Any tips for this veggie (verging on vegan) who is just starting out on The Vegetarain Low Carb Diet (Rose Elliot).

I am 42, live in the UK..... and any hand holding would be apprectiated. I have about 40 more pounds I would like to lose.

judith

It's fairly easy to do atkins as a vegetarian but vegan would make it difficult. It would definately take a lot of preparation. Have you looked over the south beach diet. It's a lot more veggie friendly because beans are allowed and whole grains and fruit are added in quite a bit earlier than on atkins. Either way best of luck.

I am not familiar with Rose Elliot, but if you want to low carb as a vegan, you will have a challenge getting carbs down to 40% of calories. Your best bet would be to do something close to what I am doing - Eat to Live, tweaked a bit to low carb by limiting starchy vegetables and grains, and favouring fruits low in sugar over those high in sugar. Since it is not really a low carb diet, I posted about it in the War Zone.

Green vegetables have a high percentage of calories from protein, and pulses are pretty decent too. If you avoid overdoing fruit, starch and grains, you will have about 1g protein for every 2g net carbs. I get about 60g fibre a day, and that took some getting used to, but 'tis ok now. With eat to live if you need to limit sugar (diabetic or very overweight) you can count red bell peppers and tomatoes as fruit servings.

You can increase calories without increasing carbs too much by including seeds, nuts and avocadoes.

Judith, can you post a bit more about Rose Elliot? What is her plan? Have fun with it.

Rose Elliot is quite a well known UK writer... does a lot of veggie and vegan books.

The Diet is in three phases. The Carb Clenase phase lasts two weeks and in that time you have 20g carbs. The next phase you increase your carbs until you are still loosing... the final stage you increase more until you are maintaining weight. At all times the protein count is around 60 g.

The recipes in the book sounds good.... I will tell you how I get on as I go on.

Going without my coffee and aspartamene will be challenges for me.... but I know this is the way for me to go.

judith

hi judith!

congrats on your weightloss success! you're doing great! what plan did you do to lose the weight?

glad i found your post. i am about to order rose elliot's book and although as of yet i cannot answer your question (sorry) i wanted to ask you about the first phase of the diet. what can you actually eat as a vegetarian that is only 20 gramms of carbs? would you mind posting some meal examples from this phase? just so that i get an idea how doable it is.

i hope to start soon and it will be great to exchange experiences. i'm also 42, living in germany. hope the plan doesn't use too many food items that are hard to find outside the uk.

good luck and thanks!