Are vegan diets really nutritionally safe and do they help with weight loss?

In college, I gained alot of weight ( 150 lbs) and had high cholesterol so when I graduated I decided to be a vegan. I lost about 45 lbs over a years time - I weighed 106 lbs at 5'2" (female). I was troubled by tiredness and depression though and I wondered if it had to do with being a vegan.

My mom convinced me to eat meat and my doctor put me on paxil saying I had major depression. Once I started eating meat, chicken, fish, eggs, milk, butter, I gained the weight back in about year. I stopped taking paxil right away and I have tried to become vegan again, because I want to lose weight, but I have that fear that it is unhealthy and will make me severely depressed and tired. I would like lasting weight loss and better health. I want to know if being a vegan is the healthiest choice. (BTW, I have tried the low-carb but can't eat lots of meat, it makes me feel sick and raises my cholesterol.)

You were probably lacking in one vital nutrient: b12. B12 is found exclusively in animal products, so if you're a vegan, you have to make sure that you get it from fortified products and/or supplementation. Vitamin B12 deficiency manifests itself as pernicious anemia and some of its symptoms are depression, fatigue, loss of balance, and numbness in the extremities.

Being vegan isn't completely healthy. You're cutting out omega-3 fats, which are found most plentifully in salmon. You should eat organic (if not, at least make sure it's not farm-raised in China or some other place) salmon two to three times a week. Your body does need some fat, after all, and salmon is a reasonably good source of the healthy stuff.

Protein is also a concern. Take an amino-acid complex supplement. You can get proteins from nuts and vegetables, but not all of these will convert to the appropriate amino acids. For example, taurine is very difficult to get when you don't eat animal foods.

Make sure you drink soy milk fortified with calcium and vitamin D, or you'll end up with osteoporosis and possibly rickets, depending on how unlucky you are. If the plain stuff doesn't appeal to you, try the chocolate flavored kind. Shake the carton well each time because the calcium tends to settle to the bottom of the carton.

Soy milk does have some fat in it, but most of it is the good kind, and soy is supposed to help keep your cholesterol down and keeps your hormones in check.

Good luck!

Being vegan can be healthy, but it involves a lot of work to keep up your protein intake. Why don't you limit yourself to lean meat, chicken, and fish prepared in healthy ways and use the egg beaters or something, and drink skim milk, and cut out butter as much as possible?

I do not think that you became depressed because you were a vegan. But unless you look after yourself really well, take supplement, or look that you eat nuts, lentils and beans, you should not become a vegan. Then, I do not think that you will definitely lose weight by just being a vegan. After all, you can overeat on bread and beans, too! Better you eat what you want but count your calories, and you will be all set.

The vegan diet is the helathiest in the world, far healthier than eating meat.

Dean Ornish, M.D. was the first person to prove that heart disease can be reversed, and he did so by feeding his patients a vegetarian diet. John McDougall, M.D. has also written extensively about how animal foods cause disease, and how people can regain their health by eating vegan instead. The esteemed T. Colin Campbell oversaw the most massive study of the relationship between diet and disease, the China Study, which the New York Times caled "the grand prix of epidemiology". His conclusions are the same as the other experts: we're not designed to eat animal foods, because we get sick when we do so.


The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition found that being a vegan cuts your likelihood of being obese in half.


I've been vegan my whole life and have always been slim.

A truly fulfilling vegan diet takes some initial planning. Done correctly, a vegan diet is completely nutritionally balanced and supplies all needed nutrients. However, if not planned well, could easily result in unhealthy consequences.

Personally, I've been a vegan for nearly a year. I was vegetarian for about 3 months prior to that, and I initially lost a few pounds, but gained them back, plus a few more. I wrote down everything I ate and planned to eat in a notebook for about the first 8 months of being a vegan. It helped me see what areas needed to be worked on, and what areas were being consistently met. I would recommend this.

Just be sure to include enough of -every- delicious vegan food in your diet. Leafy greens, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, soy/hemp products...the list goes on.