything with under 10g protein per 100 calories.

I eat a vegetarian diet, but do limit my dairy. I did not eat this way during the weight loss phase and I know that's much more challenging. Thanks for sharing your comprehensive list! Beans & lentils are the primary protein source for my household. We rarely eat tofu. I'm in maintenance so I also have a smoothie most days with berries and pea protein powder. Red lentil pasta is a new fave for me & the kids! Black beans with a little brown rice is a go to. The Simple Veganista has a recipe for butternut squash & red lentil soup that is pretty great.

I'm a Whole Food Plant Based vegan. Given that I'm in maintenance, I don't really worry about my protein. If you are consuming 1500-2000 calories a day on a healthy, varied, plant-based diet (as I currently do) it's hard not to get enough protein.

If you are consuming a low calorie diet, you definitely need to concentrate on it to ensure you're getting what you need. Beans (including soy products - tofu, tempeh, edamame, etc) and lentils should probably be featured heavily in your food choices as legumes have one of the highest concentrations of protein in the plant world.

From what I can tell, it's very uncommon to be a vegan bariatric patient (or so it seems from the sampling of OH users), so please feel free to message me directly if you want to chat. I've found that being a bariatric patient makes you a bit of a pariah within the general population, and being vegan makes you a bit of a pariah within the bariatric community, so it can be a somewhat lonely existence ;-)

I wasn't vegan through the weight loss phase - but it was a part of my progression to that way of eating. I followed Dr. Matthew Weiner's "Pound of Cure" program, which is very much "whole food" based. However, I did still eat some meat and limited dairy. After following that way of eating for about just shy of two years (and having been in maintenance for about a year) I completely transitioned to a Whole Food Plant Based way of eating, and have been following that for about the last 9 months.

This is wonderful! I was beginning to think I wouldn't find any vegans on this forum. Thank you for replying!

I'm having lentil soup right now, as it happens.

At 800 kcal per day, I can regularly manage 50g protein. But it's hard to get to 60g unless I eat nothing but protein bars, and I feel like I should have at least a little "real" food to help get important nutrients.

I try to avoid processed food as much as possible and get the vast majority of my nutrients from whole, unprocessed (or lightly processed - if I can identify all the ingredients as plants, I'm ok with that level of processing)

For example, for breakfast today I had a tofu scramble that also had beans in it. For lunch I had leftover lasagna I made last night which had a marinara/red lentil sauce as well as a cashew "ricotta" (this is not a low calorie dish, but like I mentioned I'm in maintenance). For dinner I threw together a lentil loaf which I'm about to eat here in a few minutes after it cools

So while I didn't track my macros, I have no doubt I got plenty of protein. Once you get into maintenance and can eat a more "normal" amount of food it's pretty easy (assuming your not one of those unfortunate souls that has to maintain on like 1,100 calories a day in which case it's a little harder, but still totally doable).

Best of luck to you! Your goals are totally achievable!!