Vegan Diet Plan to Lose Weight

A vegan diet plan is one that does not include animal products, which means meat and dairy products are excluded. A typical vegan diet includes legumes, seeds, soy products, nuts, fruits and vegetables. There are different types of vegetarians, like Lacto-ovo-Vegetarians, Fruitarians, Pescatarian, etc. Each of them has a unique set of food items that they consume. It not only helps to reduce weight but also boosts overall health. One of the advantages of following a vegan diet is that it helps reduce the risk of many health problems, like, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Although a vegetarian diet plan is one of the most effective ways of reducing weight, one should plan the diet such that all the nutritional requirements of the body are fulfilled, else weakness will ensue. A healthy vegan diet plan excludes foods high in saturated fats, protein and cholesterol, while it includes foods high in potassium, calcium, magnesium, carbohydrates and fiber. Usually we obtain protein from meat but in a vegan diet, legumes and pulses can be used as rich protein sources. A nutritionally balanced, well planned vegan diet along with routine exercise does help reduce weight. For this, one should be aware of the nutritional sources and should consume fixed amount of calories per day. People who follow a non-vegetarian diet find it difficult to adapt to a vegan diet initially. It is a misconception that vegan diet includes only tasteless and boring food. This is not true and there are a number of delicious vegetarian recipes. Here are some sample vegan diet plans for your reference.

Vegan Diet Plans for Weight Loss

If you want to follow a healthy vegan diet plan to lose weight, ensure that you include all the nutrients, like, iron, protein, carbohydrates, etc. in your diet. Meat and fish are rich sources of protein and omega 3 essential fatty acids and finding substitutes for these nutrients can be quite difficult. Thus you should know all the vegetarian substitutes for the nutrients obtained from meat and other non-vegetarian food products. There are a few diet plans that can help to burn fats by following veganism. Diets that are low in carbs and have restricted calorie intake for a day, can reduce weight. Samples of such diet plans are given below.

NOTE: It is strictly recommended that before you start following any of the diet plans given below, you should consult a dietitian and physician. Calorie requirements differ from person to person and depend on the overall health condition of an individual. The diet plans given below may not suit everyone's body requirements and hence consultation of an expert is a must.

1200 Calorie Vegan Diet Plan

As the name suggests, a 1200 calorie diet plan is nothing but the consumption of 1200 calories in a day. Here are two sample diet plans to guide you to design your 1200 calorie diet plan to lose weight.

Sample Diet Plan 1

Meal	Food Items	Quantity	Calories
Breakfast	Light margarine	2 teaspoons	35
	Whole wheat toast	2	130
	Sliced strawberries	1 cup	53
	Sugar	1 teaspoon	15
	Coconut milk or soy yogurt (fat and sugar free)	6 ounce	135
Morning Snack	Peanut butter	1 teaspoon	33
	Graham cracker	2	60
Lunch
	Baby carrots	Half cup	35
	Coconut milk ice cream	Half cup	90
	Whole wheat English muffin (toasted)	1	135
Afternoon Snack	Rice cakes (mini)	4	64
Dinner	Baked sweet potato	1 medium-sized	103
	Lean protein	3 ounces	105
	Light margarine	2 teaspoons	35
	Steamed broccoli	1 cup	54

Sample Diet Plan 2

Meal	Food Items	Quantity	Calories
Breakfast	Veggie burger	1	70
	Soy milk	4 ounces	45
	Wheat cereal (frosted shredded)	1 cup	180
Morning Snack	Fresh orange	1	62
	Soy cheese	1	80
Lunch	Vegetable Barley Soup (Fat free)	1 cup	90
	Sandwich (whole wheat bread, humus and tomato)	1 slice, 2 tablespoons, 1 slice	90
	Soy milk	18 ounces	200
Afternoon Snack	Coconut milk or soy yogurt (Low fat)	1 container	130
Dinner	Veggie cakes	2	260
	Blackberries	1 cup	62

1500 Calorie Vegan Diet Plan

Similar to the 1200 calorie diet plan, a 1500 calorie diet plan is a diet that limits the amount of calories to be consumed in a day, to 1500. Two such sample diet plans are given below in a tabular form.

Sample Diet Plan 1

Meal	Food Items	Quantity	Calories
Breakfast	Whole oats	1 serving	150
	Small banana	1	90
	Light margarine	2 teaspoons	35
	Whole grain bread	1 slice	70
	Blackberries	0.5 cups	30
	Soy milk	250 ml	90
Morning Snack	Plum	1	30
Lunch	Vegan pumpkin pie	1	200
	Whole grain crackers	12	120
	Soy cheese (Shredded)	1 slice	100
Afternoon Snack	Coconut milk or soy yogurt (low fat)	6 ounces	110
Dinner	Baked potato	1 small	134
	Tofu sour cream (125 g)	1 serving	100
	Bacon bits (Vegan)	1 serving	25
	Plum tomato (Chopped)	1	11
	Any steamed vegetable	2 cups	50
	Light margarine	5-7 teaspoons	120
	Blueberries	Half cup	35

Sample Diet Plan 2

Meal	Food Items	Quantity	Calories
Breakfast	Raw Blueberies	1 cup	81
	English dried walnut	2 tablespoons	98
	Soy milk	1 cup	130
Morning Snack	Raw apple	1	81
Lunch	Raw California orange	1	59
	Cherry tomatoes	1 cup	31
	Flaxseed oil	2 teaspoons	80
	Non-dairy burrito	1	180
	Sunflower seed (No salt)	1 ounce	165
Afternoon Snack	Hummus	2 tablespoons	46
	Baby carrot	6 medium-sized	23
	Crispbread	2 slices	60
Dinner	Whole wheat spaghetti pasta	1.5 cups	260
	Vegan Meatballs	5	90
	Boiled broccoli (No salt)	1 cup	144

Low Carb Vegan Diet Plan

Many of the popular low carb diet plans have proved useful to lose weight. Vegan versions of these diet plans also have been helpful. South beach diet and Atkins diet are some of the famous low carb diet plans. Here is a sample of a low carb vegan diet to lose weight.

Breakfast
For breakfast prepare a rolled oatmeal cereal. Take one cup of soy milk. Put half cup of rolled oats in this soy milk and allow them to soak. Add two teaspoons of walnut and two teaspoons of raspberries to the cereal. In addition to the cereal have an orange for breakfast.

Lunch
Prepare a salad with the ingredients: red cabbage, lettuce, tomato, yellow or red bell pepper, snow peas, cucumber, celery, carrot. Bake three ounces of marinated tofu and add a vinegar and low carb oil dressing to the salad.

Snack
Prepare a mixture of soy yogurt and peach (or any fruit that can go well with yogurt). Take 2/3 cup of the yogurt and add one chopped peach to it.

Dinner
Cook brown rice of half a cup for dinner and entre. You can prepare entre by including any of the leafy green vegetables, some carrots and braccia. Vegetables which come under leafy green are beet greens, collards, kale, etc. while those which belong to braccia are cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower. After dinner have an apple and some dark chocolate of 0.7 ounces.

Sample Vegan Diet Plan

Vegan diet plan is nothing but a diet that includes only vegetarian foods and no food items from dead animals. You can even frame a diet plan by yourself by deciding the amount of calories you want to consume in a day. Given below is one such sample diet plan that will allow you to consume 1400 calories in a day.

Breakfast
Have two slices of wheat bread with some soy cheese spread on them. Prepare a fruit salad that contains pineapple chunks, kiwi fruit, papaya, passion fruit with some topping of muesli. Grill this mixture for five minutes. This breakfast should contribute around 288 calories.

Lunch
Boil 150gm of spaghetti (wholemeal) and add garlic and tomato pasta sauce to it. Nutritional yeast could be used as a substitute for Parmesan cheese for the topping. Then you can eat canned rice pudding with a topping of fresh strawberries. This lunch will contribute 377 calories to the vegan diet plan.

Dinner
For dinner, prepare a pitta bread bean burger recipe. This will add approximately 560 calories. To prepare the bean burger, you will require, Carrots (grated, 90 gm), Oatmeal (75 gm), Vegemite (1 tablespoon), Vegetable oil, Onion (chopped, 90 gm), Basil leaves, Garlic (crushed, 1 glove), Kidney beans (canned pureed, 270 gm). To prepare the burger, first fry onion until it turns brown and then add the remaining ingredients and garlic paste. Prepare burgers by grilling them in oil for at least 8 minutes. Once you have prepared the bean burgers, stuff them between two pitta breads along with some salad leaves and a topping of soy yogurt.

Snacks
You can have healthy snacks, mentioned below twice in a day.

• Fruits
• Bread sticks
• Popcorn
• Rye Crisp bread
• Dried Fruits

A vegan diet plan can be followed by anybody who wants to lose weight in a healthy manner. Try and search for tasty vegan recipes or else you can even come up with some recipes of your own. Vegan diet plan helps one to gain a healthy body and keep away from severe health problems. Since a maximum population of the United States eats meat, people usually find it very difficult to adopt a vegan diet plan for weight loss, but with a little discipline and self control it is possible, if you keep the goal of good health in mind and make sure you follow a healthy vegan diet plan which is not nutrition deficient.